I used
to have a housekeeping schedule that I used to help me stay on top of
things. Nothing sucks more than to spend
an entire Saturday, or the whole weekend for that matter, cleaning house and
doing laundry. The schedule helped me to
fan out the chores throughout the week to minimize that happening, although it
still did from time to time.
Now
that we live in a tiny house things are much different. I no longer need my spreadsheet. Yes, that's right. I had my housekeeping schedule mapped out on
a spreadsheet. I'm a geek, what can I
say?
This is
how it works now:
Daily - make our beds, wash dishes, do a
load of laundry.
Every other day - sweep the floor.
Straighten up the RV and put things away that need to be put away.
Weekly - change sheets on the beds, sweep
and mop the floor, shake the rugs, clean the bathroom and empty the holding
tank, clean the kitchen, dump the trash & recycle bin, empty the litter
box.
Monthly - wipe out the refrigerator,
re-organize the pantry, clean out our vehicles and run them through a carwash.
I
usually wash dishes twice a day. About a
minute for each of us to make up our beds.
It takes about 40 minutes to wash a load of laundry and hang it up to
dry. About 35 minutes is the length of
the wash cycle and 5 minutes to hang it all up.
Later when it is dry it takes another five minutes or so to fold it all
and put it away.
We
change our beds on Sunday. It takes me
half an hour to clean the bathroom, kitchen and to sweep and mop the
floor. The girls shake out the rugs,
dump the trash & recycle bin as well as the litter box. By the time I'm done so are they.
I spend
less than 20 minutes cleaning out the refrigerator and organizing my
pantry. I actually enjoy this chore a
lot. I find it inspires me and gets me
thinking about meal planning and grocery shopping. I will usually update my grocery list with
the things I see I am running low on at this time too.
We
don't allow things to accumulate inside our vehicles so a quick run through the
car wash and stop by the vacuum cleaners has that chore done in about 15
minutes. To me, it is definitely worth
the $7 a month I pay to do this.
Our
landlady is responsible for the outside area.
She has the pasture mowed by one of her grandchildren as is needed and
sprays for weeds. Occasionally I sweep
or hose off our RV pad. We are
surrounded by gravel so it makes for pretty maintenance free living.
Tiny
house living has definitely made a huge difference in the amount of time I
spend keeping up our home. I definitely
notice I have a lot more time available to do other things and I really enjoy
that a lot.
How do
you stay on top of your household chores?
Wow, you are good!! I keep my house clean, but I do not have a spreadsheet. Love how you have things timed. One minute per bed is pretty precise :)
ReplyDeleteI am glad to no longer have a spreadsheet. I love that it doesn't take very long to keep house now!
DeleteI feel like we are cleaning constantly. Our house is small with too much stuff and two little ones pulling out toys constantly. Need to run the washer once a day and the dishwasher once or twice a day just to keep up. We're really trying to get the girls in a better habit of putting things away when they r done with it.
ReplyDeleteIt does help a lot to have less stuff. I figured that out that out the hard way. I spent years de-cluttering and purging. My kids are involved in the housework so it helps too. They are big helpers to me.
DeleteHi, love the post was wondering where you got the image of the cleaning bucket and if you had to pay for the rights to use it? I would like to use it on my blog. Thanks for your consideration.
ReplyDelete