I actually made my decision on how to begin my focused efforts to establish new habits and routines that will get and keep my home clean, neat and tidy a couple of weeks ago. I got out my planner that I put aside back in March when the world started shutting down due to the pandemic back out and dusted it off. I had developed my own weekly layout … boxes on the left for each day of the week for listing appointments and notes and tracking how much water I drank each day and on the right hand side I planned to cover tracking of daily/weekly chores, self-care habits, record things I was grateful for and 1 or 2 weekly goals.

I reworked the right hand side and created a table for Self-Care tasks, another for Daily Tasks, and another Task List with single check boxes. I believe the Self-Care section contains … the things I need to do each day to take care of my self – shower, moisturize, check blood glucose, read the bible, rest/sleep. I color in each day’s box as I complete the task, things I need to do twice a day (i.e. check BG) are colored in half for each time. For rest/sleep, I actually write the number of hours sleep I got last night. I have a bin of colored pencils and I just grab one; I feel no need to color coordinate in any way and see no reason to make it hard.

The Task List with single check boxes is where I write down items from my weekly, monthly, or annual tasks lists that I’d like to get done. These are things like sweeping the deck, cleaning the toilets, wash the car, etc. There are 14 slots … or about 2 per day. If I write down something big like wash the deck or wash the siding, obviously I’d likely write a shorter list. But these are just things that need doing soon.

The Daily Task list has 3 things on it:

1. Bed made
2. Dishes done
3. Laundry done

These 3 things seem to be near the top of every list I’ve seen for where to start if you are overwhelmed by the state of your home. There are daily boxes for each of these that I color in when I have completed the task for the day. Generally, the courses I took said I needed to wash dishes at least daily, if not after every meal. And to keep up with the laundry, the recommendation was frequently to do a load every day. But I live alone, I don’t dirty enough dishes or clothes in a day to justify it. So I have created my own definitions of what these tasks are for me, at this point in time.

Let me pause and say something about one of the people that I follow and how she gave me an “aha moment”. Check out Dana K. White at A Slob Comes Clean – I follow her blog and have an least one of her books. And she started her journey to becoming a guru of cleaning and de-cluttering writing a blog that she didn’t know if anyone would ever read. (Yes, I have to say she was one of the people that gave me the idea to start this blog. Check out her first post here.) She explains that our houses are containers and you can only fit so much stuff into an container. She discovered she had more than enough dishes once they were all clean and she had to get rid of excess so she could put them away. And the same was true with laundry.

So I knew I was supposed to wash and dry the dishes and then put them away. But the cabinets were full of other stuff (dishes I never used), so I left them on the counter. The counter fills up, so I can’t really wash the dishes because where would I put them. And laundry sort of did the same thing. I kept washing it and drying it, but it never seemed to find it’s way back into a closet or dresser or where ever it should have gone.

Until the counters are cleared of dishes, meaning everything is stored properly in a cabinet and the cabinets contain only dishes I truly use, credit for “Dishes done” means that any dirty dishes have been rinsed and placed in the dishwasher, the dishwasher is run if full and dishes are then put away, and at least 30 minutes has been allocated to the effort of de-cluttering the kitchen counters and cabinets.

Until there are no piles of clean laundry hiding anywhere, meaning everything is stored properly in closets or dressers and only items that I wear and/or use are stored, credit for “Laundry done” means I have washed, dried, hung/folded and put away the days laundry or I have spent at least 30 minutes going through a pile of clean laundry and either putting it away, tossing it or donating it.

How am I doing so far?

I am happy to report that making my bed every day is becoming more automatic. I am also doing well most days with putting all dirty dishes into the dishwasher and I’m doing well putting the dishes away into the cabinets for the most part. For some reason, I want to leave the silverware basket on the counter. But it does feel good to leave the kitchen at night with an empty and clean sink. Laundry is still a bit of a struggle, but I am starting to see some results from my efforts (smaller/fewer piles).

I plan to continue with these focus areas until each is under control and become the simple tasks they should be if managed daily. Then I will begin to add new tasks to my daily list.

Linda