If you've ever tried setting up a housekeeping schedule and failed, the next few Small Things will help you come up with a way to organize household tasks in a way that will actually work for your family.
When you set out to make something like a "Housekeeping Chart," it's easy to bite off more than your family can easily chew. We all get star-struck with the idea that we will run a tight ship, know where all our receipts are and have baseboards that shine. We see the lists of tasks set out by the experts, break them up into a complicated weekly spread sheet and then....implode. Who are we kidding?? We can't keep up with all that!
The reality is, most of us would be thrilled with a general system that would corral the clutter into a reasonable scale, help us find permission slips and keep our homes relatively germ-free and company-ready. We'd like to function freely without being slaves to a monstrous spread sheet. We want to have a home that embraces the people within its walls and accepts that life is sometimes messy. We don't want to become housekeeping tyrants.
But we know we need help, and we are tired of the chaos that comes when we flunk the Flylady or drop out of Martha's methods.
Today's Small Thing is to make a simple, yet significant step toward the kind of life you want to live. If you have been telling your friends about this incredible blog called Home Sanctuary (wink), today is the day to send them a link because what we are starting today could, quite possibly, change your (and their) life! I'm not kidding.
You are going to make a list of the basic tasks that you feel are important to the health and well-being of your family. We will keep this rather general: keep in mind, we are working on something that will be manageable and not take on a big, scary life of its own.
I'll get us started, and your list might look different than mine.
Grocery shop
Kitchen floor: sweep
Kitchen floor: mop
Dishes
Counters
Oven
Trash
General Pick-up
Vacuum living areas
Vacuum bedrooms
Cleaning bedrooms
Dusting
Entry way
Laundry: sheets and towels
Laundry: family clothes
Craft projects/Personal pursuits (scrapbooking, knitting, etc)
Bathrooms
Paper work (filing, bills, etc.)
Yard work
Errands (dry cleaning, dog to groomer, etc.)
Now. Beside each task, you will assign a number:
1 - This should be done everyday
2 - This could be done once a week
3 - This could be done once, every other week
4 - This could be done once a month
5 - This ain't gonna happen
I want you to think about each thing realistically. If you can't remember the last time you mopped your kitchen floor, perhaps assigning a 3 or a 4 to that task would be reasonable. Don't worry about what you think you "should" do. Remember, if you currently aren't doing any of these things well, then any bit of improvement will help. You can always go back and tweak this later, when you are flush with success.
That is ALL you have to do!! You don't even have to do any ACTUAL WORK today! Woo HOO, I love being a Company Girl!
Tomorrow, we will start figuring out how to work these tasks into your lifestyle. Let me assure you, you aren't going to have to kill yourself to set this up. But in order to make it work, you WILL have to step up your game just a bit.
I don't know about you, but I'm READY to step up my game! I'm excited about making my home sparkle with peace, order and beauty! It's going to happen for all of us.
POINTS: 50 for making a general task list and assigning a number to each item.
Hey! Here's a blank pdf you can download to make this even easier! Download Household Task List
To continue, here is Step 2 and Step 3. Just take small bites of this at a time...it's easier than it appears at first glance.
