Week of Cleaning Fury

As part of my goal of seeking happiness for 2012 - I've decided that I'd like to live in a clean and organised house. Now - with two kids 3 and under, a husband, a dog and a crazy crazy life - that's more difficult than you might imagine. In the past we've had a tendency to do a major "clean" once every month or so , usually in preparation for having guests over. In fact, the hubs has even gone so far as to comment to me that we "need to host more parties, because then the house will stay clean." Smart alec.

But he has a point. Cleaning up the whole house in one big push over and over again is, frankly, exhausting, and not a great way to function. So here's the concept. One more big push, one big clean - a five-day-fury as we've been calling it this week - and THEN - a scheduled amount of cleaning, every day for the rest of the year, to maintain the cleanliness. Now - cleaning the house does NOT make me happy, but living in a clean house DOES make me happy - so it's a minor trade off.

This week has been... something. Going room by room in the entire house, over the span of 5 days I have tidied, organised, purged, scrubbed, and reset virtually every spot in my house. And if you want to do it - this is what you can do.

First I started with some lists. And as you all know - I love lists, so that works for me.
An example looked like this:



Front Hall: tidy/remove all unnecessary items, completely clean out, purge and re-organise front hall closet, vacuum floor and rugs, wash floor, wipe down walls, baseboards, trim, doors and door handles.

Then, as I progressed, some items changed, some were added, some expanded. Just take some time to sit down and think about what is required.

After spending this week going room by room, purging and reorganising every imaginable space in our home, our house is certainly clean. Which is nice... but how to keep it this way?

This is where K.T.P. comes in. I call it - the Keep Tidy Plan. And it's in effect - a list, well, a scheduled list.

I've mentioned my love for my day-planner before, and it comes into great use here - but any daily planner/reminder system you use can work for this. Basically I'm breaking down keeping the house tidy into daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly items.
Daily things include things like: tidy clutter, wash/put away dishes, make beds
Weekly: vacuum (3x a week), gather garbage, recycling and green bin, laundry (3x a week), wash bathroom and kitchen floors, clean bathrooms
Monthly: change bedsheets (2x a month), wash down all doors, door frames and baseboards
Quarterly: flip/rotate mattresses,

Obviously this list can be adjusted as you remember/add things throughout the year, but the way it breaks down for me is that I write the jobs in on my day planner.

KTP
Mon:  tidy, dishes, make beds, vacuum basement, gather garbage/green bin/recycling
Tues: tidy, dishes, make beds, laundry
Wed: tidy, dishes, make beds,vacuum main floor
Thurs: tidy, dishes, make beds, laundry
Fri: tidy, dishes, make beds, vacuum upstairs
Sat: tidy, dishes, make beds, laundry, clean bathrooms
Sun: tidy, dishes, make beds, wash bathroom and kitchen floors

Then once a month add in the monthly jobs, and quarterly - add the quarterly jobs.
VOILA - a premade, keep tidy checklist!

I'm hoping it will work - I'll keep you posted.

Tea.