In my last blog I asked what type of housekeeper you are. I confessed that I was the type who keeps up appearances but has hidden messes. I also talked about finally tackling those unseen areas.
So where do we start? We start by writing a list (if you read enough of my housekeeping blogs, you know how I love lists). Take some time to write down every drawer, cabinet and closet that you want to tackle. Go through each room in your mind. You might even have other areas like trunks or shelves that need to be cleaned out. Write those down as well.
On my list I have things such as front hall closet, linen closet, medicine cabinet, junk drawer, cabinets in rec room and upstairs closet. In all, I actually have 17 things on my list. Wow, I really wasn’t expecting that. It’s not until you write it down that you realize how much (or how little) you need to take care of.
Now for some this can make you feel that the job is simply impossible. It’s just too much. But this is where you take things a little bit at a time.
Before we can move forward however, you want to now back through your list and write a number next to each one. Do it in the order of which jobs you wish to tackle first. One way to decide how to choose the order is by which areas are the ones most frequently used by the family.
For instance, our junk drawer is rarely touched so that might be last on my list. But our linen closet is used almost everyday. So I want to take care of an area that is used frequently by the family.
After you have organized your list, you make a plan to start getting to those areas. For me, I have decided that Saturday mornings I will take care of one area. So it may take me 17 Saturdays. But if I have a Saturday where nothing else is going on, then I may decide to take on more than one area. The point is that I am going to take it in bites, instead of trying to tackle all 17 areas at
one time.
Every little dent helps. As soon as you accomplish one area, you feel motivated to do the next. But remember…all of that hard work will be for nothing if you don’t maintain it. So make that part of your plan as well. You don’t want to see your hard work undone.
Related Articles:
Deciding Who Is Responsible for Housework
Photo by Ada Be in Flickr