Clean and Tidy - August

Well, some of you may have noticed (I know my husband has for sure) that I've fallen behind on my blog amidst the busyness of summer. I've missed a couple of Make Me Smile Monday's and July's Clean and Tidy. So, with August coming to an end I figure I'd better get my butt in gear and put together this months Clean and Tidy post for anyone who might be interested. :)

I've always loved the idea of a cleaning schedule. So about a year and a half ago I did some searching online and fell in love with these two printouts I found.

The first one I found at Iheart Organizing. So beautiful!

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-challenge-project-household_9757.html   (If you follow the link you'll find an amazing post on making a "Household Binder", which I have done and will write about another time. I love my binder!)

The other one was designed by my friend Estelle on her blog. Also so beautiful!


http://estellelle.blogspot.com/p/freebies-from-me.html


So after trying these beautiful printouts - seriously I tried BOTH - and realized they didn't seem to be working for me. (Even though I wanted them to so badly!) I discovered something about myself that made it hard for me to use either one: I don't like feeling "boxed in" to a housekeeping schedule. For example, I found it hard to designate Tuesday for vacuuming because maybe I wouldn't want to vacuum on Tuesday, maybe I'd want to dust! I do realize this must be kind of unusual because these types of schedules are a very common theme amongst the uber-organized.

Regardless of the fact that this may be a little bizarre, discovering this little quirk of mine meant I could now try and find a way around it. It's still a work in progress but I think I've discovered the thing that works for me!

Again I went searching online and found this at The Project Girl:

 http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2009/06/08/weekly-chore-schedule-free-download/comment-page-2/

So instead of looking to my chart and having it tell me what I need to do, I simply fill it in with the chores I have completed when they're done. To help keep me on track (ie. to make sure nothing slips my attention) I have a list of my daily, weekly, monthly and Spring/Fall cleaning chores in my Household Binder.

And before I end my post I thought I'd share one other thing! :) I used to stress myself out wanting to have everything in the entire house freshly cleaned just in time for family or friends to arrive until I realized it was completely unrealistic! With three children running around I find it takes me a good 5 days to clean my house from top to bottom so why would I expect myself to be able to do it all in one day simply because people were coming over? Especially when having guests over means I'm taking extra care with my meal planning! ;)

I now have a separate "getting the house ready for guests chore list" which prioritizes what parts of the house will be most freshly cleaned before guests arrive. At this point it's only a mental list but it works! :)

Top Priority (I want to make sure I have time for these things the day of):
1) Clean the bathroom.
2) Sweep/mop the main floor/side and front entrance.
3) Wash dishes/clear kitchen counter.
4) Over all house tidy.
5) Food prep.

Medium Priority: (I would like these done the day before.) 

6) Make sure all clean laundry is folded and put away.

7) Vacuum upstairs/downstairs.

8) Dust main floor.

9) Windows/Mirrors main floor

Low Priority (If I can fit this in the day before/day of I will, but if I need to I let it go.):

10) Dust basement.

Ideally I would like to have all of these chores done the day of and the day before we have people coming over, but recognizing what chores matter the most to me helps me pace myself. Any other chores need to be done earlier in the week.

Do you ever find it stressful trying to get your house just how you like it for guests? If you think this might work for you give it a try! :) You might just find it helps take some of the pressure off!