A Clean Start

From time to time I receive emails asking me how I keep my house so clean with six people living in it. I have to laugh when I get those questions. You should have been here last week! I'm the first person (my husband would be the second) to tell you that my house is never spotless or completely free of clutter. After all, it's not a museum; it's a house. We live in it. However, I do think that having a clean house is important. I want my home to be a haven for my family, their favorite place to be. Housecleaning is necessary if you want to have an inviting, comfortable home. It requires that dreaded four letter word w-o-r-k, and it requires planning. I'm a big list person. I make lists for everything and enjoy checking things off of my lists as I accomplish them. I have a binder where I keep a list of housekeeping routines and chores that need to be tackled throughout the year. I used to spend quite a bit of time writing out additional lists of daily household chores, but then last year I came across a useful tool that has saved me lots of time in the chore planning department. I ordered the Motivated Moms Chore Planner, and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that it was one of the best things I've ever spend a few bucks on. It was such a help to me that I put up an affiliate link in my sidebar because I wanted other ladies to know about it. The Motivated Moms Chore Planner is a printable chore list, available in eight different versions including a few that have a daily Bible reading plan, that can be downloaded and saved to your computer. You can then either print the full year out at once, print a week at a time, or just view it on your computer. These printable chore lists are just what you are looking for if you need to know exactly what to do each day around your home without having to plan it all out yourself. I just ordered my 2009 Daily Planner. You can view samples of the different planners here. Get a clean start on 2009! :)

Labels:

http://riverbendramblings.blogspot.com
~Riverbend Ramblings~
The days are long, but the years are short.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
A Clean Start
From time to time I receive emails asking me how I keep my house so clean with six people living in it. I have to laugh when I get those questions. You should have been here last week! I'm the first person (my husband would be the second) to tell you that my house is never spotless or completely free of clutter. After all, it's not a museum; it's a house. We live in it. However, I do think that having a clean house is important. I want my home to be a haven for my family, their favorite place to be. Housecleaning is necessary if you want to have an inviting, comfortable home. It requires that dreaded four letter word w-o-r-k, and it requires planning. I'm a big list person. I make lists for everything and enjoy checking things off of my lists as I accomplish them. I have a binder where I keep a list of housekeeping routines and chores that need to be tackled throughout the year. I used to spend quite a bit of time writing out additional lists of daily household chores, but then last year I came across a useful tool that has saved me lots of time in the chore planning department. I ordered the Motivated Moms Chore Planner, and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that it was one of the best things I've ever spend a few bucks on. It was such a help to me that I put up an affiliate link in my sidebar because I wanted other ladies to know about it. The Motivated Moms Chore Planner is a printable chore list, available in eight different versions including a few that have a daily Bible reading plan, that can be downloaded and saved to your computer. You can then either print the full year out at once, print a week at a time, or just view it on your computer. These printable chore lists are just what you are looking for if you need to know exactly what to do each day around your home without having to plan it all out yourself. I just ordered my 2009 Daily Planner. You can view samples of the different planners here. Get a clean start on 2009! :)

Labels:

10 Comments:
Blogger Faith said...
I clicked on your link but nothing came up.
I guess I can google it?
Would love to take a look.
Like you I do lists.
Drives my hubby nuts!
I've learned over the last couple of years though, now that I went back to teaching part time outside the home, to do a weekly list rather than a daily one. More managable for me and I can be flexible. It also helps now that my daughters are old enough to do some of the daily stuff as part of their "chores". I call it "teaching them life skills!" LOL

Blogger Paula said...
Faith,
Thanks for letting me know about the link problem. The button over in the sidebar is working. I'll work on the others. :)

Blogger Mrs. Julie Fink said...
What a neat post! I look forward to looking this up!

Blogger Mrs. Darling said...
Oh my you probably know i do not do lists but I do ahve to say that years a go I down loaded the motivated moms schedule and it was good. Back then it was all a free download, dont know if it still is or not. But I have to say that even though I am a professed list hater I did think that schedule was doable and one of the better ones out there.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Sounds like a great plan! (o:

Blogger Valerie said...
I love to make lists! Thanks for the link. I'll have to check that out.
I will tell the VUH ladies you said hello. Hope you have a fantastic New Year!!! :)

Blogger Susan said...
I'm looking at this and thinking about getting it. I "do" FlyLady, and she has helped me tremendously, but with the hectic schedules we keep sometimes, a list already made would be wonderful. I've never really gotten much past daily routines with FlyLady - minimal success with the monthly tasks. Since you've used it for a year already, does it really plan it all out for you, and include all aspects of housekeeping? Have you found it to have very many things that aren't applicable to you?

Thanks for posting the link and the personal endorsement; when someone I "know" and trust recommends something, it makes an impression.

Blogger Paula said...
Susan,
I have been a FlyBaby for years, but I've always struggled with in areas that only get attention once a month; sometimes with kids in the house you need to do certain things more often. I still have the zones in my head and still do one or two things there each week. I find that my house stays in better shape overall using the MM Planner. I can have an unexpected guest pop by without panic setting in.

With the Motivated Moms Planner, many of the chores listed occur each week on the same day. You may not find that they all apply to you. For instance, it says to change bathroom hand towels every other day. I don't always do that. But, most of the things that it lists weekly are things that I need to do each week instead of once a month (clean the microwave, restock toilet paper in the bathrooms, clean all the bathroom sinks and toilets, etc.). It also includes some seasonal chores like changing the a/c or furnace filter, wash windows, etc. If there are additional things that I need to do that aren't on the list, I just hand write them in.

There are also daily reminders in one column (make beds, take vitamins, prepare tomorrow's clothing, etc.). There is space to add more. These reminders help keep me on track during the day.

I use the one-week-to-a-page planner so that I can see everything that needs to be done each week.
You might like the page-per-day better. I consider it $8 very well spent.

Blogger Arlene said...
Hmmm... it's just the three of us right now so it hasn't been too crazy. (Well, I guess it gets crazy around this time of year no matter how small the family is!) But, it'll probably be completely different once the baby arrives, so I'll definitely look into this! Thanks for sharing with us less experienced homemakers :o)

Blogger Susan P. said...
I am always looking for better ways in which to keep up with all my homekeeping duties. I am going to check it out as soon as I leave here! Thanks so much for telling us about it ~ that's one of the reasons I love blogging because we can always get good tips and ideas from each other:)

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.