cleaning schedule

[Annette]

Hi again Girls!
12 Days til we start school! I'm still waiting for a few more items that I needed to order since my 9 year old DD decided she wanted to homeschool along with her sister when she saw all the cool books. But in the meantime, I'm trying to prepare ahead of time as much as possible. I've seen some good ideas as far as teaching schedules and menu plans. Thanks for sharing. And if anyone else has any contributions,please post. The one thing I do seem to have a harder time finding is menu plans for breakfast, lunch,and snacks.

Now I need a cleaning plan. I'm looking for a few things. First of all,in case you haven't figured out , I'm a little organizationally challenged. Coming up with ideas for this kind of stuff from scratch is REALLY hard for me. (I grew up in a very chaotic home :single parent mom with mental health issues--Borderline Personality Disorder, so there's just a lot of practical everyday stuff that I was never taught.) Anyway, if someone gives me a basic plan, I can use that as a starting point and make adjustments.

So here are the things I need help with. First of all, right now my house is a HUGE mess, dirty, messy,unorganized,not decorated,you name it. If you saw it, you might think it had been vandalized. I'd like to get it in as much order as I reasonably can before we start school. My family is not good about helping out, especially when a job seems really big. And my kids do tend to fight,(Sorry if that shocks anyone. Most homeschooled kids are little angels, right?). I'm not sure whether or not I should involve them and/or DH in the process of getting the house in order. I don't really have a whole lot of other stuff going on until school starts except preparing meals and getting some school supplies and filling out paperwork and forms for school for my teens and homeschool for my daughters and scheduling their well child checks and my 8th grader's pre football physical, My husband does work hard at his job all day and comes home very tired in the afternoons. He feels I should be the one doing the majority of house stuff cuz I'm home. We do have a VERY traditional role marriage. But he's not a Neanderthal jerk or anything. He'd probably be willing to pitch in some. As far as my kids go,I'm torn too because this is their last wek before school starts and I don't want to bog them down with work. My 17 year old does work a lot of hours doing freelance web development and programming,and makes very good money for a kid. He is trying to tie up the lose ends on his client's project before school starts,so I'm not sure how much time I could even expect him to give me. My 14 year old starts football practice on Tuesday afternoon,so I know he'll be pretty wiped out from that. My girls are 11 and 9,and my youngest son is 4 and a half. So I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on whether or not my family should help out,and if so who (or all of them) and how much time or what tasks would be appropriate for their different ages and schedules. Hiring help isn't an option financially,and I don't really have any close friends in the area. I do know a few people in town but NOT well enough to let them see my house right now.

OK I also need some kind of plan to get this done over the next 12 days. Any ideas? Either how you would approach this or recommendations for online resources to help with this?

And Finally my brethren (or in this case I guess it would be sistren,but that's not an actual word), can you recommend a cleaning schedule to help me/us maintain a clean, orderly home? I'm looking for ideas on what needs to be done, how best to do it,and how often,oh and ideas on how to distribute the chores because once I start homeschooling,I don't think I can or should have to do everything myself.To me, homeschooling is similar to having a job,and I do think that once we begin, my husband would be willing to help out more than when I don't have any teaching responsibilities. And I do think my kids should help too, but I'm not sure how to distribute the work. Again I'd appreciate any ideas or resources on this as well.

OK Ladies, sorry this is so long, but I wanted to be specific about what my challenges are. So if any of you have any advice or recommendations on ANY of these matters,please HELP!!!!!! I really do desire to be a godly wife, mom, teacher, keeper of my home.

Annette

[Annette]

Ooops! I was trying to make the text a pretty blue color and obviously pushed some wrong buttons. Guess just clicking on the blue little squares doesn't work. I have Technology Deficit Disorder I think. I am SUCH a ditz sometimes! LOL
Annette

[krismoose]

Hi and welcome!

I'll leave the cleaning blitz suggestions to someone else (not my forte ) but for maintenance, motivatedmoms.com has a cheap yearly schedule I like that covers regular cleaning plus all the stuff you really should do every 1, 2, 6 months etc. that I never get to otherwise Helps me *so* much

[John'smom]

I just wanted to second Motivated Moms. It's especially helpful if you feel good about yourself by checking things off. Even if I don't get everything done on the list, my house is so much more organized and clean than it was before I bought MM.

[psreit]

flylady.net has some very helpful ideas for cleaning. As far as the kids, yes, they should help. I'm not a good one to give advice as far as a plan or schedule. Maybe someone else can help in that way.

[John'smom]

flylady.net has some very helpful ideas for cleaning. As far as the kids, yes, they should help. I'm not a good one to give advice as far as a plan or schedule. Maybe someone else can help in that way.

Oh, yes, Flylady. See if you can get her book at the library. It's called Sink Reflections. Very good. One tip she gives is to set your timer for 15 minutes and do as much as you can. She has a saying, "You can do anything for 15 minutes." When I feel overwhelmed, I just set my timer and get to it. Usually when the timer goes off I want to do more.

You dc should definitely be helping out. It prepares them for real life. I'd say the olders should atleast have 30 min worth of chores and your little one about 15 min. The little could put silverware away, fold dish cloths, use a swiffer, put clothes away, etc... I think if you could afford it, the Maxwells book, Managers of Their Chores would be a big help to you.

[mom2samlibby]

I'll recommend Motivated Moms too. I liked it better than Flylady. It's easier for me to follow.

[Tansy]

I would also give my vote to Flylady I'm massively disorganized! Does she still send out those daily emails of your schedule for the day? What I love about flay lady is how you can dive in at any time. You do not have to do a deep clean to get started. She helps you focus on one room/ area per week and in a few weeks your house is clean.. or well seriously cleaner. With small not overwhelming steps. IN fact as I was walking though my untidy bathroom I saw the sink was dirty and so I washed it purely out of a habit she helped me build.
And I'm heading off to bed and my laundry is about to be rebooted. cause yup there is a load that needs to dry!

My house is not perfect but I could clean it for company in about an hour. And well let me repeat myself I'm massively disorganized and Have a global nature I love clutter. But she has helped me over come my love of clutter.

My favorite fly lady exercise is 27 thing fling. That is a riot! My kids love to help do the 5 min room rescue. My kids and family can help easily because the cleaning is broken down into bite sized easy pieces.
that's my 2 cents

[christyg]

Hi Annette! I will start by admitting that I am an OCD type of organized person . Our house is never spotless, but it is usually pretty neat. We do get busy and it will get cluttered, especially when we are out of the house a lot. I am one of those who will go thru my house at least a couple of times a year and clean out and then either donate or occasionally have a garage sale. And, I definitely have my kiddos to help out.

My advice would be to put the kiddos in charge of their own area and their own things. I don't think that is asking too much . I only have 2 (ages 6 and 4). They are required to keep their rooms clean. They both can pick up their toys, make their beds (they don't look great, but they have the general idea), and vacuum. I usually dust for them. They both are expected to clean sweep the house for their belongings every day, help set the table, and help clean up the table after meals, put their trash away, and put all dirty clothes in the hamper. Then, weekly, they take care of the garbage in the smaller trash cans (there are 2 smaller ones in our house, so they each have one that they are responsible for), when I do laundry they fold their play clothes and put them in their drawers (I hang their nicer clothes in their closets because they can't reach), and they both like to vacuum. So, these are all easier chores that they can do in about 15-30 minutes a day. I find that it makes my life so much easier when they keep their things in order themselves. Most of the time, they do their chores with a cheerful attitude. But, when they don't, they are reminded that anything left laying out will either be donated or sold in the garage sale, or any chores not completed will be time taken away from other things like computer time, tv time, etc. .

Now, for the rest of the house, I would suggest dividing the number of rooms by the number of days you want to tackle the job and just do one a day or so. It helps me to be able to focus on one room at a time instead of being overwhelmed thinking about the house as a whole.

I also recommend the book It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh:

http://www.amazon.com/Its-All-Too-Much- ... 246&sr=1-1

I read this book after it came out, because I LOVE being organized , and it helped me so much. It has got a lot of tips about how to get your house organized, and to help make your rooms function as you would want them to. I didn't realize how much stuff that I had in my house, that I didn't really need.

Anyway, just some ideas. Just don't let it overwhelm you, and definitely let the kiddos pitch in! It will be good for them! Hope that you have a blessed time organizing and cleaning !

Christy

[my3sons]

Good ideas here already! I'll just add I do think that it's important to involve the dc in cleaning up, as they often help make the mess, but as far as dh - probably not. I am a list maker, so I'll post these charts we use to help our kiddos with their morning routine, in case they're helpful:




We have chore charts too, but they might be overwhelming for the average Jane (I love lists - even detailed, long ones). The best advice I can give is do what my brother-in-law coined as the "cleansweep". Before the dc go to bed, have everyone "sweep" through the house, picking up things, putting things away, bringing up stuff to rooms, etc. I am sooooooooo glad we've done this the next morning, because when I get up to homeschool, a neat house greets me. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Samuel'sMommy]

I struggled with finding a good cleaning schedule ever since I've been married. In the past year I have finally gotten one figured out that works for me. I took a little bit from flylady but then tweaked it to fit my needs. It's easy and I don't clean for more than 45 minute to an hour on any given day. Usually, less than that now that I've got the routine down. Anyway, this is what I do:

Daily:
*1 load of laundry - washed, dried, folded, and put away - I usually start the laundry first thing in the morning, switch it to the dryer when I get a break from school, and then fold it & put it away during DS's rest time in the afternoon
*Unload/load the dishwasher - usually unload first thing in the morning and then reload with the breakfast dishes and just keep adding to it throughout the day. I try to run it right before we go to bed because it's loud and we don't like to hear it when we're up and watching TV
*Straighten the house - I do this a couple of times a day - after lunch before DS's rest, just before DH comes home, and then again before bed. This is not major cleaning, just picking stuff up and putting it where it belongs. This makes my house look 99% better even if its not clean.

Then I have my house broken down and do different rooms on different ways. This keeps me from having to spend all day cleaning. I try to pick something in each room for DS to help me with so that he is learning how to do chores also.

Mondays - I don't clean other than my daily stuff because we have Bible study in the morning and then we usually go to the library in the afternoon. After we get back from the library Samuel takes a rest and that is when I do all my computer/paperwork for the week - planning my menu, making my grocery list, paying bills, updating my blog, etc

Tuesdays - I clean our living room/kitchen/dining room. It's one big open room. This involves cleaning the kitchen counters, stove & microwave, dusting the living room and dining room, and sweeping the floors. This takes me about 30 minutes. DS usually helps with dusting

Wednesdays - I clean our bedrooms. I change the sheets on the beds, dust, and vacuum. DS helps by picking everything up off the floor in his room so I can vacuum and he likes to help dust. I also sweep our front and back porches on Wed. This probably takes less than 30 minutes. It's pretty quick.

Thursdays - I clean our 2 1/2 bathrooms. This is probably the longest cleaning day but still I'm usually done in 45 minutes. I clean the mirrors, the sinks, toilets, and the tubs, and sweep the floors. DS loves to clean the toilets (who knew that could be fun?) so I let him help with that and with gathering the trash from each bathroom.

Fridays - I use Friday to catch up on anything I didn't get done and also to work on my scrapbooking. I never had time to get it done so I found that by scheduling it in I can usually get 30-45 minutes to work on them and that helps me stay caught up.

I don't clean on weekends other than my daily routines.

I also went through each room and made a list of things that I wanted to do but knew that they didn't need to be done every week or that I knew I wouldn't do every week. This included things like cleaning baseboards, cleaning the windows, mopping the floors, cleaning light fixtures, cleaning the fridge and oven, cleaning out closets & dressers, etc. I broke those down into a quarterly list and I pick one thing off the list for each room each week. So one week I will do my normal cleaning and then clean the windows. The next week I do my normal cleaning and add mopping the floor. This way my house gets deep cleaned every quarter, but it's not overwhelming. It usually only takes me about 10-15 minutes to do the extra chore for the day.

Sorry this was so long. I hope it gives you some ideas. If you want my cleaning lists to look at I can email them to you.

[Annette]

Thanks everyone for all the advice so far. YES Stephanie, PLEASE post or email me your cleaning lists. I am SO thankful that some of you organized ladies are willing to help out an ADD ,cleaning challenged person such as me. LOL! You know I've seen books and articles about how to homeschool kids with challenges like ADHD,etc. But never one about how to homeschool and/or run a home for MOMS who are that way. I'd love a book like that. Of course, I'd probably lose it LOL!
Annette

[Samuel'sMommy]

Annette, PM me your email address and I'll send them to you. I don't think I can attach them to a PM on the board.

[tjswaine]

I borrowed this book from my library and really enjoyed it.

http://www.amazon.com/Sidetracked-Home- ... 175&sr=8-1

The authors are two sisters who each had chaotic households and wanted to change. Very humorous. I highly recommend.

[Mom2Monkeys]

I've heard great things about flylady.com!

What I've used personally and have found very helpful is Motivated Moms chore calendar and the book titled The House That Cleans Itself. That book was SO helpful in getting my home organized in a way that fits our habits, instead of trying to change our habits to fit a system. Habit changing is such a long process and I didn't have that sort of time. Now that our setup dits our habits, I'm able to tackle things one at a time. i.e. Kids bathroom is narrow so there wasn't much room for a hamper. They had a basket in the hall right outside the bathroom. Yet, clothes were always in the bathroom floor anyway, as well as in their bedroom floor. So, instead if always nagging to get the clothes up and moved to the hamper in the hall closer, I put hampers in the bedroom and bathroom. A hamper taking up the room is better than dirty clothes on the floor taking up the room. That fit us and was a quick, easy fix for a big messy problem! No habit changing needed.