Category: Organized Home

Is your house a place of peace for you or does the clutter and all the cleaning that is left undone make you anxious, embarrassed, overwhelmed, and defeated?  If someone called and you needed to be ready to entertain in 1 hour or less, could you do it without having a panic attack?

I LOVE to have people over to visit and hang out.  My mind is cluttered enough with thoughts of kids, #hotfarmerhubbie, business, community and life that if my house is cluttered or unkempt I can get some serious anxious feelings and begin the negative self talk.  Also it causes major distraction for me trying to work from home.

As a mom of 5 kids, that we had in 7 years, yes on purpose, I HAD TO transform my old ways of keeping up a house before kids to something more systematic and routine with the small amount of time I had daily.

After reading  “ Large Family Logistics “ by: Kim Brenneman it gave me some great ideas on how to break up things in our household management that would give me back time and some peace of mind.

For our house I split the rooms up so I was only cleaning 1 room for about 30-45 min a day!  If I miss a day because of life, I know I can just do it the next week on that day.

Thursdays is kitchen

For me this looks like

* put away everything that doesn’t go in the kitchen

* take everything off counter and wipe them down with my DIY Thieves spray

* Spray and wipe down the outsides of all appliances and the inside of the microwave

* scrub out kitchen sink with baking soda plus capful of Thieves cleaner, 1-2 drops lemon essential oil

* vacuum the floor, I don’t sweep much because this just throws dust back into the air my vacuum has a floor setting.

* mop with my norwex mop or I LOVE the spin mop, using a cap full of Thieves cleaner, dash of vinegar, few drops of Lemon essential oil

If I turn on some music and put my phone in the other room or on DO NOT DISTURB and stay focused I can knock this out in 45 min to an hour.  Create a playlist that motivates you. The kitchen is my most time consuming room so I place it later in the week when I’m caught up with the computer work and errands etc.

Other options for your kitchen day

* clean out fridge, maybe 1x a month

* light fixtures or ceiling fans

* pick 3-5 cabinets to wipe the front off every week

* pick 1 drawer to de-clutter and clean out a week

As my kids have matured and now range 5-12 years old I created a family notebook that lists step by step cleaning each room.  They can pull out the laminated paper and follow it to complete whichever room they are responsible for. You can also check them off with dry erase marker.

I refuse to be the maid for my children and they are required to help because they live here and need to take some pride in their home and their personal living spaces.  We are called to be a good steward of our blessings and this includes our home and its contents.

Hope this helps you get to pondering a more daily house cleaning routine.  It has been fantastic for us!

You will find that if you do this small change of cleaning 1 room in more detail daily this will free up time in other areas and once it becomes habit you’ll find it easier to manage other areas of the home and life.

I am very particular about the cleaning and body products in our home.  They need to work, have ZERO dyes or fake fragrance (gives me awful headaches).  I have done research for us and changed a little over the years but the following are what stay around consistently.   I also take into consideration our carbon footprint as a big family we obviously would tend to have more waste.  So our products when going down the drain need to be more Earth friendly and not corrosive.

Young Living Thieves Household cleaner– is concentrated and used for ALL THINGS

I create my own all surface spray using these bottles
Lemon Essential oil from Young Living

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