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Keeping House is easy … said no one ever.
If you took the time to write out every little thing you do that keeps your home running, your hand would start hurting. Last November, my husband and I went on a 10 day anniversary trip. My mom generously took over my responsibilities for me while we were gone. She took care of my four children, laundry for everyone, kept up my house, fed people, drove my children to their activities, and a million other things. It was so validating when I got back to hear her talk about how much I have to do. It was so validating to hear someone else understand how my days are exhausting, but worth the effort.
Still, things were probably harder for my mom than me because I’ve had the chance to get into the groove with my daily routine. So much of what I do is habit and routine, which greatly simplifies things.
And once you have some good habits and routines going for you, it is so much easier to add more good habits and routines. Becoming good at keeping your house tidy leads to becoming better at keeping it clean, which then makes keeping up with laundry easier. And when laundry and house keeping are solid habits, it is so much easier to add menu planning. And from there, other good habits ripple forward, affecting everything.
My goal of this blog is to teach you how to live better. I want to show you how organizing can make life better.
Just like with keeping your world running, there are so many aspects of organizing we could focus on. In this article Want To Get Organized? –> Start Here., I talk about the importance of building on habits and routines you’ve already got working for you. And when you feel like you really don’t know where to start, start by forming some of those basic routines. And what are the most basic routines to start with? Cleaning and Laundry.
The cleaning and laundry portion of Keeping House is fundamental to everything else. It will be the focus of our mini-challenge.
Let’s learn how to KEEP UP our homes!! Even if you are an expert, a good review of the basic always helps.
If you are using the Mary Organizes Home Management Planner, this challenge will help solidify the suggested cleaning and laundry tasks into your routine. The Keeping House Mini-Challenge is for anyone, but if you want a planner that reinforces the good habits in this challenge, shop my Planner Store HERE.
About the challenge: This mini-challenge is two weeks long. Monday morning, your assignments for week one will post here on the blog. Comment here for accountability or checkin daily with our Facebook group for more accountability. I’ll be linking to past things I’ve written to help, as well as publishing new articles to help, so stay tuned in. This first Keeping House Mini-Challenge will be all about basic cleaning and laundry routines.
From my home to yours,
Mary
Love it. I can’t wait for Monday to get started.
Me either!!
I’m excited to see what tips I can get!
It is going to be good!! I may be biased, but … 🙂
I’ve been wanting to pick a word for the year to capture what I want for 2015. I want to exchange some bad habits in all areas of my life with good, positive habits. The word RIPPLE in your post above jumped out at me since I hope these habit changes will have ripple effect on my life and my family’s life. Thanks for all you do. I really enjoy your blog and FB group.
What a great mesh of challenges. 🙂
Really looking forward to it! Thanks!
Welcome!
Perfect timing! I sort of “fell out of my groove” when I went home to visit my Mom for 3 weeks. I adopted a bit of laziness when I got home, and it’s time to kick that to the curb and get back on track!
You are not alone. Most people fall out of the groove over the holidays!
Another fantastic post Mary! Your challenges are always so well thought out.
Thank you, Jacinta!
I’m excited need some accountability as I try and get back on schedule and work to bless my family and home.
I’m glad you’ve decided to join us!
Another Facebook group I’m in is doing a 10 day challenge in any area we want to work on, and I chose re-doing my daily and weekly cleaning routines so that I can stay more on top of things and cleaning doesn’t infringe on my writing time. So this challenge dovetails perfectly. I eagerly await the specific tasks!
I’m in!
Great! Welcome!
I gotta do this! We moved 5 months ago, and I did well at first, but now things are just seeming to get behind – my fault entirely – I very easily get “stuck” on the computer when I need to be doing other things! 🙁
You are not alone. Step away from the computer! 😉 Really, though, maybe use the things you enjoy, like computer time, as rewards along the way. Try setting your timer and reward yourself with 20 minutes of computer time for every 2 hours you work? You can do this!
This sounds fun! Thank you. (:
You and I have the same idea of fun! Ha! Good luck!
I am in! Thanks!
Great! You can do this!
Sounds great! Where did your fb group go? I was a member of it yesterday and now it’s gone?!
It’s still there! Not sure what happened …