Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Monthly Mission – Bathrooms
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-How to Clean Your House in 20 min. a Day

Introduction

Hello Everyone! Well, the new job is going good (I have only worked there for two weeks), but the household chores have kind of gone by the wayside. I am really struggling to find a new balance between outside work and “at home” work. Once I get home and have a little lunch, there is about an hour until my youngest gets home from school, then homework and dinner prep begins. I am looking for a way to schedule short chores in the afternoon along with other home management things that need to be done. There is definitely less time to toodle around on Facebook! This is an eye opener to just how short the day is, and the need to prioritize what’s most important to us. What’s more important… following the latest on social media, or having clean underwear and clean dishes to eat off of???

Scroll down below see about cleaning our homes in 20 minutes a day. Can this actually work?

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Bathrooms… one of the busiest rooms in the house, and one of the very least fun to clean! Yet it definitely needs to be cleaned on a regular basis. I can’t proclaim to be an expert on bathrooms, so maybe we can all learn something from a little review of October’s monthly mission by clicking here.

If you prefer to go digital, you might enjoy the Cozi Family Organizer. You can sync everyone's schedules together at no charge.

If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately.

Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.

Organizing Kids Rooms - Help your kids help themselves to be better organized. One can hope!

Grocery Shopping Tips - Do you need to streamline your shopping trips? Learn how to get in and out in less than an hour, once a week.

Organize your bathroom - How to keep your bathroom more tidy and clutter free.

Meal Planning - Plan ahead for meals to reduce trips to the grocery store and save time.

Time Savers - Here are a few quick time savers to make your day run more efficiently.

How to Clean Your House in 20 min. A Day?

In my attempt to readjust the household routines with going back to work, I looked around for some simple ways to keep the house clean and tidy with minimal time commitment per day. I found the following article which seems hopeful, suggesting we can clean our homes in 20 minutes a day. However, to be realistic, not without some modifications.

After the introduction regarding things that need to be done daily, it goes into a list of one main chore per day that is supposed to take no more than 20 minutes. However, on Day 2 it says “Clean bathrooms (toilets, showers, floors, walls, mirrors).” Um, it will take me more than 20 min. to do one full bathroom and there are three bathrooms in my house. The hardest part for me is cleaning showers and tubs. Anyone else? One tip I learned from Flylady a long time ago is that once you’ve cleaned your bathroom, a daily swish (of the toilet) and swipe (of the counter and sink) will keep it looking fresh for many days to come. However, I will need to train my family to swish and swipe daily because I’m certainly not going to follow behind them and do it. I’ll take care of my own bathroom though.

Day 30 it says to sweep and vacuum all floors in the house. Not going to happen in 20 minutes! There is a lot of floor space and a lot of dust bunnies that like to hide on the edges which requires the crevice tool and then the regular vacuuming of the rugs. Plus, stairs and the bedrooms upstairs. It’s a full-on workout and definitely takes more than 20 minutes.

I think the idea behind this method is solid. Do a little bit every day to keep the house clean and tidy. But we will all have to modify it to work for each of us individually. Some of us live alone, others with roommates or family members, and some have larger and some, smaller homes. (Everyone wanted a bigger house, but no one raised their hands to say they wanted to clean the extra space! Imagine that??)

So, I’m going to print out this list and modify it a bit to be a little more doable for myself. Hopefully I can get the rest of the family to participate as well.

Clean in 20 min a day 2


Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com