Friday, October 14, 2011

Taking Care of Home

I noticed, in my last few months in my apartment, that I just dreaded doing chores. My schedule of getting to bed early, getting up early and being gone all day left little time in the afternoon/early evening for me to address household chores. It's just me (well, Bogey is there too but she doesn't do much), but one person really can make a lot of clutter/mess! I found myself having to do everything on the weekend. I'd spend most of my Saturday and Sunday doing laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the bathrooms, etc.

I decided that when I moved into the rental house, I would make a much better effort to keep things in order. First and foremost, I am trying to make myself do laundry during the week. It's much easier to do 1 load per night than to have to do 4-5 on the weekends. But then I wondered, what else can I do?

Martha Stewart to the rescue. I'm not like a MS stan. I didn't/don't watch her show. I've never bought any books. But when I did my Google search on keeping home organized, I came across a checklist of hers...which led me several more checklists. I printed out 6, specifically:

--6 Things to Do Every Day
--Weekly Cleaning Checklist
--Monthly Cleaning Checklist
--Seasonal Cleaning Checklist
--Medical Supplies Checklist
--How to Keep the Refrigerator Clean

I don't know about that seasonal list...I just glanced at it, but I don't know if I'll be doing all that. I don't own the house I'm living in. LOL! However, I really found the list of 6 things to do every day to be very helpful (I did most of those things anyway), as well as the weekly cleaning list. I also need to have a better medical supplies box/first aid kit. So I plan to put those to use.

The 6 things you should do every day are:
Make the Bed
Manage Clutter (look around rooms for clutter and pick it up before you go to bed)
Sort the Mail (make bins for personal correspondence, bills, catalogs and filing)
Clean as You Cook
Wipe Up Spills While They're Fresh
Sweep the Kitchen Floor

You can find all of these at www.marthastewart.com/checklists

What do you do during the week to keep your home organized?

5 comments:

Miss Mile High said...

I made the same resolution when I moved into my new place. I'm trying so hard to do the daily things, but where I'm worst is putting clothes away after I get home from work. They get thrown somewhere in the bedroom and left there. I will get better.

MzInspiredMind81 said...

I definitely try to organize the mail soon as I take it out of the box.

I clean as I cook. It cuts cleanup time in half! Wooo hooo!

Any clutter, I try to pick up ASAP!

Marilie said...

@ Miss Mile High - Laundry is my nemesis. I just hate doing it. I think mostly because I still have more to downsize and when it's time to put it all away I dread finding space for it.

@ MzInspiredmind - my mom taught me to clean as I cook, too. But since I have a busted freezer I don't do much cooking.

So far so good on my goal to keep the house clean, lol

Monique said...

I pretty much do all those things. I'm anal about making sure I go to bed with a clean house and having everything prepped and ready for the next day. As a mom it makes our mornings less hectic.

The other thing I do is have certain days I do laundry. I sort all laundry on Wednesday, wash all of it on Thursday and fold and it away on Saturday morning.

Bathrooms are deep cleaned every Sunday morning. Vaccuming is done nightly (the little one and I have allergies so I have to vaccum) and clothes for the week are laid on Sunday. This gives me the rest of the week to enjoy myself without feeling overwhelmed.

Marilie said...

@Monique - When my niece/nephews were little my sister used to lay out their clothes for the week on Sunday, iron them, etc. They had to get up so early to go to daycare (she was still in the military then) so I know it made life much easier for her. The oldest is off the college and the other two are 13 and 15 so she doesn't much worry about that anymore...unless they have to travel out of town for a soccer tournament - then she has to make sure my nephew (the youngest) has everything in order.

I have allergies, too so I definitely should have been vacuuming every day at my apartment but I didn't.