Creating a Home Management System that Works: Part 4- A Cleaning Routine

Keeping in theme with last week's post we'll break this down into two parts, heart & home. First, we’ll address our heart or perspectives and then we’ll get into practical action steps!

Heart:

House keeping is not synonymous with homemaking in that you can be a great house keeper and a poor homemaker. However, a great homemaker will typically be a good house keeper. Being a good house keeper (and homemaker) does not mean keeping a spotless home. It doesn't mean accomplishing everything on your task list every day. Being a homemaker who practices good house keeping is better described as a "keeper of the home", or someone who pays attention to the ways and needs of her own household. This is a means of stewardship, stewarding what the Lord has given you, with your individual family, needs, and priorities. House keeping is probably one of least exciting aspects of that, but it also impacts multiple facets of life; from the meal prep and cooking to the general stress level of the family in the home. (I write about some of those multi-impact habits here.)

I'm home with all of our children whom I also homeschool, so our house sees a lot of mess, play and general destruction that comes with 5-6 bodies (and a couple of dogs) present nearly 24/7. That being said, while I enjoy order I don't necessarily enjoy cleaning. I've swung on both sides of the pendulum from being lazy to borderline obsessive with the state of my home. Having a home management system has helped me to settle into a healthy rhythm by eliminating overwhelm, while also keeping my days from being ran by an everlasting to-do list. (The laundry isn't meant to stay done, and people don't stay full after a single meal, after all.) Streamlining my housekeeping keeps things running smoothly without it all consuming my thoughts and all my waking hours. For example, I'm sitting on the floor reading books with my children when I notice the floors need mopping. Rather than worry about it, I know they'll get done on Wednesday. Or I'm making dinner and realize the pantry needs organizing, rather than hem and haw over it I know it'll get taken care of on kitchen day. I walk out to the garage to grab paper towels and notice some tubs out of place, if I don't have time to stop what I'm doing and tidy it up, I also don't have to stress about it because I know it'll all be taken care of on Saturday. I'm not saying you shouldn't take a second to spot mop or wipe the bathroom mirror down if you can. I'm saying if you'd rather not or you can't in that moment, you can put your mind at ease knowing there's an appointed time to address it all. Additionally, having boundaries on your to-do list like this ensures that your time and attention aren't monopolized by tasks that seem urgent, but may not be as important. We're taking a page from Ecclesiastes here, there's an appointed time for everything. Again, we're not focused on getting it all done, or even doing as much as possible. The focus on good housekeeping as it pertains to good homemaking is stewarding our time well and looking after the needs of our unique people and homes. We're homemakers, remember? Not merely house keepers. Don't lose that focus.

Credit: Annie Spratt vis Unsplash

Home: Practically speaking, what does it look like to streamline your housekeeping? Having a day and time set aside to address the tasks required for the care and keeping of your home. A weekly schedule (though it has a slight pitfall) is a great way to do this. We talked about a general daily schedule last week, hopefully you set aside a window of time to devote towards cleaning or chores. A weekly cleaning schedule will help you know what to do at that time on any given day, while keeping things organized in such a way that everything that needs to be done will be, and things won't fall through the cracks and go neglected. Each day of the week set a theme such as: Laundry, Office, Kitchen, Bathrooms, Bedrooms, Garage & Garden, Errands etc. I'll use my schedule with a list of general tasks as an example and below that I'll address the main pitfall of having themed days and what to do about it.

Mondays we stay home, get back into our weekly rhythm and get the ball rolling. This is the day we get caught up on laundry since I don't do laundry on the weekends, and do a general all over tidy (home blessing). I stumbled across the term "Home Blessing Hour" in the homeschool community but I believe it may have originated with the author and inventor of the "Fly Lady" cleaning system, Marla Cilley. While I use a handful of her principles I wouldn't call myself a "Fly Lady" as I've pieced together several principles, habits and routines over the years from several authors, mentors and women!

Generally, I'll limit this cleaning to an hour. I'll set timers, turn on music, enlist the children, and do whatever we need to do to get things in order quickly we'll typically spend 10-15 minutes on each task. Whatever we don't get to will be done another day. Another thing you'll notice is that I dust & mop every day. 1. I have a horrible dust allergy and two dogs so this is a must for our house. 2. We have laminate so I use a microfiber pad and a spray to mop our floors which makes it quick and easy, if I was having to fill a bucket of soapy water I'd be more inclined to make this a once weekly task. Again, this is all about tailoring to the needs of your specific household! I'm just providing an example. Some days I get all of this done and more, or I combine a couple of the lighter days so we can take another day off- other days I only choose the most pressing matters. You don't serve your lists, your lists serve YOU.

Here's my example week:

Monday- Laundry & Home Blessing Set timers and keep laundry running all day Change Sheets on all beds Empty Trashes Dust & Vacuum main living areas Mop Kitchen & Bathroom Wipe down doors & Switch plates Clean Mirrors & Windows

Clear clutter from surfaces

Tuesday-Bedrooms & Dining Room

Dust

Vacuum

Mop

Pick-up

De-clutter/Organize

Wednesday- Kitchen Dust

Wipe down appliances

Clean Fridge Straighten pantry & Check stock Organize Baking/Batch cooking

Thursday- Bathrooms & Office

Wipe down sink & counter

Scrub toilets Scrub tub & Shower Mop

Dust office Meal plan Pay Bills Make calls & Send Emails Organize Check calendar: schedule events & appts.

Friday- Errands

Appointments

Shopping

Library

Play dates/nature walk

Saturday- Garage and Yard Sweep/ Wash patios and walk ways Pull weeds & Tidy Yard Wash Cars Church clothes

Food prep

Sunday- Church & Rest

What about the pitfall of a weekly schedule? Some days don't happen according to plan. Maybe the only time I could get dental appointments for all the kids on the same day, before vacation is Monday. Life happens and for one reason or another I wasn't able to have our normal Tuesday two weeks in a row, now I'm two weeks behind on keeping the bedrooms and dining rooms clean. There's an easy fix for this. Rather than sticking to the daily theme, I'll go back and address the most pressing needs from the day we missed and move on to the current day. Something is better than nothing. This is part of learning to let your schedule work for you rather than you working for the schedule! It offers you a reference point to return to when things get off the rails, which will happen because life isn't always going to go according to plan. The sooner we accept this truth and learn to adapt the sooner we can save ourselves a lot of unnecessary grief and frustration. We use our weekly schedule as a framework rather than a binding contract. It's my hope and prayer that these last few posts have encouraged and inspired you to create your own home management binder and eliminate some of the overwhelm you may have felt towards home management. You can find part 1: a perspective shift, 2: time management, and 3: creating a daily schedule linked!

Action Steps:

- Grab a sheet of paper for each day of the week.

-Create a weekly cleaning schedule by giving each day a theme. Write out the list of necessary tasks for each day and add these pages to your home management binder for reference!

Does the perspective of home management as a form stewardship encourage and inspire you? Do you have a weekly schedule?

Sincerely, Abbey