These daily routines are so important to help keep the house manageable.
And when I started following the FlyLady 10-15 years ago, I learned how important cleaning zones in our homes can be too for those "deep-cleaning" tasks. The basic concept is for you to divide your home into various zones. I used to try and make sure I was getting through every single zone every single month. However, starting this next week, I think I'll put my house on an eight-week zone rotation.
Today, and for the rest of this week, I'll be focusing on deep-cleaning the front porch, the living room, and our deck. I make a list of tasks to get these three areas "all spiffied up" and I work on that list for 15-30 minutes a day (depending on each night's activities).
So...your task for today is to divide your home into zones.
You can decide how many. You can decide what types of tasks to put on your zone lists. The important part is to start to develop some habits for deep-cleaning a little at a time, instead of just constantly being stuck in the cycle of having a BIG cleaning day every few weeks. Working my zones at the farmhouse this morning! ❤️?❤️
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Well, here we are.
I have been in school for 3 days now and the girls start this Tuesday. Things are about to get crazy. The last few years, we have figured out that it works really well for the girls to have a morning, afternoon, and bedtime routine. They don't always stick to the evening routines, 100%, depending on what activities we have going on after school...practices, piano lessons, games. However, the morning routine has really become a natural way of life during the school year for us. And as long as the girls get out of bed when they're asked to (that's a whole other situation), it really helps our mornings to run smoothly.
The two older girls switch back and forth between putting clean dishes away each morning and sweeping the kitchen & dining room (a new chore with all hardwood floors in the farmhouse!).
I've laminated these lists and the girls use a dry-erase marker to mark them every morning. They like the satisfaction of checking off items in a list, just like their mama. We have done a list like this for every day of the week, including Saturdays. Saturdays also includes what we call a "quick clean" list that we all work on together for an hour or so to get the house spiffied up for a new week. Sunday has become our "stop day" here at the farmhouse. I am trying really hard to just have our family enjoy each other through the whole day and just take an hour or so in the evenings to prepare for the next week. In our world of busy, busy, busy...it's nice to just breathe, breathe, breathe every once in a while. Just a few years ago, I was trying to squeeze in photography sessions every extra minute I had (including Sunday afternoons) to help pay off debt and to make sure I wasn't disappointing people. I've learned that no matter how many sessions I squeeze into whatever extra time I have left, people will still be disappointed when I run out of sessions. And they will still love me. So it's really okay!
When I finished this (completely simple and totally amateur) project, I decided to try something a little more complicated.
I found a purple cup in the cabinet that I've been wanting to buy some sort of vinyl decal for and I decided to try it myself to start. I decided I could always peel it off if it didn't work out.
That way, we'll be free to enjoy each other in the evenings and on the weekends...crafting, and playing outside, and making slime.
Just kidding. We tried that once. I am not the "slime-making" kind of mom. I've realized that I spent too many years in the old house trying to manage the home, keep up with my small business, and being a teacher...without spending enough of my time and energy making memories with my babies. It's time. Happy Weekend, friends! Make it a good one! ❤️?❤️ |
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