What's on those lists anyway?

Following on from my post on routines yesterday, some of you may be wondering exactly what is on all those lists I have stuck up everywhere. I love those lists. I can't believe how much easier they are making my life. I used to think there just wasn't enough hours in the day to do the Mummy thing, school runs, washing, cleaning, shopping etc that needed to be done. I felt like I was run down and just running out of time. 

 

My first list is my daily routine. I think at the moment this is the important one for me. It spells out my day in black and white, from the time I wake up at 6am (my designated wake up time which guarantees me my morning cuppa!) right through to making lunches for the next day before I sit down for the evening. 

I think it's important for school mornings to run smoothly. It gives your children a better, more peaceful start to their busy day and you don't feel like your  nerves are shot by 8am. So that means being organised the night before with lunches and uniforms, not just being organised in the mornings. My basic daily routine goes something like this (an abbreviated version) -

 

6am - Get up, shower, coffee. Empty dishwasher from the night before while the kettle boils.

6:45am - Wake kids, organise breakfast. 

7am - Breakfast time. Put load of washing on while kids eat.

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9:30am - General housework....(see list)

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11:30am - Get ready for preschool 

12 noon - Preschool drop off

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-

-

 

And you probably get the drift by now. It all fits on one A4 size piece of paper, but it's quite detailed with little reminders to make sure things get done. 

I have no idea how I functioned without it. Actually, it's fair to say I didn't . My house certainly didn't stay clean. 

 

So next we have the daily cleaning list. This is on a separate piece of paper stuck up above the routine. These are all the jobs I do in a day around the house. And I do them all every day. I've learned not to stress myself out by doing a full spring clean within every task, which just takes way too much time and I'm exhausted by the end of the day! Because these are the things I do daily, they don't take much time and we're talking about doing them as quickly as possible.

It looks a little like this -

 

- Clean kitchen, stack dishwasher and wipe down benchtops/cupboards

- Laundry - Wash, dry, fold and put away

- Vacuum floors

- Wipe over bathroom vanity and toilets

- Dust

- Tidy playroom 

- Sweep back verandah and tidy toys in yard

- Make beds

- Check bins and take out if needed

 

That's pretty much it at the moment. Doing these few things every day keeps my home looking clean and tidy. And because it's done every day, none of these things feel like a big job at all. Good, hey?

 

The other list I have up is a weekly cleaning list. I've allocated one 'bigger' task to be done each day of the week (Monday to Friday - on weekends we all pitch in and we're generally busy so things get done differently). My weekly list looks like this -

 

Monday - Mop floors (I know some may mop more than once a week, but I find by vacuuming daily I can avoid this as it's time consuming with the floor space in our house. I do spot clean throughout the week though and if it's looking untidy towards the end of the week I'll do the kitchen/living areas again).

Tuesday - Spot clean walls. (We have a 3 yo boy. Enough said? LOL! He puts his hands and feet on the walls and it's impossible to stop him. It would also be impossible to clean if it wasn't done regularly. So it is.)

Wednesday - Strip beds and wash linen. 5 beds. It's a big job.

Thursday - Give bathrooms a really good clean. This means besides the quick clean done daily, on this day I also scrub out the bath, clean all the glass shower screens, mirrors, around the taps...etc.

Friday - Grocery day. I actually only shop once a fortnight, so this gives me every second Friday free to do something else that may need to be done. When I do a monthly cleaning list I'll probably utilise this second Friday to get that task done. 

 

So there you are! I've totally swamped you with lists, but I hope someone out there will find this post useful. I've used a few cleaning systems in the past (Flylady being the most recent one) but I like this system. It's simple, it's clear and it tells me what needs doing and when. I imagine it will evolve over time (as lists and routines tend to do) but for now this is good for me. 

 

I'll put up the monthly and annual lists when I get around to doing those.

 

Until next time,

 

 

Nadia

xxx