A sink full of dishes, a never-ending mountain of laundry that needs folding, and a general feeling of overwhelm when you think about tackling it all. This is what we’re going to change.
When we were read fairy tales, or watched the Disney versions of fairy tales, as children we never thought beyond the happily ever after.
We didn’t think about what it was going to be like for Cinderella after she married Prince Charming. She had a castle to run, heirs to the throne to birth, and a relationship to maintain. Hey, at least she knew how to clean a house!
Our everyday is the ‘after’ part of ‘happily ever after’.
I know that isn’t terribly romantic, but neither is scrubbing toilets.
But what if no one taught you a system to maintain your castle?
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
Cinderella had a lot of time to get her cleaning routine down. She didn’t have a social life to maintain, and self-care was not in her lexicon, so she could be totally dedicated to keeping her step-mother and step-sisters cared for. And she did have those birds and mice to help her out (is anyone else weirded out by how unsanitary that is?).
You have a lot more going on in your life, don’t you? And no talking critters to help out. But you’d really like to have clean, relaxing home to return to every day. So how do you figure out the most user-friendly and efficient way to clean?
You read a bunch of books, follow a bunch of people on social media, and read blogs like this.
So why isn’t your home running like a well-oiled machine yet?
Because one person’s system may not be the system that suits you.
You might start The Fly Lady’s system with all of the enthusiasm in the world, and wonder why you don’t stick with her buildable routine like Stephanie of @thesecretslob did (check her out on YouTube).
You might read Simply Clean and follow @CleanMama on social media with daily reminders of what to do each day and week, and wonder why you can’t keep up.
I happen to love both of those women. Marla Cilley of The Fly Lady has a system she has honed over decades. I still shine my sink like she says to do every morning, and love it. Becky Rapinchuk, the author of Simply Clean and the owner of Clean Mama, is sweet and upholds the same values I have in non-toxic cleaning.
But after reading their work and the work of numerous others, as well as watching endless YouTube videos on cleaning hacks I never found one individual system I could stick with.
Was there something terribly wrong with me?
Was I a perpetual teenager, instead of the 40-something I looked like? How the hell were all of my friends raising kids and maintaining their homes without cleaning ladies!?
No, I was and am a person just like you, trying to find my way in this world as best I can with the information I find.
*Full disclosure: I love our cleaning lady. She and her husband are like family, but they aren’t responsible for the daily chaos that happens in our house so we had to step it up.
THE PERSONALIZED CLEANING ROUTINE
Do you know what Sunday Supper Surprise is? It’s where you take all of the leftovers from the week, toss them together, and call it dinner.
You need to create House Cleaning Surprise (that doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?).
Read the books, watch the videos, and ask lots of people lots of questions. Then pick out the pieces you like and mash them together.
In order to do this, you are going to have to be honest about who you are and how you operate.
For instance, I learned about timer cubes from Brittany Vasseur on YouTube. I love this concept. Take a set amount of time and get as much done in that time as you can. The Fly Lady incorporates this into her system, too.
If I let the laundry get out of control, I set the timer for 10 or 20 minutes and fold as much as I can in that time and, when the timer goes off, I stop and go do something else like read my book, then return for another round.
I discovered that this magical idea does not fit all people. I was shocked. But that timer I feel creates a secure boundary for my time, is a huge stressor for others.
One woman told me she felt panicked the whole time the timer was running, waiting for the buzzer to go off. Another told me she can’t stop mid project or else she’ll never come back to it so a timer didn’t make sense for her.
So, we had to create a system that did work for her.
She created small tasks with a beginning and end that satisfied her need for a sense of completion.
One way of doing laundry is to do a load every day, that way it never piles up. This is my preferred method when I can be disciplined enough. Another system is to pick different days of the week for each category, like sheets and towels, whites, kid’s clothes, etc. Both are valid systems. Which one would work best for you?
I like to do a load of dishes every night so that, as part of my morning routine, I can empty the dishwasher and have it ready for the dishes of the new day. For another two-person household this might feel ridiculous and they may prefer a system of waiting for a full load before starting the washer.
Each person, each household, is unique.
It’s up to you to figure out what works for you.
RUNNING EXPERIMENTS
I like running experiments. It’s something I recommend my clients do all the time.
When you don’t know what works for you, the only way to find out is to try stuff. Yes, it would be amazing if you could follow a preset routine created by someone else, and not have to do this much thinking, but your uniqueness makes that tough.
Stephanie of The Secret Slob on YouTube started her channel when her lack of systems became too problematic for her to run her own castle for her growing family. She followed The Fly Lady system and discovered a completely different picture of herself and her home than she had ever known existed.
I applaud her commitment. It’s truly inspiring and I do use her as inspiration. When I was curating my own cleaning routine, I ran experiment after experiment taking suggestions from her, The Fly Lady, Clean Mama, Janson’s DIY, Do it on a Dime, How to GYST, and Brittany Vasseur (all can be found on YouTube and Instagram).
Over time I created my own Frankenstein cleaning routine that works for my personality and the rhythm of my life.
I will say that again: over time.
New habits are not created overnight. They take commitment and consistency. Yes, you can do this.
THE END RESULT
Why do I think this work is worth it for you? Because I know how big I smiled the day I stepped back and looked at my kitchen after my morning routine, and realized I was not the slob I had labeled myself as for the previous 40-some years.
I want you to smile like that, too.
I want you to know that regardless of whatever labels you have given yourself over the years, you can still be whomever you want to be.
With life coaching you’ll get there even faster. Together we’ll identify what information to seek out, what to keep and what to pass up. We’ll find your routine and your smile.