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“Housework is never done, but with a schedule you can be.”
Deniece Schofield
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Do you schedule your housekeeping or just ‘do the next thing’?
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Handmade Homeschool 
I guess I do, schedule that is. We have someone come every two weeks to clean for us. That morning we run around like crazy picking everything up and putting it away. We don’t “clean” for the cleaning woman, but it really helps us to cut down on clutter to know she is coming.
I like that quote. I can’t stand housework, so I simply don’t do it… but then, I also hate a messy house! Catch 22 situation here which often leaves me miserable.
One of the big issues I have with housework is that it’s NEVER finished. So maybe I need to make a schedule?
LOL, mind you, I’m awful with routines and schedules!
I came across a book written in 1948 entitled Making Housekeeping Easy by Dorothy Lois Abel. Parts of the book are laughable now but she says, quite sensibly I think, that “unless you want to find yourself on a kind of perpetual motion merry-go-round you must make a schedule”. She divides the day into daily and weekly housekeeping and includes (oh if only!!) “four hours to dawdle”. Now with three kids I never seem to have the time to dawdle but I do think it makes life a whole lot easier if I know that the grocery shopping is done on Monday and the laundry is done on Friday. Deniece Schofield’s quote is spot on!
LOL… I’m a repeat Fly-lady drop-out! Thankfully, my daughter is very organized and for a fee she does a lot of it!
I schedule main housekeeping but that doesn’t mean I’m ever ‘done’; since I do a couple things/day, my house is always tidy and organized (for the most part) but never perfect.
UGH>>>the bane of my existence. I just hate cleaning because it is never truly all done. Our house is too big and I have almost given up. I need a schedule, then a commitment to the schedule. Thanks for bringing it up, Sarah.
I am fortunate to have a housekeeper come every two weeks, so I do daily tidying and almost daily vacuuming of the high-traffic areas. Floor scrubbing and hardcore bathroom shining is left for my talented Sherri.
Moving and ruthlessly decluttering between our old home and new has really made it easy to tidy our new place.
One liberating day I realized my laundry was never, ever going to be done, but was always moving. There is always something being washed, always some things waiting to be folded and always something to put away. Once I realized I was moving the laundry in a circle and that it was in a continuous flow, it was MUCH less stressful for me to always have something in the hamper.
I too am a Flylady dropout. She is a bossy old thing!
I just invite people over so I have to clean in order not to embarrass my husband – that mean he usually cleans the bathroom, if we are not out of bleach. The kids do have regularly scheduled chores though.
By the way, I’m hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling this week – do you have a post you are willing to enter? You can just e-mail me the URL, I like your thoughtful musings.
-Christine
I like that idea of the laundry being in ‘continuous flow’.. Hmm…I’ll have to ponder that, as I think it applies to many things. For instance, I use the dishwasher and it gets the counter and sink ‘uncluttered’ and everything spic-and-span and then next thing you know, counter and sink full again, but no where to go because the dishwasher needs to be emptied!
I find that frustrating for some reason, ha ha!
I don’t have a schedule but I SHOULD. I work outside the home 4 days out of 5 and on those days I commute as well (total 2.5 hrs per day)…so time is at a premium. I find I clean mostly on Saturday mornings (well not this one, I had to bake a cake for a party and so I’ve been busy with that)… which makes me happy for the rest of the weekend. But I think if I did a little during the week (say, bathrooms on Friday nights maybe or during the commercials of a show), I might have less to do on Saturday.
I love the idea of schedules and planning. But I find that maybe I like the idea of planning more than actual working the plan. If that makes sense!