I did two loads of laundry and folded and put away the laundry as soon as the dryer stopped.
This never happens. I’m good about transferring laundry from washer to dryer right away, because ew, mildew-y laundry. But clean laundry can sit in the dryer or the laundry basket for a good long time before it gets folded and put away.
Folding the laundry as soon as the dryer stops is a game changer. First of all, you’re only folding one load so it goes very quickly. Second of all, the laundry is all warm and not yet wrinkled. Third and best of all, you have nothing hanging over your head that you should be doing, because it’s done!
This has only happened twice, but it feels so great that I’m going to challenge myself to do laundry this way all the time.
I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions for 2021, because I’m self-actualized. JK, I’m not self-actualized, but I have finally managed to nail the resolutions that I’ve been making every year for the past few 20 years. These are 1) flossing my teeth, and 2) keeping my house clean.
I can’t point to what exactly made these habits stick after so many years, but I do read a lot of books about habits, including Atomic Habits and Tiny Habits, so the advice must have stuck in my head.
Here’s what I think made it work for me.
Flossing – I have a set time to do it (after breakfast) – I found a floss that I like and I buy it at Costco so I never run out. I also keep it out on the counter so I have a visual cue. – Practice makes perfect. I used to hate flossing because the floss would get stuck between my teeth and my gums would bleed. I guess I figured it out over the years because now I can do it no problem. It also takes literally a minute or so. – Positive reinforcement. The last two times I went to the dentist, he said to keep doing whatever I’m doing and that I should come back in 6 months. 6 months! I know that’s normal, but dentists have had me on an every 4 month schedule for years. – Tracking. At first I was tracking the habit and trying not to miss a day but I’ve stopped tracking now that I have it down.
Housecleaning – I have a set time to do it (noon) – I’m following a system, so I have specific instructions on what to do each day. I don’t have to think. – My daily tasks don’t take that long = I made my own cleaning products which smell good and are in pretty containers – My house looks great so I feel rewarded. – I track my progress in my planner. Don’t underestimate the power of checking something off a list.
I said in an earlier post that you don’t have to wait until your house is decluttered before you start cleaning. You CAN clean a cluttered house. I stand by that but want to make a distinction between two kinds of clutter.
The first kind of clutter is stuff that is not put back where it belongs. The clothes on the dresser. The clean laundry still in the basket. The mail on the counter. The dishes in the dish drainer. The box of shoes that my husband ordered online that sat on the piano bench for…days? Weeks?
The second kind of clutter is stuff that shouldn’t be in your house at all anymore. The cassette tapes from my kids’ childhood. Two identical nutcrackers. My pj’s from junior high school. JK, I decluttered those long ago, but whenever my husband and I argue about drawer space, he brings up those pj’s as if they’re still there!
I am definitely attacking the first type of clutter in my new cleaning routine. We live in a small house so if things are left out, it makes the whole house look messy no matter how shiny the wood floors are. Honestly, it’s depressing being surrounded by clutter. It’s also easier to deal with it as it comes, rather than letting it pile up. Speaking from experience here!
I’m ignoring the second kind of clutter for now. It’s mostly all put away, out of sight, or it’s relegated to rooms that I’m not in regularly. It feels overwhelming to deal with that kind of entrenched clutter right now, and I don’t want to risk the progress I’ve made with my housecleaning routine by biting off too much.
Maybe someday I’ll have a clean and decluttered house. But for now, I’ll settle for mostly clean and mostly tidy.
Clean Mama, the system I’m following, advocates for using non-toxic products and includes recipes for making your own.
I’m not against toxic chemicals in my cleaning products per se, if it means that I have to do less scrubbing, but if there’s a natural alternative that works well, I’ll try it. Truth be told, most of my cleaning is done with Dr. Bronners mixed with water, and Bar Keepers Friend cleanser so I’m good. But I decided to give DIY a try.
I bought some pretty spray bottles and found some mason jars in my cabinets to hold my cleaning solutions. I’m convinced that I use the DIY products more because they’re attractive and smell nice.
Yeah, I know it says dill pickles. It’s all about repurposing. And isn’t the calligraphy lovely?
Here’s the matchup.
All purpose cleaner: used for counters, cabinets, general cleaning DIY (water, vinegar, alcohol, essential oil) vs. Dr. Bronners and water: Both work equally well. Tie.
Cleanser: used for sinks, stovetop, and tub DIY (baking soda and essential oil) vs. Bar Keepers Friend cleanser: DIY worked fine on sinks and stovetop and smelled divine (clove and sweet orange essential oils) but was no match for my perpetually dingy tub. Cleanser stays in the rotation.
Scrubbing tool: used for sinks and tub Loofah vs. scrubby thing: the loofah has a nice aesthetic, but there’s no beating the scrubby. Does anyone know what it’s really called and where I can get a lifetime supply? My mom got me a bunch years ago but I’ve almost gone through them all. The loofah was kind of useless.
What is the scrubby on the right called and where can I get a lifetime supply?
Wood floor cleaner: DIY (water, vinegar, olive oil, essential oil) vs. Dr. Bronners and water: I really like the DIY mixture. Dr. Bronners cleans a little better maybe, but the floors look a little dull after. The olive oil in the DIY makes the floors shine. Obvi I don’t use it for my kitchen and bathroom floors, just wood. I still use Dr. Bronners and water for kitchen and bathroom floors.
Stainless steel cleaner: used for refrigerator doors and stove DIY (vinegar on a damp microfiber cloth followed by olive oil on a microfiber cloth) vs. the cleaning spray that I got when I bought the refrigerator: Most definitely the DIY. The spray smells horrible (likely toxic) and leaves the refrigerator doors streaky. The vinegar didn’t seem like it was working well at first, but when I went over it with the olive oil, it worked like a dream. My fridge has never looked so good.
Tile/grout cleaner: for tile in bathtub DIY (hydrogen peroxide and tea tree essential oil) vs. Tilex shower cleaner: This is a tough one. Tilex and other similar cleaners work great but are highly irritating. The window MUST be open and you pretty much can’t be in the room when it’s doing its thing. That can’t be healthy. I didn’t try the DIY until about 3 weeks into my routine so there wasn’t really a lot of mildew to clean away. Therefore, it seems fine. I guess where I come down is to use a harsh cleaner if you have a lot of mildew but hydrogen peroxide works fine for maintenance.
Toilet cleaner: DIY (oxygen whitening powder for laundry) vs. Pine Sol: Both work equally well. Maybe the DIY is a little better?
That’s it. I didn’t do DIY glass cleaner because I have tons of glass cleaner that I want to use up plus I ran out of containers.
After years of being housekeeping challenged, I have finally found a routine that works for me. And all it took was a global pandemic and being stuck at home for nine months.
Seriously though, after being home this long, I decided that maybe I could make a cleaning routine work. Me being me, I started by researching housekeeping blogs and came across Clean Mama. Her routine was pretty simple and I liked her aesthetic. I tried it and to my shock, it took right away. I’ve been doing it for a month and my house looks great.
Clean Mama advocates doing a few things, like making beds and wiping counters, every day, and then you do one chore per day. So Monday is bathrooms, Tuesday dusting, Wednesday vacuuming, Thursday mopping, and Friday kitchen (my adaptation). I do my chore at noon, after my morning meetings and before lunch. I actually look forward to it, if you can believe that. My morning meetings must be pretty bad!
I could see the difference right away. My wood floors went from dingy to golden brown and shiny. My bathtub went from gray to light gray white with almost no mildew on the shower tiles.
A word about decluttering. Most housekeeping books and blogs focus on decluttering, and say that you can’t really clean a cluttered house. But, yes you can. I am very bad at decluttering because so many useless items spark joy for me. Like that drawer of cassette tapes that I lovingly made and listened to when my kids were little (they’re now in their 20’s). For example. If I waited until my house was decluttered before I cleaned it, it would never get cleaned.
I am so happy with my clean house. And even more happy that I was able to crack the code on how to keep it that way.
As I found myself sitting in my family room while my mother washed all my crystal, I thought that there has to be a blog entry in here somewhere. The thought that at age 52, I still have my mother cleaning my house for me must warrant a mention, right?
My parents don’t come over often. They live 40 miles away and since they’re older and my mother has Parkinson’s Disease, we usually come to their house. But it was Labor Day weekend and my parents felt like getting out of the house so I invited them over for a Labor Day barbecue. ON LABOR DAY. However, since we usually get together for dinner on Sundays, they preferred to come on Sunday instead. No big deal, we have no plans for Sunday, why not?
And then I went into mini panic mode. Had I known my parents were coming over on Sunday evening, I wouldn’t have still been in my nightgown at 1:30 in the afternoon. I still had to go grocery shopping and to the gym. When would I have time to mop the wood floor and vacuum the dining room rug and, and, and. My mother mops the kitchen floor the day before the cleaning person comes. Not kidding. As clean as my kitchen is, she always finds the one dirty spot. Like the inside of microwave, or the wall next to the stove that catches the grease spatters. Which she will then proceed to clean.
My parents come over and the first thing my mother says is that the house looks nice. When they downsized and moved to California a year ago, we inherited some of their old furniture and my mother was pleased to see how well it integrated into our house. Then she commented on how clean the kitchen looked. I haven’t always been as tidy as I should be and so she’s always surprised when my kitchen is clean. I’ve reformed, I want to shout, my kitchen is always clean now! But who am I kidding, I just happened to have cleaned it yesterday.
So not having anything to do in the kitchen, my mother turned her attention to my place mats, which she wanted to iron. I don’t iron place mats. Actually I don’t iron, period. But I certainly don’t iron place mats. It’s not the Good Enough way. Unless you get relaxation from ironing and/or are really into smooth place mats. Not me.
When I wouldn’t let her iron the place mats, she went for the china cabinet. She started taking out crystal bowls and vases to wash. I didn’t protest. The crystal was dusty and I am unlikely to ever wash it, not really caring about crystal but being too sentimental to get rid of it as most of the pieces were wedding gifts. Picture this: a woman with Parkinson’s carrying fragile crystal to the sink and washing each piece with slippery soap. But did I care? Not a bit. I knew that she wouldn’t break anything because cleaning is her thing. Her own crystal is amazingly sparkling. And the job was giving her so much satisfaction.
So here’s me, a 52 year old woman, with my mother cleaning my house for me. It shows you that family dynamics don’t change. It made me feel grateful that we’re not yet at the stage when the roles are reversed and I have to take care of her. Because when that happens, I find it hard to imagine that I’ll be washing her crystal.
Good Enough Life Coach 