This is a series that I plan on adding to every so often. I will share a household organizing, decorating or cleaning tip with you. I hope you enjoy it!
Since moving to Champaign and adjusting to our new normal, I realized that my old routines needed some serious updating. As soon as I thought I had a handle on how things would work best here, Julian decided to start pooping like a newborn, thus making me wash diapers every other day. Whew! I don’t claim to have everything under control or to follow these routines to the letter each and every week, but I do like to have a plan in place. This is what works for me, allowing me to best serve my family.
Morning and Evening Five
I took this idea from another blogger a little over a year ago. I wish I could remember who it is so I could credit properly, but I can’t. If you know who it was, let me know! I have identified just five tasks that I want to accomplish every morning before everyone else gets up and every evening after Julian is in bed. While there are many, many more tasks that would be worthy of my attention, limiting myself to five in the morning and five at night allows me to (most days) accomplish what I set out to do. This is important because regularly not achieving this goal would set me up for a less than stellar day or send me to bed disgruntled. Neither of those are situations I want to be in regularly!
In the morning, I try to
- Get ready (shower, dry my hair and get dressed)
- Read my Bible
- Start a load of laundry
- Put clean dishes away
- Make bed (obviously I can’t do this until my husband gets up!)
In the evening, I try to
- Wash dishes
- Pick up the house
- Make Kerry’s lunch
- Update to do list
- Finish up housework task for the day
Daily Tasks
I have broken down my housework tasks throughout the week to make accomplishing a clean house doable. I try to do one cleaning task and one load of laundry a day, with diapers being done every other day.
- Monday: dust/mirrors; wash whites
- Tuesday: vacuum; wash darks
- Wednesday: kitchen; wash towels
- Thursday: bathroom; wash shower curtain/liner
- Friday: blog posts/misc; wash coloreds
- Saturday: menu planning; wash/change sheets
- Sunday: rest
Of course, there are some things that I do every day whether or not it is that rooms “turn” to be cleaned. With a toddler that LOVES to eat, I sweep our tiled kitchen floor at least four times a day. Sometimes I wash the colored clothes on Tuesday instead of Friday because I want to wear a colored shirt on Wednesday that is currently dirty. This is a grace-filled routine, certainly not something that I am bound by!
Like I mentioned, this is what works for me and my family. By no means do I think everyone should approach their day this way. Please do what works for you and, if you want to implement something I shared, go for it!
Do you have a routine in place in your home? What does it look like?
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