Part 1~ Tips on making housework easier

I'm always trying to learn more tips for getting me interested in cleaning! Cause to be honest cleaning has never been that exciting to me. I wish it was! Cause then maybe I'd have a clean house all the time, but it's not. It's just something that I dread. Yet it's something that is completely constant:

~The dishes have to be done 3 times a day (or else you get behind)

~ The laundry continues to need washing

~After you wash the laundry, if you don't fold it quickly, it becomes a HUGE mountain that you now never feel like folding.

~If you don't fold the laundry right away some things then need ironed

~The bathrooms need cleaned (at least once a week)

~The floors need vacuumed/swept/moped

and so on and so forth!

And to top it off... if you don't get it all done then all of a sudden you not only have a mountain of laundry BUT a mountain of all the other housework as well! 

Over the next few day I'll be sharing a few things that I've been working on trying to put into practice to try and get things under control! Cause seriously if I don't start now then by the time my husband and I have our 12 children (if the Lord so wills ;-) ) then things will really be chaos. 

1: Scheduling!

Can I stress this enough? I don't think that I can!

Does it really work? I believe so!

Isn't it hard to stay on schedule? Yes!

But here is what I do:

Now I know what you are thinking... 'I tried a schedule once, it didn't work', 'I hate schedules', 'schedules work for some people, but not for me', 'I don't like having my days planned out' ... If your anything like me those are the thoughts that used to (Um I guess still do at times) occupy my mind. There is just something about having a schedule that seams daunting. But for me I think that it is the key to my problems! 

I think that the thing that most people run into is this:

They start a schedule with high hopes of staying on it! They stay on it for the first day. Everything went as it should! Stayed on the schedule completely! Now really excited about how the day went they wake up the next morning ready to pursue the next day of scheduled life, but uh-oh something doesn't go as planned. It's now 8 am and you were suppose to get up at 7 am. You try to manage. Then you have to run to the store because your out of milk, now breakfast, that was suppose to be ready by 8 is pushed out to 9:30. Now your really behind on everything and you just feel like giving up! But you decided to get yourself caught up and back on schedule by noon! At noon your having lunch right on time! Everything is somewhat okay. THEN you realize that in all your hurry this morning you forgot to take the dog out and to put on your load of morning laundry. 

Thus your day just goes about in an all mixed up fashion and you decide to shred the schedule into a million pieces! I know that I always wanted to! Until someone told me that really your day doesn't have to go completely by the schedule just so long as your getting everything on the schedule done in a somewhat timely matter, with the distractions that used to distract you out of the picture. Plus, don't you have days that you just want to drop everything and go somewhere? You just have to realize that these things will happen! Just continue to wake up the next day ready to pursue the schedule again! 

Plus, you don't have to put things on the schedule that you have no idea how long it will take you to do. For instance cleaning the bathroom... one day it may just take you 10 min cause all your doing if giving it a quick wipe down, the next day it may take you 45 min cause your giving it a completely thorough cleaning! Instead just put on the schedule to clean from 10:30 am - 12 pm. Then if you have left over time from cleaning the bathroom you can do other cleaning chores, you need to do that day, or you can have a little free time! 

I also schedule which days I plan on cleaning certain places in my house. For instance you can plan to clean the bathrooms on Monday, wash the sheets and towels on Tuesday, vacuum/dust/sweep/mop on Wednesday, clean the fridge on Thursday, and have a baking day on Friday! I write out all the chores I would like to get done once a week and then pair them together accordingly. For example I would need to dust the same day I vacuum. Washing the towels the same day I wash sheets is always a good idea. Or if you want to clean the stove once a week you could do it the same day you clean out the fridge. Get the idea?

Another good idea is to schedule in time to do the things that you enjoy! Such as sewing time, computer time, exercise time, nap time, or anything else you enjoy during the day! Then you can look forward to your favorite time of day! 

Remember that the schedule is there to help you! If you find that part of the day is just not going right rework the schedule out to suit your needs. Rewrite the WHOLE schedule if you need to. The first schedule doesn't have to work out perfect.

Tomorrow, I will give you an outline of my scheduling papers! :-)