If you can't do it all, do these three things.
Laura Vanderkam often mentions that one way to reduce the amount of time you need to spend on household maintenance is to reduce your standards.
If you decide that surfaces don't have to be dust-free, you can dust less often (or never!).
Or if you decide that fingerprints on walls and mirrors aren't a deal-killer, you can skip cleaning those regularly.
I subscribe to this style of thinking to an extent.
For example, I usually know it's time to clean my shower when I happen to step in with my contacts still in place and notice the pink slime growing on the floor.
(Usually I shower without my contacts in, which means I can't really see the floor. Or the pink slime.)
I dust my ceiling fans only when they're blanketed with dust, I rarely wash my floors (we do sweep every day!), I change our bed sheets pretty infrequently, and I'm not sure I've ever washed the outsides of my windows.
(This works best with jobs that don't get incrementally harder the longer you put them off. If you clean your bathroom mirror once a month, the job doesn't take four times as long as if you cleaned it once a week. You still have to spray the whole surface and wipe the whole surface down. It's not really any more overwhelming!)
Anyway, there are a lot of household jobs that can be put off/done less frequently without having serious consequences for your lifestyle.
So, if you've got to pick and choose what you can do, let those jobs go, especially if you're in an unusually stressful or busy season of life.
Then you can focus your energy on the tasks that really will become problematic if they're left undone.
For me, those are the following:
1. Laundry
It's true: ten loads of laundry take the same amount of time no matter when you do them.
But unless you've got an enormous wardrobe, you can't put this task off indefinitely without experiencing some unhappy consequence.
You'll eventually run out of clothes (this is inconvenient when you're trying to get out the door!), and a huge pile of laundry is very overwhelming.
So, when I'm short on time for household tasks, I almost always prioritize laundry. People need clean clothes. And towels.
(A bonus of having a smallish wardrobe is that you are forced to A) prioritize this task or B) face going starkers.)
2. Paper Clutter/Mail
This is another one of those things that has a tendency to pile up and become overwhelming.
Plus, disorganized piles of papers often have important stuff hiding in them (bills, appointment reminders, tax papers, checks, etc.), and it's easy to lose track of that stuff if you haven't separated them from the junk.
These can be expensive papers to lose!
So, no matter what else is going on, I try to deal with paper clutter daily.
I immediately recycle any and all junk mail so that the only papers that stay in the house are important ones.
And then the important ones usually go on the fridge with a chip clip. I have a chip clip for bills to pay, a chip clip for coupons, and I have a chip clip for checks that need to be deposited.
It's not fancy, but it works for me. 😉
3. Cooking
Cooking isn't a task that piles up over time, but there are a lot of reasons I prioritize this task anyway.
First of all, people need to eat every day. You can clean your mirror once a month, but you can't just feed people once a month!
Secondly, eating out instead of cooking has some pretty serious negative financial consequences. I can feed my family at home for several days on what it costs us to get one fast food meal, so eating out is kind of a dumb choice for us to make regularly.
Thirdly, eating out is almost always less healthy than eating what I cook at home.
So! Even if I don't always do a rock star job at other household tasks, I really, really try to cook at home almost all of the time.
It's not like I feel compelled to make gourmet meals every night. I just need to get something that's reasonably healthy onto the table.
What are your top three tasks?
I'd love to hear in the comments!
Pretty much your list but I also make sure my kitchen is clean before I go to bed- it's a fly lady thing; wipe the sink out and polish with a towel. When I get up to make coffee, it's so nice to not have a mess there! My house is all on one level and my kids bought me a Roomba for Christmas last year- it works great so my floors are always 'clean.' I also like a clean refrigerator- that simply means wipe down a spill LOL.
Amen, Fellow FlyBaby! Don't forget the Swish&Swipe. Blessings.
-home cooking
-laundry
-clean kitchen and bathrooms, floors
I order to get the home clean to my standards, I placed myself on a schedule, dividing the tasks and assigning them to a specific day of the week. I struggle with autoimmune disease, which lead to early, unexpected retirement. If I have to push off my chores to another day, it isn't a major deal, as when the next day comes (assuming that I am feeling better) to add one task to the day is very do-able.
I prioritize making my bed and picking up clutter. I can deal with dust but clutter drags me down. Taking ten minutes to make the bed made and pick up helps me feel like things are together even when they're anything but! The exception to this is Saturdays when everything being rumpled feels relaxing
Interesting to consider . . .
My number one priority is always, always food. That includes the daily cooking, but also in this season (and I mean actual weather season, not life season) that means garden care and food preservation. The apples and tomatoes sitting on my counter won't wait forever, and dealing with them now means many, many meals at least started in the future.
Number two would be laundry. Which for me includes putting it all away the same day or at least first thing next morning. If I don't get it put away, then the baskets aren't available for the dirty clothes that then end up on the floor of closets. Irritating. Plus, I don't currently own an iron, so I have to get things folded and hung up quickly to avoid the wrinkles.
Number three is clutter of any kind in living spaces, whether on the floor or tables/other surfaces. I make my kids pick up their toys every day, but there are always random things that get left behind and if I'm not diligent about getting those small things put away, too, then all of a sudden my small house with many children starts to look very cluttered, which is very bad for my emotional well-being. And also results in, say, my husband stepping on a small metal plane left on the floor and cutting his foot. Which happened this week. Clutter is damaging in so many ways. 🙂
I have the same mindset, although my husband gets annoyed at those little things much quicker than I do. 😉
My top three are:
1. Kitchen- I can't stand our kitchen to be dirty. I don't like to cook when it's dirty and can't stand to even walk through . It's the one room that I get stressed seeing it messy.
2. Cooking- I want this to be top, as I do prefer generally to eat at home. With our 3 littles, it doesn't stay a priority as much as I'd like, but it's in the top 3 for sure.
3. Vacuum/sweep- Our dogs stay inside too, so I can't stand to miss a day on that. I want the house swept and vacuumed as much as possible. I feel like it's dirty otherwise. We don't mop at all like we should, but the floor will be clean.
I hate the paper piles, but my husband is the one who like to organize that. And I NEED to keep laundry in the top of my list, but I truly dislike it.... so I doubt it will ever be there.
Luckily, Mr. FG has a larger tolerance for household messes, which works out nicely because I'm the stay at home parent. I consider myself very fortunate!
I can totally imagine that if I had dogs, floors would be a super high priority.
Dishes are my #1, probably.
Sweeping the kitchen and dining area floors are next.
Clutter especially on the floor (for safety) and food areas (like the kitchen table or food prep area)
I'm good about doing laundry, just not putting it away....so I can't count it.....
Everything else is a huge mess, and I feel like I'm barely holding on to these three!
1. Cooking. Kids gotta eat! But in order to cook, I need to do. . .
2. Never-ending dishes--which reminds me of. . .
3. Never-ending laundry! Although we work and work at this, we still have Mt. Laundry on one of the couches regularly. The clothes baskets live in the living room (except when company comes when they are whisked away to our bedroom).
All the other stuff we try to get done by having kids do chores. If I don't get to a bathroom and it's Saturday, it's a Saturday chore for the kids. Sure, they don't do the best job in the world, but if they clean the toilet, it's cleaner than it would be if nobody did anything at all. Same goes for sweeping floors and just about any other cleaning task.
I need to clarify that the kids don't do ALL the other chores. I just meant they do the ones my husband or I can't get to. And I only have them do those when I really need it done.
Now I am only 1 person , but when I had a husband and 3 children at home, these were my priorities: first, getting a decent meal on the table; second, keeping the laundry up to date and third, having a reasonably clean house. I considered everything else secondary. When going through a stressful time, it helped to keep these things in mind.
Kitchen floor. It has to be clean. I mop every single Sunday.
Refrigerator. I do this on Saturday mornings and it's a quickie job if I keep up with it every week.
Clutter in the living room. Can't stand it!!
One more: dishes in the sink. Thank God for dishwashers, where the dishes can hide until I'm ready to run it!
Hrm. I'd say #1 for me is kitchen/bathroom ... I group them because we all use both rooms so frequently (there is a second bathroom but it's "scary" ... who knows). #2 would be food ... and then #3 laundry.
I have 4:
-homecooking
-laundry (3 small kids, with one on a feeding pump that routinely leaks=so.much.laundry.)
-vacuuming (High winds + orange clay dirt + no stairs anywhere around our house+1 small boy who loves bringing dirt inside+one dog=filthy floors
-Pick-up and Put away: clutter destroys my ability to focus.
My priorities are like Kristin@Going Country.
Priority one: making sure we have food in the house, storing and preparing that food. And making sure we have what we need on that front, so there's always a list going on the counter. If someone uses up the last of the creamer, they better tell me. Otherwise, we all drink black coffee until next Monday when I go buy food again!
Priority two: clean laundry. I'm down to two "kids" living here, and I don't do their clothes, but I do all of the towels, sheets, and clothes that belong to Hubby and I. I iron Hubby's shirts for work, and occasionally mine (I wear scrubs). I don't have a seperate laundry room, so I have to stay on top of it. Laundry is a task I enjoy, so it's not terrible.
Priority three: That clutter monster. I cannot stand the stacks of stuff laying around. If the ceiling fans were furry, and the bathrooms a tad smelly, I know I could get to those sometime this week, but general clutter drives me insane. Plus, I think we own too much, and I think its hard to relax in a cluttered up home, dirty or otherwise! So, I am always looking to reduce what we own and what we bring in...
My top three are also Laundry, Cooking at home and Paper clutter. ( I did lose a bill in the paper clutter last month. 25.00 late fee .....boo! I haven't had a late fee in over 10 years).
Try calling the company to see if they'll waive the fee. It's amazing how many companies will do so, if you haven't had one in a while and you ask nicely.
I love this!! Just this morning I was kicking myself for having dirty baseboards, a greasy backsplash, and fingerprints on the mirrors. But hey, we need to cut ourselves a break. Nobody can keep a perfectly tidy home while maintaining their sanity.
For me, my three things are:
1. Cooking. If I don't cook, we don't eat!
2. Sweeping. I absolutely despise dirty floors, so I try to sweep every morning before I work.
3. Making the beds. I can't work if I know the beds are unmade. I know it's a small thing, but a made bed just makes the house feel so much tidier already.
I enjoyed this post. Your housekeeping ways seem very close to mine. I was just noticing the blanket of dust on our ceiling fans the other day and thinking maybe it's time to clean those, lol..... For me, the sheets are always something that can wait, and I'm horribly nearsighted also, so the floor of the shower isn't something I can actually see! Sometimes my husband, who is farsighted, has to remind me, "Umm honey, I think the shower needs cleaning...." Ha! Out of sight, out of mind.
I get overwhelmed very easily... my two kids, one on the way, and homeschooling are enough to keep me sufficiently challenged..... and then there's housework! 😮
My priorities are
-Clean dishes
-Clean laundry (putting it away is even better!)
-Cooking meals
Keeping these priorities helps me know what's actually vital... if the rest of the stuff is indefinitely delayed, we're still fine, as long as the priorities are getting done! It's a load off. Having kids has forced me to let go of having a spic n span house all the time. When we're older and our kids have flown the nest (sob!) the house can be perfect again. 🙂
I'm incredibly nearsighted too, and I thought I was the only one who just didn't bother with the shower because I can't see it! On those rare occasions that I do happen to glance in the shower with my contacts in/glasses on, I'm always shocked at how it looks. I don't understand how my husband can stand to shower in there when he knows what it looks like.
On that note, why can't your husband just wipe down the shower? My husband doesn't even notice it, otherwise I'm sure he would without asking me.
If the pink starts bugging him too much, he does clean it. But his tolerance is definitely higher for household messes and such than mine is! He just doesn't get the itch as soon as I do. And I hardly ever see the pink stuff, so...our shower is rarely looking pristine. 😉
In our breakdown of household work, the bathroom cleaning is my responsibility. Trust me, my husband isn't ordering me around from his recliner. Of the two of us, he's actually the harder worker, even around the house.
That reply was for Candace. 🙂
I think you are spot on here. I am the same way. I do clean my bathroom on the main floor once a week including the mirror. It is the one that we use the most and that a guest might see. If I am flustered by my house I clean the kitchen first thing. Then I can concentrate on everything else. The nice thing about living in a small town is that there are not many places to eat out. We have to cook on a regular basis if we want to eat good food.
Cooking is a high priority for me, as we eat at home very nearly 100% of the time. However, I have this personality that means I "can't" cook if the kitchen counters are cluttered. It simply fries my brain if I have no place to work, so keeping the kitchen counters cleared off and wiped down, and keeping the sink empty is also a priority. I love dishwashers.
I try to keep the laundry up, but if I have to miss a few days, no biggie, but then, I don't have kids at home anymore, either. I was more into laundry when I had them here. It's not one of my top priorities now.
Clean bathrooms. I have to have a clean bathroom or I get stressed. I don't mean spotless, but our two bathrooms are thoroughly cleaned once a week, and I spot clean when needed in-between the weekly cleanings. Our master bathroom where we shower and get ready is upstairs, and the bathroom downstairs gets used during the day while we are downstairs in the living room and kitchen, so both need to be cleaned.
Finally, I make my bed every morning, unless I can't get the husband out of it before I need to leave for work, ha. I hate climbing into rumpled sheets at night -- I want them smooth and neat. It makes the bedroom look neater instantly, when the bed is made.
I keep the floors vacuumed pretty often, at least in the traffic areas, as we have a lot of hard flooring and five (!) pets that go in and out all day, but I'm okay with just mopping them once a week.
My ceiling fans are way high up in our high ceilinged home, so if they get cleaned twice a year, I'm doing good. I have actually washed my windows outside, about four times in 19 years in this house, but they always look dirty again two weeks later. I absolutely, positively HATE to dust. I don't know why I hate it so, but the dust on my books in my big bookshelves is reaching antique status.
1 - Cooking - for cost and because my youngest has food allergies
2 - Laundry
3 - Grad school - Because I'm paying for it, so I need to take it seriously.
I just turn a blind eye to the rest of the mess and regularly enlist my family to help. Last week, my kids, ages 4 and 6, cleaned almost the whole house because I bribed them with going to the HS football game.
My husband is the cook in the family, so I don't have to work about home cooked meals. He also loves to grocery shop, so in covered there as well. My priorities are (1) a clean kitchen, meaning no dishes in the sink, clean counters, and no junk mail clutter. (2) clean laundry, including our sheets that I always wash every weekend. I wash blankets and comforters every other week. (3) the floors. I hate to mop, but I vacuum and dustmop every other day. We also don't wear our shoes in the house and don't have any pets, so the floors stay clean. I also do spit cleaning, so I'll scrub a toilet or pick up clutter so it doesn't become overwhelming.
This is very timely. We seem to be in a particularly stressful time and I have been "tossed about" by so many things that need to get done. PRIORITIES are a good thing!
1. Homecooking- especially good lunches for all.
2. Laundry
3. Kitchen/Dining room
So much more to do, but I think by focusing on those three things I will have the few minutes here and there to start whittling away at other jobs... clutter, outgrown clothes, over abundance of stuff... etc 🙂
I love this! My big 3 are:
1. Meal planning/cooking at home/packing lunches. With 5 kids we go through SO MUCH FOOD so this saves my sanity, my grocery budget, and their bottomless pit tummies.
2. Clutter. With a big family I feel like our home descends into chaos when a bunch of junk is lying around so the house is picked up every day by the aforementioned children and my husband and I. It's so much more peaceful!
3. Wipe down kitchen counters. I buy Mrs. Meyers spray in lavender and either me or my husband or one of the older kids wipes down the kitchen table and counters every night before bed. It makes such a difference in my anxiety level!
Another sanity saver: I teach my kids to fold and put away their own laundry when they turn 4. Our kids are currently 8, 6, 4, 4, and 2 so that means I'm only doing laundry for 2 adults and one child with the assistance of my husband on his day off, which is super manageable!
I do have a top 3, the kind of things that get done even if I'm sick with a bad cold or busy like crazy:
1. I keep the kitchen clean, no dirty dishes in the sink, no icky stuff on the countertops.
2. I clean the bathrooms every day. Don't be too impressed by this. If I clean them every day, they don't have time to get very dirty, so it's a fast, easy clean. Sorta like FlyLady's swish-n-swipe.
3. I do a load of laundry every day. Both Dear Husband and I exercise and get our jogging clothes all stinky, so I HAVE to do laundry every day!
You'd think I'd have cooking on that list, right? No, DH does the cooking. He claims it's self-defense, but I think he's just being sweet and letting me put my feet up for awhile every evening.:-)
Your's sounds like mine. I found if I clean the bathroom every day, I never have to do a deep clean.
I will add making a home cooked meal every day and prepping my coffee pot every night for the next morning after the dishes are done and the counters and sink are wiped down.
Mine are:
Laundry
Dishes
Clean kitchen floor (this one is Hubs')
If I can get these three things done before going to bed every night, it makes my life easier. With an infant, we don't prioritize cooking at the moment, but I'm looking for ways to change that!
Food tops my list. My husband and I have three small children who eat away from the house at lunch. So our nights are spent preparing dinner and then lunch the next day. Focusing on this task saves us money, keeps us healthier, and saves time during the work day.
Second is to declutter everything, not just paper. We airbnb our house on the weekend, and we have a woman who cleans on Friday. Constant decluttering, having the kids pick up toys, taking care of papers, having a place for everything, means much easier prep for the cleaning lady and our airbnb guests on Friday morning. Less clutter also makes me feel like I can breathe. If we don't declutter it feels like the edges of rooms get "fuzzy" and start closing in.
Because we are fortunate enough to have a woman who cleans my husband and I don't do the weekly tasks like cleaning the shower or vacuuming. But sometimes I will quickly sweep or vacuum the floors. Five minutes on this task means I don't pick up grains of sand with my feet, and I feel like the house is spotlessly clean. (Even if in reality there is a pile of dishes in the sink, laundry to be folded, and marker all over the walls.)
Laundry is next on my list for all the reasons you mentioned.
My husband and I trade off these tasks. One night he does dishes and lunch prep, decluttering, etc. while I bathe the kids and put them to bed. The next night we flip. Trading off ensures that there is time carved out to makes sure these tasks get done. We would be up a creek without food or clean clothes in the absence a system!
I guess mine would be:
1. Straightening/Keeping things neat
2. Laundry
3. Bathroom (it is tiny, it needs cleaning a lot when your husband is hairy!!)
One of my biggest time savers, say, ever, is to not wash my clothes every wearing. Unless I sweat or am stinky for some strange reason, my work clothes go back to be worn again. I wear "lounge clothes" at home as soon as I walk in the door, they are worn for several nights. My jeans? I may wear them five or more times (sorry if that's gross!) before washing. I do only wear my undies once. This saves me from mountains of laundry, and my clothes last a long time too.
I totally agree on the clothes. I have a drawer designated as the "semi-clean" drawer, where I put things that have been worn enough that they can't be called clean, but aren't dirty enough to wash yet - mostly lounging clothes. Makes it sooo much easier, and it did away with the piles of clothes languishing in the land of too clean to wash and too dirty to put away.
Isn't that what the chair is for? It's certainly what my chair is for. If it's something I won't wear again soon, I fold it differently and put it on the top of the appropriate clothing pile in the drawer.
Ha! If only my bedroom was big enough to have a chair in it... 😉
1. Cooking
2. Laundry
3. Putting things away as soon as I am done with them. This eliminates the need to go through the apartment each day and "straighten up" and searching for stuff as it's where it should be.
4. I will also add washing dishes shortly after using them. Nothing worse than a sink full of dishes when you are trying to cook or just having to do a whole days worth at once. We have only a "manual" dishwasher, (or rather two "manual" dishwashers), in our house.
Thank you so much for saying this. I see nothing wrong with lowering our cleaning standards a bit, whilst most people I know think that not doing the dishes one day will lead to roaches and damnation. Moderation...
Mine are:
1. Dishes
2. Laundry
3. Making food
We also have Mount Laundry (ours is on our big Brown chair in our TV room). To make it sound fun we'll have a "Laundry Party" where we put on The Office and fold laundry. Good Times.
Love the "Mount Laundry" haha Chores are so much lighter when done together with a fun attitude!
I'm somewhat of a neat freak and also slightly lazy....a bad combo. I've learned that cleaning on a schedule works best for me.
Daily:
1. laundry
2. cooking
3. kitchen clean up - including throwing out all junk mail
I try to do 15 minutes of housework a day, I have a task for each weekday so that my weekends are bogged down with cleaning. This results in the house being fairly clean most of the time. Not sure that its super clean, but its clean enough that I'm not embarrassed when people stop by. We have a big dog that sheds a LOT in the summer. Its surprises me that he isn't bald by now!!
Monday - Sweep downstairs floors and dust furniture (one week upstairs one week downstairs)
Tuesday - vacuum carpet upstairs
Wednesday - wash sheets, clean master bath & take trash out from bathroom
Thursday - Sweep downstairs floors and mop
Fridays - Clean upstairs and guest bathrooms, wash towels & self clean oven
Seasonally (4 times per year):
I clean the windows (maybe its an Idaho thing, but my windows get really dirty)
dust the baseboards (more dog hair)
sweep the cobwebs from the front porch
On a funny note, I found a company that will take your dog's hair and make yarn out of it. Can't decide if I'm horrified or amused by that....
I'm totally laughing at the dog-hair yarn thing. But I have to admit, that especially when I had several long-haired cats, I often thought about the prospect of a cat-hair sweater. Think of the allergic implications though!
I can't imagine that working well - or inexpensively - for most dogs; their hair is too short. Unless they use something more appropriate, such as sheep's wool, which is long and has "catch".
LOVE this post! My philosophy on this sort of thing is to prioritize tasks that have a snowball effect when they don't get done.
So my number one priority is dishes - and curiously, for me it all starts with emptying the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away. If I can get that done, then the rest of the kitchen seems to fall in line fairly easily because there's a place to put all of the dirty dishes, so my counters & sink aren't cluttered, so I can cook and clean more easily - etc, etc.
Next in line is taking out the garbage/compost/recycling. Same principle here - if there's a place to put the empty cat food cans, they don't pile up waiting to be dealt with. After that, it's probably a tie between clutter and laundry. Since it's just me, and I have a HUGE washer, it's actually more efficient to wait until I have enough stuff to fill up the machine before doing it - in the summer that can be a challenge since shorts and t-shirts don't take up much room! But once you run out... then it becomes an imperative! And clutter, well... the more time you waste looking for things, or moving things around, the less time you have for everything else!
Several of the common items aren't an issue for me because I, too, am in the happy position of having a cleaning lady. So, based on what I actually do, I prioritize:
1. Tidying up. I am not the only resident of my home so it is not always tidied to my preference, but I do some tidying/putting away/uncluttering every day.
2. Wiping kitchen counters and dirty spots in the fridge. Much easier to take care of it now, rather than wait, letting it get stickier and spreading the mess onto whatever it touches.
3. Mail and paper ... somewhat. I bat it back regularly, albeit not daily, lest it take over. The job is never done but with effort I can keep it at bay.
What I should prioritize because it gets ugly if I don't get right on it:
- Medical bills & insurance EOBs.
Dealing with finances, paperwork and emails.
Keeping the kitchen picked up. I feel the whole house it trashed when the kitchen is messed up.
Cooking -I do not like to eat out.
1. Countertops - I must remove crumbs! This may be a slight compulsion 😉
2. Living Room Clutter - We have a big basket in my living room. Before bed, if anything is left out, but we don't have time to organize it or put it away, we will just put it in the basket and go through it when we have more time. This makes my husband (who hates clutter) happy and makes me happy since I can declutter/organize on my own schedule.
3. Wash Dishes - We're much more likely to cook if the dishes we need are clean. Plus letting them pile up in the sink makes the chore overwhelming to me and I push it off even further 🙂
Mine: bathroom, food, paper
Husband's: vacuum, dishes and car stuff
Between the two of us, the place stays pretty clean.
Wow, lots of people are weighing in on this one. I'm with you on your top three. My fourth is dishes (unloading/loading dishwasher and handwashing whatever doesn't go in the dishwasher.
Homeschool top two things:
*Teach my kids math everyday (precalculus & algebra 1 for me this year)
*Check their work/papers within 24 hours.
Lots of grand schooling ideas don't get done because life is life, but these are my top homeschooling gotta do's.
I correct with each child at the start of the class. So yesterday's work is corrected and errors reviewed just as we move into the next lesson.
Our priorities each morning are showered and ready for the day, breakfast then kitchen cleaned & laundry started before we start first subject by 9. Clutter cleared before next task can begin. There's a method to the madness.
We do laundry ONCE a week. Everyone has their jobs as part of laundry day (putting laundry in the hamper (kid who hasn't done so already), sorting laundry, washer and dryer, folding and putting away). We run big loads (saves water, soap, and time) and now that there are only 3 of us it usually takes only 4 loads--whites, light colors, dark colors, jeans and towels. When my eldest was still at home one or two of those loads might have had to split into two. Everyone has enough clothes and underwear to make it at least 10 days, but laundry day is always Sunday unless we are out of the house all day, then it spreads from Sunday night into Monday.
It is such a relief not to have to do laundry daily! It's a great feeling to have it all done so we don't have to go hunting for something we thought was clean.
Even when we had 7 in our home (kids are gone now) and I was line drying most of my clothes, I've only ever done laundry once a week. I never understood how people dirty enough clothes to do laundry daily. There must be some awfully small loads, or clothes are washed that aren't actually dirty at all. We use the same towel all week, sheets are only done once a month or so, and clothes are washed when they are dirty and only when there are enough clothes to make up a full load. So much less time consuming!
I don't actually consider cooking to be a chore. I love to do it and watching my family eat healthy food (or at least have the opportunity to eat it, if they're picky) brings me joy. So, excluding that, my top three are:
1. Unloading the dishwasher (my husband is the loader)
2. Cleaning out the litterboxes (for obvious reasons)
3. Laundry (a load a day makes the mountain go away)
I wish I felt like that about cooking! Send me some of what you've got.
Laundry! Our washer & dryer are in the basement, and it's VERY inconvenient, and VERY easy to forget about. I've set timers, I've tag-teamed my husband - still we have issues with that.
Cooking! I cook almost every day, and we have leftovers. I keep things that will work for my husband's work lunches. He gets a sammish, a fruit, a vegetable, a baked something, and a carton of yogurt.
Critters! We have two dogs (one's a 7 month old puppy), three cats, two parakeets, and my son's aquarium fish. The four legged ones are fed twice a day, and I make enough leftovers to mix a little into the dogs' kibble for breakfast.
I wish I could say that my kitchen is spotless, but I don't think it EVER has been. The puppy has big paws, and his mouth is always dripping after a drink of water. This is canning and dehydrating season, etc. So...
1. Food - and this includes meal planning, grocery shopping, preserving, cooking and cleaning up after. I am not so great at whipping up something out of the pantry, Before I meal planned regularly, I often conviced myself that there was NOTHING at home to eat so I MUST pick up take out or stop at the store (again) on the way home from work. Later I would arrive home to find that indeed there were LOTS of things to eat at home, I just hadn't planned properly or conveniently forgot about what I bought. I wasted a lot of food and money in those days.
2. The tub and shower can wait but the toilet and sink must be scrubbed at least once a week, though I prefer Flylady's "swish and swipe" method of bathroom cleaning on a daily or semi-daily basis so the bathroom is always company ready.
3. Laudry. Like Kristen, I have a limited wardrobe that must be laundered weekly.
Great list! For me, it'd be (1) cooking, (2) doing the dishes, (3) grocery shopping, and (4) doing laundry.
I realized that the first 3 all have to do with eating. It's because we all have to eat every day, and most of the time 3 times a day. I'm with you on the laundry. I keep putting it off until I also run out of clothes, and the hamper is full. That's when I know I need to do laundry. But I usually do laundry on Saturday or Sunday because we don't have lots of clothes. >_<
The general rule I taught my children was: safety first, health second. Translated to the household this converts to: pick up or repair things that might lead to injuries (tripping over, falling/sliding down, etc), then ensure healthy meals and tolerably clean house. Kitchens and bathrooms come before windows, etc.
I generally actually like to do more around the house, but if pressed and stressed I remind myself of this ground rule.
What a great post! It's interesting to me to read how everyone's priorities differ. We have three children grown and out of the house and one who will graduate from high school this year. He has recently gotten a job and a driver's license so he is rarely home, and I am learning a whole new normal in the cooking and laundry departments. I'm back to cooking for two--after 25 years--and laundry is pretty much a once-a-week chore now, which sure hasn't been the case for a VERY long time! Not gonna lie--it has taken some adjustment but I think we'll be fine. 🙂 My priorities:
1. No clutter--I can deal with some dust but clutter gives me hives. I literally put the junk mail in the garage recycling bin as I walk in from the mailbox. In our home, everything has a place and everything is expected to be in that place. There are no piles. LOL! I've taught our children since they were little and they really DO get it. And, over time, every single one of them has thanked me for our neat and tidy home. I straighten kitchen/living area before we go to bed each night and always stay on top of the "stuff". I'm not a "keeper" or terribly sentimental either so our home is definitely sparse compared to most.
2. Food--I loathe grocery shopping but it has to be done. We have recently moved and I need to get back in the groove of planning meals and cooking at home--even if it's just for the 2 of us. It's way too easy to go out when we don't have four kids with us! 🙂
3. Clean-As I said, I don't mind some dust but I do stay on top of bathrooms, floors, etc. I don't have a set schedule I follow but if something is dirty, it gets cleaned. As others have said, it's so much easier to just stay on top of everything than to let it all build up and feel overwhelmed. It's always all downhill from there.
I seriously thought I was the only one whose shower turned pink because they couldn't see it! I'm severely nearsighted and I never notice how gross our shower is getting, and I don't understand how my husband can just overlook it when he can see it perfectly fine.
My priorities are:
1) Food. We have to eat, and for some reason I'm in charge of that. This includes meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up. Personally, I don't think I should be the only one cleaning, but my husband only does dishes twice a month, and that doesn't really work for me.
2) Pool. I wish we didn't have a pool, but if I don't keep up with it weekly, it quickly turns into a monster. When we were busy moving my mom into a nursing home, I missed a week and it took months and a ton of work to get our pool chemicals balanced and our pool clean again (see below: farm town = fertilizers that can quickly throw the chemical balance off).
3) Pets. I clean litter boxes, buy food, and take care of all of their medical issues (we have one dog and one cat with a lot of medical issues).
I also dust regularly, since we live on the edge of a farm town and the dust gets INSANE ridiculously quickly. My husband does laundry, but he's pretty bad about putting it off, so I have to keep more clothes around than I probably otherwise would. I got a floor-mopping robot last month that I LOVE which is really helping with keeping the floors cleaner (see: living on the edge of a farm town), and I just got my husband a robot vacuum for his birthday since he's in charge of vacuuming but with all of our pets he just hasn't been able to keep up.
Haha, join the club of blind showerers!
I love a clean house and am quite apologetic about it.
Our 3 are:
1. anything to do with food - menus/ shopping/ cooking
2. kitchens and bathrooms
3. clutter (physical). I only file once a year because I toss paper as it comes in 🙂
DH and I have different "musts" which is really good for our cleanliness factor.
Mine are:
1. Cooking (homecooked breakfast and dinner and leftovers for lunch for 3/4 family members)
2. General clutter in living spaces. I will pick up the living room and do MOST dishes and clear counter tops.
3. Flowers watered and lawn looking nice - I love green living things and they bring me a LOT of joy.
DH is:
1. Floors - he will vacuum and mop every saturday morning while kids watch cartoons
2. Laundry - he does laundry before baskets are even full! I'm a once a week type of girl.
3. While I do the bulk of the dishes - DH always finishes them before bed. I get tired of doing them (all that from scratch cooking) about 80-90% of the way through. DH can't stand "soaking" dishes so he will finish before he goes to bed.
This combination of things means that we are 30 minutes from being company ready at any given time. Both of us occasionally roll our eyes at each other's priorities but it works great from a household perspective.
1. Everything food related for 3 adults....me a vegetarian, hubby diabetic and father in law who has been here a year. Father in law is supposed to eat extremely low sodium but he won't! I pack hubby's breakfast and lunch for work and cook 3 meals a day at home, grocery shop, garden and freeze/can. Plus I feed hubby and my three cats, the 11 year old lab we just adopted and father in laws 17 year old cat. Keeping everyone fed keeps me busy!
2. Laundry
3. Dishes......never ending
I just wanted to add that food is my number one priority because of hubby's diabetes diagnosis several years ago. After seeing a nutritionist his blood sugar has tested in a normal range due to diet change and walking and he has not had to take any meds yet. Makes all the time spent well worth it!
You cook three meals a day at home?! WOW, I can't think of the last time I did that. I might do breakfast and dinner on the weekends but lunch ends up being a strict sandwich affair at that point. You're a trooper.
Wow! So many good lists! Here's mine:
#1 Laundry - I do something "laundry-related" every day. Wash, put away, iron (can't remember the last time I did, though!), or mending. Because I work outside the home full time, an hour's commute each way, I don't have a lot of time weekday evenings to do household stuff, and I refuse to take all day Saturday doing laundry and cleaning.
#2 Master Bathroom - I spray a daily cleaner on the walls every day before I step out of the shower (an extra 30 seconds!) and the shower stays clean. I wipe up any splashes around the sink before I leave the room and put away anything I've gotten out of the drawers/cabinet.
#3 Dust mop or vacuum - With a German Shepherd and four (yes, FOUR) cats IN the house, we have HAIR everywhere. I can't stand the tumbleweeds, so I try to at least dust mop (we have wood floors) most days.
#4 Kitchen sink - It has to be emptied every day or it gets out of hand FAST. The counters are a challenge, though.
I sometimes work (maybe "routinely" is better than "sometimes") 65-70 hour work weeks. On top of my day job, I also teach Zumba twice a week, appear on TV at 6 am once a week, take care of two dogs, two cats, and my foster animals (right now it's just a single dog), and am working through a kitchen renovation.
I wake up between 5:30 - 6:30 a.m. each morning. I take a shower, get ready for work, feed the animals, make breakfast for me, and head out the door with enough time to get to work. At lunch, I run home, let out dogs, make lunch for me, eat, and head back to work with enough time. I come home, either go to a workout class or start making dinner immediately. By the time we're done feeding the animals and ourselves, we're exhausted and it's 8 p.m. We're in bed around 9:30.
If we did dishes, laundry, and tidied XYZ, we'd have zero downtime with each other, or for ourselves.
I'm 31, and have struggled with this balance for as long as I can remember. Seeing the list of 3 things to do, nearly made me anxious. Those 3 things are still a lot for some people (me included).
I prefer to do a ton of laundry at once and dedicate a day to it. My wishlist item would be keeping the first floor (kitchen, dining room, and living room) clean. Whether it's dishes, cleaning up after a meal, moving clutter out of the living room, sweeping/mopping, etc.
This is rough. I tried last night tidying the kitchen. I didn't leave it in a horrible state (though there's clean dishes currently in the dishwasher, and not enough dirty dishes in the sink to constitute a full load... and I hate to waste water on a partial load).
I'm going to give myself enough grace and awareness to do just one item each night. Baby steps. Will work my way up from there!
I taught my girls from a very young age to fold clothes. When they were 2 they started folding wash cloths. Now at 9&13 the fold all the laundry and put it away every weekend. There are only 3 of us so I do all laundry over the weekend. I do not like the idea of laundry sitting in the dryer or clothes basket for the week. My girls also take care of our dog full time. They walk her,feed and water her everyday. They mow the yard,take out trash and recycling,load the dishwasher. I only clean on the weekends. I am too tired after getting of work to do much. I do the cooking some nights,but my mom feed them 3 nights a week. We have a small home and live in the upstairs so everything is very manageable. With online grocery shopping I do not need to be in the stores every week. Being a single is was mandatory that we all pitch in and take some of the stress off me to do everything. My girls are amazing and someday they will be very prepared to live on their own.
Our lists are pretty similar overall, although in my household we do laundry every other Saturday, just have it automatically set in my brain to collect all the clothes from the hampers as soon as I wake up on a Saturday morning to start the trek downstairs where my washing machine is.
Dishes are also hardly ever overlooked because it can be so frustrating to try to cook something or make a pot of coffee when they are piled high in the sink.
We also tend to cook at home precisely for the reasons you gave, and vacuuming also happens semi-regularly because we have dogs and if you don't do it, it just becomes a huge, hairy mess.
We live in a small condo, so my priorities are
1. Definitely a spotless kitchen at almost all times so there is never a reason for insects to come into our place (plus with multiple food allergies in the family, obnoxious cleanliness is a must - even though all meals are homemade. Cleaning as I go has become second-nature to save my sanity, especially when I learned that some neighbors had dealt with roaches - ewww!). My kitchen is also tiny, so again, I have little choice.
2. Clean bathrooms at all times - one of my children and I each have super-sensitive sniffers and feel compelled to keep them obnoxiously spotless.
3. Vacuuming every other day. Even though we don't wear shoes indoors or live near a busy road, our dust bunnies magically multiply on a daily basis, and one of my kids has allergies so I often must vacuum daily with my bazillion-dollar (yet truly fabulous) Miehle HEPA vacuum.
4. Staying on top of paperwork.
I spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning and cooking, and as a result, there is way too much clutter building up and causing serious sleep-stealing stress.
I've just begun doing all the food prep and almost all the cooking on Saturdays, so that will free up some time to start dealing with the clutter, both kids' and adults'. Oh, and to start house hunting for an actual house!!
1) Cooking (ditto on expense and nutrition issues), although I do a "big cook/prep" and freeze once a week, which helps.
2) Dishes, because otherwise, in the big city, small visitors come. (Ew.)
3) Check mail/email and add to my to do book to make sure it's timely. Even if work is busy, I then can check that day to see if anything is priority and I can make a call, etc. on a five-minute work break.
Our big three are laundry, dishes, and garbage/recycling. If we keep up with laundry then everyone has what they need to wear and it doesn't smell (l work very hard to only do full loads). By keeping up with the dishes the kitchen looks better, we are able to cook, and it doesn't smell or attract creatures. Same idea with keeping up with the garbage/recycling- plus less clutter if recycling is dealt with.
After that, ideally the floors and bathroom are worked on. The bare bones plan is to deal with health and safety first so the bathroom would be fourth.