How do you do it all??!

[abmitch01]

I work FT and I'm a single mom. I don't it all and probably wouldn't want to even if I had the time! The housekeeping gene passed me on by. I like things neat, tidy and clean but derive no joy from the process. I hire help every other week, she charges $15 an hr and does the basics in 2 hrs. I used to pay $80 for the same amt of work but even then it was worth it. I'd rather give up something (ie: cut back on cable) to have the extra money for hiring someone. And having her come makes us be reasonably tidy; she can't clean if we're a disorganized mess.

I'm a hospice nurse so I feel I'm qualified to say no one ever says they wished they spent more time cleaning. But that's not 100% true, it's amazing how many women I take care of who still worry about the state of their house even when their time left is limited. Apparently, I'm trying really hard not to be one of them!

 

[SDSorority]

These are GREAT tips! Thanks so much!

I've never even heard of flylady!!! I'm going to have to check that out.

Off to go do the dishes!

 

[Kay1]

I'm late, but I want to say that you should clean as you go. Never put dirty dishes in the sink; put them in the dishwasher. Rinse the sinks in the bathrooms as needed, etc. Then clean the house once a week. Between the two of you it should take two hours.

I read a book about speed cleaning. Google that, maybe? It was written by a pro and changed my life.

 

[Debbie7452]

I hate house cleaning, but I become anxious when everywhere I look is a wreck! I have four kids and the mess keeps coming. Laundry every day is a given...if it only put itself away, sigh.

If I need some inspiration, I watch an episode of Hoarders. Wow I am ready to clean up my house after watching that show.

 

[gillenkl]

I don't do it all....but I do the best I can. I'm a sahm but I do homeschool. I have certain days of the week I do certain chores. I also try not to get hung up on what didn't I do - but what I did do! Life is short, don't sweat the small stuff.

 

[JamesMom]

I hate house cleaning, but I become anxious when everywhere I look is a wreck! I have four kids and the mess keeps coming. Laundry every day is a given...if it only put itself away, sigh.

If I need some inspiration, I watch an episode of Hoarders. Wow I am ready to clean up my house after watching that show.

Another show to watch is 'how clean is your house" on BBC America. That shows dirty house rather than clutter ones, but it does motivate you and make you feel that your house could be worse...much worse.

 

[Phlip]

I'm sure her methods are great, but someone needs to tell the FlyLady to de-clutter her home page. Yikes. I was exhausted just trying to find out what it was all about.

 

[mrsklamc]

I'm sure her methods are great, but someone needs to tell the FlyLady to de-clutter her home page. Yikes. I was exhausted just trying to find out what it was all about.

her newsletter is the same. It's one of the reasons it didn't work for me; Didn't have time to dig through the irrelevant stuff and the ads to get to the actual content.

 

[Colleen27]

Wait, I'm supposed to CLEAN this place?

I'm a S/WAHM and still the house is seldom spotless, or as my kids call it "holiday clean". I do the basics - dishes, laundry, vacuum/sweep - but there are toys and books and mail clutter around, the sewing doesn't always get put away, and one of our kitchen tables has an almost-permanent dusting of flour from breadmaking. With 3 kids of my own and an half dozen others running in and out on any given day and DH and I both working from home, the house is rather too lived in to ever be really perfectly cleaned, so I prioritize - there are the things that get done daily out of necessity, like dishes and sweeping the floors, and things that get done daily out of desire, like tending my gardens and cooking dinner, but there are also things that probably don't get done quite as often as they should, like dusting and laundry.

 

[Alexander]

FlyLady here too!

It's on my dryer, in the garage right next to the back door. Everything get dumps on it, wet umbrella's, soiled hand towels, etc. It was so bad that when I shut the dryer door a mountain of discards would tumble onto my feet. I used to scoop them back up and balance them on top of the pile again.

Wow, this is also a fire hazard! With all of that stuff on top of your dryer, none of the heat can escape. DH is adamant that we don't put things on top of the dryer.

 

[branv]

If you're talking about about bigger cleaning, like floors, windows, showers, vacuuming, well that is harder to keep up with b/c it requires a bigger chunk of time. My house definitely doesn't get that like it should. I know the answer is (and I'm working on that), scheduling it like you would anything else in your life and breaking it into manageable chunks.

But clutter...you'll almost never find clutter in my house. I can't stand it and it literally makes me feel tense to be around it. And I don't even like to clean, so what's the secret? It's simple...get done with something, put it back where it belongs. If you let one little thing go, "oh I'm just going to set this plate from my snack over here to the side and I'll get to it later." Suddenly it's a plate, and a newspaper, and maybe some makeup that you just got up and forgot to deal with. Dealt with one at a time it would have taken less than 30 seconds to have gotten up, put it away, and sat back down again. And when you don't, suddenly those little 30 seconds turn into an hour's worth of cleaning you eventually get to. It's like when I cook...instead of making a mess and then facing a big cleaning job after a meal (which I'm WAY more likely to not do b/c it's overwhelming), I clean as I go and then I am way more relaxed during and after dinner.

Now, DH is getting better but is still pretty terrible...he'll take a coffee mug into his office and then forget about it for a few days. Then it's nasty and moldy, so he finally takes it into the kitchen, fill it full of water "to soak until it's easier to clean." So then it's sits there for another two days until it's now even nastier and scummier, and I get sick of it and clean it, put it in the dishwasher. GAH! (Yeah, he's got me trained really well ) And how much extra time would it have taken him to rinse it fully, lean over and put it into the dishwasher? 15 seconds? But everyone does this, and it's how things get out of control.

So it's simple. You make choices from minute to minute to not deal with something at the time that would require a short investment. Then it "accrues interest" and becomes a much bigger job later. I choose to deal with it as it comes.

 

[QVCshopper]

I'm like a lighthouse, going in full circles. I get around to everything eventually, but it doesn't happen as much as it should. I've also come to accept that there's no such thing as perfect and to be happy with good enough. Plus, a helpful hubby goes a long way!

 

[mookie]

Now, DH is getting better but is still pretty terrible...he'll take a coffee mug into his office and then forget about it for a few days. Then it's nasty and moldy, so he finally takes it into the kitchen, fill it full of water "to soak until it's easier to clean." So then it's sits there for another two days until it's now even nastier and scummier, and I get sick of it and clean it, put it in the dishwasher. GAH! (Yeah, he's got me trained really well ) And how much extra time would it have taken him to rinse it fully, lean over and put it into the dishwasher? 15 seconds? But everyone does this, and it's how things get out of control.

Do you live in my house? I just had a conversation with DH about this very same thing! Why is it so hard to bring up that stupid coffee cup!??! LOL!

OP - it's all a personal preference....so unfortunately, I have no advice. I'm good about "picking up" and organizing, but deep cleaning is tough. That's why I have cleaning ladies. Only once a month, but it's worth it. I call it my "motivation." With 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats and a not-so-clean husband, it forces me to overhaul my house once a month so they can clean. I am a bit nuerotic about it though...the night before they come you'll often find me cleaning toilets because I think they are "too dirty" for the cleaning ladies (they aren't...just by my standards) and organizing closets (which they never touch!)

 

[dsilva51]

I play the 5 minute a room game. I spend 5 minutes and no more in that room and then move on to the next. It works out great. I do my own version of flylady. And this works for me.

Also, I make my 10 year old and 8 year old help. I tell them if we each pick up for 10 minutes each all together, that equals 30 minutes of cleaning and we are done.

Sounds like you need a routine, once you get in one, you will be fine.

 

[indimom]

How do you do it all?

I agree with other posters, You don't.

BUT, some things that can help:
I'm a big fan of setting a timer and what I get done in that time, I get done. If 15 minutes is all I've got, then 15 minutes is what I give.

I also think you are looking at the BIG PICTURE and that's discouraging. Start breaking it up into manageable portions. Do the dishes and vaccum tonight, clean the bathrooms tomorrow, pull the weeds Saturday, whatever. Just don't look at it all together. I like to do A Little Every Day.
Trying to get a lot done just on Saturday or whatever day I'm "free" doesn't work for me because those are the days I want to do something fun or relaxing.

I also have seen some of my greatest success when I just get out a garbage bag and Throw Stuff Out. If the countertop is covered in papers you need to file or discard, it's not going to look clean. If you have a lot of old towells on your shelves and keep them when you buy new, where do you put the cleaning supplies or extra shampoo.
Sometimes we just forget to get rid of stuff, then we have to shift things around and take up space outside of cupboards and drawers. This makes the whole house look messy (and it gets in the way of actual cleaning anyway). Know what I mean?

 

[need2cruise]

I can relate--it is very hard!

I work full time plus commute, and attend school full time, plus I have a lot of volunteer hours that is required for my degree, dh works full time and we have kids who are involved in several after school activities.

In my house, everyone helps! Bedrooms are each persons responsibility. If it isn't clean, keep the door shut but don't complain if you can't find anything. Luckily, it isn't a huge issue, they keep up their rooms since their friends are over often. Laundry is done daily, and each person is responsible for putting their own laundry away. Kids rotate which rooms they are in charge of for the day for picking up. If someone leaves something out in that room, that item gets put in a basket and is gone for the rest of the day, period (I've learned not to leave a school book laying out). Kids take turns with putting the dishes in the dishwasher/putting away. And we only dust once a week, vacum 2x's a week and run the swiffer mop every evening after dinner--only takes a few minutes. We do a deep clean every 2 weeks on the weekend.

My house is far from ***** and span, but it is clean and I wouldn't be freaked out if the MIL stopped by unexpected one evening! It works for us around our busy schedules-everyone chips in and everyone is responsible for something!

 

[eliza61]

Another vote for "we don't try to get it all done" but I do have a few tricks.

Every one has to rinse their own dishes and put them in the dishwasher. before I go to bed I start the machine. Kids chores are to empty and then we go again.

Every one has to sort their own laundry, so if I'm washing darks say tomorrow, I'll tell every one to sort their darks tonight and put them in the hallway. On my way to work I'll throw the load of darks in the machine. Once again it's a kids chore to empty the machine and put clothes in the dryer.

I get most of the clutter out the way and the kitchen gets cleaned almost daily. Will you find dust around and my windows need to be seriously cleaned but nope, just not going to stress about it.

 

[Mrs.Reese]

The trick for us was getting rid of the clutter. I'm still working on the clutter. DH has the mentality of "it might be useful someday." Well he finally realized that we don't have a storage shed and its time to throw things out. I finished the office, bedrooms, closets and kitchen. I really like the FlyLady system. I get up 30 minutes earlier than hubby and knock out a bunch of work that way.

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

We don't. Seriously. Our house is far from immaculate. The grass probably should have been cut last weekend. There are always dishes in the sink and there is laundry to be done almost every day. We have a "to do" list a mile long. I try not to stress about it, but sometimes it gets to me. I just try to remind myself that my kids are only going to be kids for a short amount of time. I will have plenty of time to do housework but the time when they're young is limited.

Exactly! Kids can make messes fast that you can clean!. You kind of have to pick your battles. Our "company rooms" are always a little cleaner than the rest of the house. But I almost always have laundry in baskets somewhere, dishes in the sink or dishwasher, and cluttered corners in places where the only person it bothers is me.

 

[delmar411]

If you're talking about about bigger cleaning, like floors, windows, showers, vacuuming, well that is harder to keep up with b/c it requires a bigger chunk of time. My house definitely doesn't get that like it should. I know the answer is (and I'm working on that), scheduling it like you would anything else in your life and breaking it into manageable chunks.

But clutter...you'll almost never find clutter in my house. I can't stand it and it literally makes me feel tense to be around it. And I don't even like to clean, so what's the secret? It's simple...get done with something, put it back where it belongs. If you let one little thing go, "oh I'm just going to set this plate from my snack over here to the side and I'll get to it later." Suddenly it's a plate, and a newspaper, and maybe some makeup that you just got up and forgot to deal with. Dealt with one at a time it would have taken less than 30 seconds to have gotten up, put it away, and sat back down again. And when you don't, suddenly those little 30 seconds turn into an hour's worth of cleaning you eventually get to. It's like when I cook...instead of making a mess and then facing a big cleaning job after a meal (which I'm WAY more likely to not do b/c it's overwhelming), I clean as I go and then I am way more relaxed during and after dinner.

Now, DH is getting better but is still pretty terrible...he'll take a coffee mug into his office and then forget about it for a few days. Then it's nasty and moldy, so he finally takes it into the kitchen, fill it full of water "to soak until it's easier to clean." So then it's sits there for another two days until it's now even nastier and scummier, and I get sick of it and clean it, put it in the dishwasher. GAH! (Yeah, he's got me trained really well ) And how much extra time would it have taken him to rinse it fully, lean over and put it into the dishwasher? 15 seconds? But everyone does this, and it's how things get out of control.

So it's simple. You make choices from minute to minute to not deal with something at the time that would require a short investment. Then it "accrues interest" and becomes a much bigger job later. I choose to deal with it as it comes.

^^^ This! The above is exactly how you 'get it all done'. It's never not done in the first place.

Now I'm not saying I get it all done, cause I don't! LOL But when I do get in the routine like the above, then my life is so much easier and smoother.

I used to always have it all done too. When I had just one child, it was super easy. And I was working FT, plus school at the time. But I had no clutter at all and someone else who was just as routine oriented as I was. DH isn't like that so my house can look like a tornado went through it the min he walks in the door.

With 4 kids and a messy DH, I try my best but they tend to drag me down with them. LOL

I like Flylady but since I'm not a morning person I found her routines difficult to maintain.