How to keep up with it all?

Christina - posted on 06/21/2011

Check out flylady.net.....has totally changed the way I feel about housework.

Shannen - posted on 06/21/2011

Couldn't keep dh happy so he left! Jk although not about him leaving.
I don't know i just do it. I wash clothes every day and do dishes after every meal. Folding clothes is my downfall i hate doing it. I do the floors everyday. Everything else kinda just gets done when needed.

Stifler's - posted on 06/20/2011

I load the machine at night and turn it on or first thing in the morning and hang it out when Renae goes for a nap (Logan comes out to the clothesline with me). Load the dishwasher as I go and turn it on after showers and baths are all over in the evening. Vacuum and mop on mondays. Clean windows on Monday. Clean shower monday night while i'm in the shower. Wash bottles and sterilise in the microwave steriliser whenever 2 bottles have been used (in case I forget and have no bottles). Clean up after each meal is over. Wipe counters and dust on Mondays. I put all papers in the filing cabinet if I'm done with them like bills, pay slips, rent reciepts, general reciepts, tax invoices, warranty info etc. Anything not dealt with goes on the fridge. Toys all get swept into Logan's room, they will only get tipped out again so who cares. Bath toys get stacked on the bath ledge when the plug is pulled though. Mats get washed once a month so do sheets (in winter, more like every week in Summer... on Mondays).

Karen - posted on 06/20/2011

With toys, i help pick them up once a month or so and as i do i toss broken toys and the non broken go to donation. I usually keep them until I go through clothes. Like the above poster. I just toss them in a bin and when they are full I load them up and drop em off. To help with picking up I either grab a bag or give the kids their own bags to toss toys into and they carry them to their toy box. They love to scatter them all through the house. It allows you to carry more at one time. As for the house and the laundry I like everyone else's post. It's impossible to keep it all done up. The kids don't care and my husband has learned to deal. Somewhere along the line I have gotten better at keeping necessities washed up. I guess after running out of certain things enough times has taught me to keep up with them. Such as socks, underwear, at least 1 clean outfit for each member of the family.

Kelly - posted on 06/20/2011

I can't function if my home isn't orderly-I waste too much time looking for crap that should be spent on my J. So...here's what we do.

Grown-up papers. We have a table next to the door that catches them all as they come into the house. Junk mail goes directly in the bin, the rest goes on the table for dh to get once a week. In his office, we have a file cabinet--the top drawer has 14 folders, one for each month, one for permanent papers, and one for something else--I always forget, dh did it. The bottom drawer has a folder for each year going back 15 years. As dh pays bills and does what he does, he files everything in the appropriate month. At the end of the year, he pulls what has to be saved, condenses it to a folder and drops it into the bottom. He then discards the 16 year old folder (He's a lot older than me, so his records actually go back that far).

For school papers. I have a picture box that sits on a shelf in our living room. The same table that catches grown-up papers catches kid papers as they come into the house. Some things go directly in the bin, the stuff I want to keep goes into the picture box. If the box gets too full, I have to toss some stuff. At the end of the school year, that box goes onto a shelf in our library, and an empty box goes onto the shelf in the living room. Yes, I already have the empty boxes stacked on the shelves in the library--they look pretty, and that way I know I have the room when I need it.

There is always a bin in the garage for clothes J has outgrown and toys he no longer plays with. I just toss them in there as I come across them, then once it is full, I run it over to Goodwill.

I also keep 3 big baskets in the living room for toys. J prefers the living room for playing b/c he is an only child, and who wants to be alone in their room all the time? When it's time to pick up, rather than making several trips to his room and back to put away toys, we just fill a basket. Since he usually gets on kicks and plays with the same toys for a while, we usually just leave them in the living room until he's ready to swap them out. The other two baskets hold wooden blocks and Hot Wheels (all the time favorites).

We live in a small house....actually, small is an understatement; some would call it microscopic. On the plus side, I can clean the whole thing in less than 2 hours, including polishing the wood and doing the inside windows!

Lissa - posted on 06/20/2011

Cooking and cleaning can wait till tomorrow, for babies grow up as we've learned to our sorrow, so quiet down cobwebs dust go to sleep I'm rocking my baby 'cause babies don't keep.


I saw that on here somewhere and it's true, while your children are young don't even try to keep things as they were before you had them. While your children live at home the place will always be messier, there will never be enough hours in the day to get it all done. I used to have three boxes of toys, two in the cupboard and one in the living room and alternated them so they never got bored but there were never too many to pick up. Now of course the toys are in their rooms so I don't have that issue. Get a filing box to put your papers in. Turn cleaning into a game and let the little ones "help" they have a lot of fun with dusters. As long as nobody is at risk of getting some horrible disease from the house, relax, your children will remember that you spent time with them, they wont care if you washed the floor three times every day.

Brooke - posted on 06/20/2011

My dream at the moment is to buy a filing cabinet. I have this idea that if I file everything in it's own folder, then magically the floor will be clean, all that stuff in the cupboards will clear itself up, and the children will put their clothes in neat piles (sorted, of course) in the laundry. Then I look around, and come back to reality. And I know that there will always be more dishes, I will have to drag clothes from the bedrooms at least once a week, and that box of old toys on top of the cupboard MAY make it to the op-shop sometime in the next 12 months. But it's okay. One day the kids will leave home, and I can stuuf all that junk into those rooms and close the door. Then have some long overdue time with hubby. While I watch him sort his own clothes. :)