Becoming domestic

[gcuthbe1]

I am greatly in need of your best tips and advice for cleaning (daily to semiannual frequencies), decluttering, organization, cooking, grocery shopping, and any other domestic activity. I am pretty clueless. I don't know how to motivate myself, and I don't naturally excel at nor enjoy any of these activities. Please help me transform myself.

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[Thirteen]

I'm a big fan of the 10 minute scan at the end of the day (checking for things that are out of place).

For other things: I take all laundry daily and start a load before I leave the house. I also unload the dishwasher daily.

We created a "staples" spreadsheet for grocery purchases.

I have a lawn service: with two kids and DH working all the time, there wasn't enough time to mow our big lot.

Decluttering: make a list of each room, and then do 1 room at a time. I'm a big believer in donating things that aren't used or worn with regularity, so I get rid of lots of things.


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[scrub-jay]

Clutter and lack of "home" for things is a big problem around here. Where does the clutter come from?! Gah!

[Deebs]

I have a few things I do, but my house definitely looks like six people live here.
Every morning, I start a load of laundry and unload the dishwasher before I do anything
I really, really try to "make" an extra bag of garbage and a donation bag every week. When it was just two of us, it was once a month, but more people=more stuff.
I keep Clorox wipes in every bathroom and do a quick wipe down of doorknobs, light switches, sinks once a day.
I group the rooms in my house for dusting and vacuuming and then have them on a schedule.
1 set of sheets gets washed every day. I wash and then put the, right back on the bed. Extras are only for middle of the night accidents and illness.
I'm awful about grocery shopping and meal planning.


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[MDPhDWife]

The whole family does a fifteen minute tidy up every night putting away things that are out of place. This time is also spent catching up a chore. The kids still whine about it, but really if the four of us spend 15 minutes tidying up, that's equal to an hour of work for me.

As for shopping, I use the Cozi app to keep a running list. DH and the kids also have the app on their phones so they can add items to the list when they're low or out. The app is also awesome for keeping the family calendar.


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[civilspouse]

I am not the best at keeping the house clean. I try but it seems like with two kids and a dog it's never ending. I always make sure all the dishes are done after dinner and try to unload in the morning if it's needed. I try to make the kids pick up before dinner too so at least the living room and kitchen aren't disaster areas. For shopping I try to go weekly and I make a meal plan before going. I had made up a cute menu but it's easiest to just sketch on a piece of paper. I look at the week ahead to see when DH is on call (I will make something easy the kids like) or we have some evening activity. I usually plan 1-2 nights as leftovers/freezer otherwise we end up with too much food. I don't always stick to what I'd planned for a certain day but I like not really having to come up with what to make for dinner every night. With this system we rarely have last minute grocery runs too and it really doesn't take that long.


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[SoonerTexan]

I'm by no means a master at this, but the things that do help:

I try and do a cleanup of the house after the kids go to sleep--it usually only takes 30 minutes. We pick up all the toy clutter, clean the kitchen, and load the dishwasher. It makes life a lot easier to wake up to a clean home because cleaning with the kids around is tough. I find I have to stay on top of it or it reaches a particular tipping point. Below that tipping point, I can keep everything together. Past that, it all spirals and takes me days to get things back in shape.

Laundry--I pretty much do a load every day--but we have 5 people and my husband goes through 3 sets of clothes a day (cycling kit, scrubs, lounge clothes ugh).

Meal planning I have really gotten down well when I sit down and do it. We go to Costco for certain staples, but otherwise I peruse the Sprouts sale flyer and my pinterest board of recipes and make a list. I pick 3-5 things I'd like to make that week and then make sure I have the ingredients for those meals + staples we always buy. I don't plan specific meals for specific days--instead I write down our options on a chalkboard to remind me and just make what make sense. We do a lot of leftovers and I don't cook every night. It's not perfect, but when I take the 30 minutes to do it, we rarely feel the need to eat out and we spend way less money.

One thing I just loathe: mopping the kitchen floor. It's always gross because of my kids, but we have so much tile that it takes me an hour to do it all. Hate hate hate it.

[spotty_dog]

LOL. When I got married that was me. Not a natural domestic at all. Hubby would do my laundry when it exploded out of the closet where I kept my dirties (he kept up on his own laundry,) I would clean the important parts of the apartment on the weekend -- oh, how the German shepherd hair would build up in between weekly vacuumings -- and groceries got purchased when we were out of important stuff.

Something I've found really compelling was the conversation we had a while back (here on iMSN) about emotional labor. The upshot, for me, was that emotional labor (which basically includes the desire and motivation to do the stuff that makes your life as a couple easier and nicer) is like any other skill. Some people are naturally talented, but for most people success comes from regular practice. The worst thing is just to assume you're no good at it and never try. And next to worst is to assume that as soon as you start trying you should instantly be good. It just doesn't work that way -- nothing does.

I've been practicing for as long as I've been an adult, and making baby steps. Speaking of which, at some stage of development I think FlyLady is a good resource, though few people really thrive on her email crap. I made a lot of progress during the months I listened to her podcast though.

I like having books to reference, but that's probably because I'm a huge giant nerd. I got my copy of Home Comforts when I first moved out of the dorms in 1999. It's in tatters now. I like KonMari a lot, and her second book Spark Joy dovetails nicely with the first. Oh, and I really like this one book called House Works that encompasses a lot of cleaning and organizing and everyday domesticity stuff. (And the author is a medspouse, according to her bio -- she says something like when she married her second husband she knew she'd have to get her house keeping up to dawkter's wife standards…)

Oh, and Sidetracked Home Executives. That one really upped my cleaning game. It's based around giving yourself cyclic reminders of chores -- they use a box full of index cards, but I use a system of reminders in my iCal.

Good luck and have fun (Nesty McNesterson? )

[spotty_dog]

Laundry--I pretty much do a load every day--but we have 5 people and my husband goes through 3 sets of clothes a day (cycling kit, scrubs, lounge clothes ugh).

Sympathy five! Typically, every other day I can do a full load of just hubby's things, and then another full load of the kids and me combined.

[alotofyarn]

I am not a master, and I'm reading this for tips for myself. I do have a cleaning lady who comes every other week, which helps.

But for shopping, we do one trip a week, and we use the OurGroceries app, which lets both of us add things from our phone, and we always have the list with us for whoever goes to the store. We usually do that on Sunday evenings, after the kids are in bed, because it seems easiest these days.

[OrionGrad]

I hate clutter, so we really don't have much. Everything we own has a 'place' and I'm ruthless about throwing things away, but I can take it too far and it annoys DH sometimes. I pick up toys after the boys go to bed each night. It's pointless to do it before then because they'll just get the same stuff back out.

I will admit that I'm not the best at actual cleaning. We have a housekeeper now, and she does all the things I hate (mainly cleaning bathrooms & floors). I load the dishwasher after dinner each night and unload it while the boys are eating breakfast in the morning. I wipe down all the tabletops after dinner each night, too. I do everyone's laundry (except DH, he's on his own) whenever DS1's basket gets full, which ends up being about twice a week + another load of towels, etc.

As far as meal planning is concerned, I usually sit down on Sunday mornings, open up Pinterest, and make our menu for the week. If DH is home, then I do my grocery shopping on Sunday mornings. If he's not going to be home at all on Sunday and there's no possibility of me getting to the store by myself, then I'll wait until Monday. If I have to go grocery shopping with both boys, I'd at least rather go on a Monday morning when the store will be empty.

Moving into a big house has really been a blessing and a curse, as far as cleaning is involved. I love it because I finally have a PLACE for everything, but obviously there's physically so much more space to clean, so that's the downside.

[katiecrna]

Becoming domestic

I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to organization and cleaning tips! There are schedules you can print out if needed

My style is more minimalistic. I hate clutter and everything has to have a place to go.

[Howfunitis]

I suck at cleaning and housekeeping and everything in between. I do laundry once every 2 weeks. I clean up the living room up every night. Everything gets loaded up into the dishwasher and stays there. Only time I can do much of anything is when my husband is home. If he is home, he keeps both girls occupied while I get everything done. And because we moved it also means unpacking and still organizing things. Or leaving them be till we buy more pieces of furniture.


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[MrsK]

The 5 minute clean up. I do this with my family several times daily. Usually transition times just before dinner. Set a timer for 5 minutes and everyone picks up frantically for 5 minutes. When the timer goes off, we are done no matter how much or how little is left to do. You can tolerate anything for 5 minutes and it's amazing what you can accomplish with 3-5 people working for 5 minutes. And it's kind of fun.

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[gcuthbe1]

Great tips, putting these into action and [MENTION=985]spotty_dog[/MENTION] yesss I'll practice, practice and try to keep a good perspective on it. I think podcasts could be very motivating to me. I like the apps everyone uses! [MENTION=5266]katiecrna[/MENTION] [MENTION=1924]OrionGrad[/MENTION] oh yes pinterest seems to be my new best friend!

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