Does anyone else ever feel like the title of Mother has an asterisk and footnote of: Housekeeper?
I love a clean house, but I hate cleaning. Ok, I don't hate it, I just really dislike it.
My little boy is a morning person, and I'm not. I don't feel like I can do deep cleaning with him around because he will come to me and try to put whatever I'm using (sponge, chemicals, broom, etc) in his mouth. I don't have a desire to call poison control, so I try to do those things when he naps. But what's the alternative? Sitting in a messy house all morning until my son sleeps? I admit, that's how it plays out a lot of mornings - but not every morning.
I read an article one time that had a very practical cleaning routine. 10 minutes a morning lead to a happier mommy in the afternoon. AND it's only 3 steps. (I know I've posted this before, but I'm doing it again)
1. Empty and load your dishwasher.
2. Wipe down your kitchen and bathroom counters.
3. Walk through the common rooms (living room, dining room, kitchen, hall, etc), pick up anything on the floor and put it away.
You have to be willing to do this every morning (or at least most mornings) if you really want it to work. Plus you have to be willing to leave messes. You're not sweeping or mopping the floors. You're not cleaning out the toy box or vacuuming. You're not scrubbing toilets or wiping down shower walls. Not yet at least. You are just quickly cleaning up the major areas first thing for two reasons.
1. You can see immediate improvement - and that is a reward all on its own!
2. You are decreasing your work load later on.
I don't know about you, but house work seems to pile. If you wipe out those major things right away, the pile isn't as big, and neither is the burden. Plus, if ambitious company drops by first thing in the morning, you have a decent house to entertain in.
Like I said, I don't do this every morning, but the mornings I do, the other housework seems more bearable.
3 comments:
I love a clean house too. I find that my mornings are too busy to incorporate any cleaning into though. I like doing the 10 minute cleanup in the evening before I go to bed. That way I don't have to worry about it when I am trying to get my kids and myself ready for the day, and yet my house still looks pretty good.
Along with Housekeeper is 100 other names! I do major cleaning at night. When the kids go down finally I take 10 minutes and clean the front room & mop the kitchen...that way the kids aren't fighting to get into the kitchen with a wet floor. Then I wake up to a clean house...love it!
I totally agree with Mindi but I also have seen the benefit of doing a few things in the morning right away. When it's 11 a.m. and I haven't done ANYTHING productive so far, it can be discouraging!
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