Housework routine

BatOutOfhell

Well I'm a pro (get paid to do other people's cleaning) and I would say 2 hours would more than cover it. Start with the bathroom - clean the shower,bath, loo, basin, shelves etc but leave the floor til later.
Dust upstairs rooms including mirrors, windows and pictures.
Dust the bannisters and other bits as you go down the stairs.
Dust the rooms downstairs as you did upstairs but add on plumping cushions and wiping grubby marks off furniture/walls.
Head into the kitchen and wipe cupboard fronts, worktops, large and small appliances etc.
Lastly - hoover all the floors- start upstairs then the stairs, then the downstairs rooms, including any hard floors and the kitchen (sweeping takes too long and tends to just move alot of the dust around rather than get rid of it).
Then you can get the mop out and clean the bathroom and kitchen floor if they need it.
First couple of times it will take slightly longer and you won't have time to clean the windows. Then it gets alot easier and you should easily be able to do all of it inside 2 hours.

fantasia322

ceridwen wrote: »

Housework is just "one of those (regrettable necessity) things" and I'm simply not the slightest bit interested in it (errr...like most of us then I suspect:rotfl:). So - I like cooking...but thats as far as it goes.

Having been brought up by a typical "1950s housewife" - it does grate on me to see my house looking a tip - as I have rarely seen a thing out of place in my parents' house - its just always completely tidy, completely clean, etc, etc. Always was - even when I was young...:(

I havent got a hope in heck of achieving anything like the same standards as well as having to do a full-time job - even though my house is smaller (in fact I would say - particularly because my house is smaller - so a lot more of "gotta shift A, before I can clean B").

I thought if I try and sorta "trick myself" into regarding myself as a cleaner doing a job of work in someone else's house that I might manage to motivate myself a bit better to keep on top of it.

So - I guess cleaners don't expect to do things like doing the washing, cleaning the fridge, tidying anything before they clean up.

So - if I "employ myself" (in my own mind anyways iyswim) in that capacity and expect myself to work at a reasonable pace and with a coffeebreak halfway through then - how long should I expect myself to take for one small house with 4 rooms, kitchen, bathroom, main area to cover:
- dust throughout
- wash hall/kitchen/bathroom floors
- hoover the 4 rooms/stairs/landing
- collect and take out rubbish
- clean kitchen (including the cleaning inside the fridge I wouldnt expect anyone else to do and cleaning the ceramic cookertop....)
- clean bathroom
- iron (bearing in mind I take Shirley Conran's view of this - so its only "exterior" clothes I iron - I dont do towels/bedding/nightdresses/petticoats/teatowels).

PROS - Only myself to clean up after
CONS - No conservatory - so that means I regularly track dirt/wet in from the garden, which adds to the cleaning.

So - glad of any objective eyes cast on this as to:
- how long I would expect myself to take working at reasonable pace (not counting the coffeebreak)
- most "time and motion" conscious way to approach this.

EDIT: I'm planning on doing this as just one session per week - not a Flylady-style little bit at a time as and when...

I'm very new to Flylady stuff but just wanted to say i lurve your signature x

aintshesweet

Ironing.... towels?? Doesn't that make them stiff, and rough?

Carolyntia

aintshesweet wrote: »

Ironing.... towels?? Doesn't that make them stiff, and rough?

My mum used to iron towels...and socks! It's no wonder that she hates housework with a passion....she makes it so hard for herself :rotfl:

Mrs_Arcanum

There is always something more interesting to do than Housework for me - and so it shows. Can only clean as part of a team effort and then it is like most peoples spring cleaning with the amount I have to do. :rotfl:

ceridwen

rosy wrote: »

I recently came across this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Housework-Blues-Survival-Emotional-Challenge/dp/0956493904/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301774153&sr=8-1
it's not about how to do the housework itself but really concentrates on ways to psych yourself up to do it/ give yourself an incentive etc. The author also has a blog (on which the book is based) which has quite a few good ideas http://makepeacewithhousework.com/Make_Peace_with_Housework/Blog/Blog.html

( By the way I've no connection with it at all, just happened to chance on it!)

How apt:rotfl::rotfl:...I shall HAVE to give that blog a good read-through I can see:D - "make peace with housework" about sums it up....:cool:

Thank you all for your contributions - I shall go back for a thorough read of them and thanks Batoutofhell for a contribution from the "housework pro" here...useful to get comments from someone who does this for a living for my mindset of "employ myself as a cleaner" to see just how its done as a paid job...

GreyQueen

Hmm, I know what you mean about having to move A to clean B. It astonishes me that dust and muck can get into the darndest of places but to get in there after it I have to drag appliances halfway across the room to get at the floor underneath....:rotfl:

I have a 24 sq meters flat, 4 rooms (kitchen opens off living room) bedroom just a bit bigger than a bed, bathroom as small as can be and still contain the necessities. Small hall only 75 cm wide. There's only me and occasional guests, no pets, and I work a 60% FTE contract. In theory, I should have plenty of time for housework but in reality the reason I work part-time is because of chronic health problems inc ME. If I overdo anything, inc housework, I get the shakes and have to rest and can do less the next few days. At the worst, I can make myself very ill.

I reckon I could easily clean my flat in 2 hours to a high standard but due to the ME there won't be two consecutive hours when I'm well enough to work. I like to set the kitchen timer for 15-30 mins and go for it, then award myself 15 mins on the internet/ nose in a book. I find the timer helpful as time spent on HW drags whilst time enjoying myself flies......it's a bit of headology as Terry Pratchett would have it.:rotfl:

My tactics are to try to spread the horrors over time so standards are kept (I'm frequently untidy but never actually dirty). Yesterday, I washed part of my living room wall. I was going to drag the sofa out and wash that bit then I remembered that I'm due to have a workman on Thursday afternoon and will have to drag the sofa out then. So, once he's been, I'll wash the wall. I used the sugar-soapy water from the little bit of wall I did wash to wash the bathroom floor. Last evening I was defrosting the fridge, which always involves a bit of water on the floor and getting my towelling rags out (retired towels which are hemmed, kept for such purposes then washed). Whilst I was down there I washed that floor, too.

You can tag a lot of jobs together if you have to. I think it helps to remember that cleaning is just a part of housekeeping and that it excludes food shopping, cooking and cleanup and all the logistics of making sure that your household is running smoothly. We have to give valuable headspace to rembering that we can't cook X for supper unless we go buy Y first, that Auntie M's birthday is coming up and it's one with an "0" on the end and we should shop for a special card rather than one from the card pile, that the cat is due his shots and that the insurance needs doing and have we MSE'd for the best deal?

One of my favourite quotes on the subject runs something like this but in a heavy accent. "Darlink, I'm a vonderful housekeeper. Venever I get divorced, I alvays keep the house." (Zsa Zsa Gabor)

freyasmum

I work full time (self-employed, so have all the admin, stock control, cleaning, etc to do on top of my usual work), attend college part time (but I'm doing a fast track course, which is a years worth of work in around 4 months and have 2-3 assessments a week to write/study for), and have a four year old. Oh to have the luxury of just working full time :A:p

My prefered method is do it as you go along - if you keep yourself tidy, it takes much less time to clean up at the end. When cooking, I'll run a big sink of soapy water and then I'll wash a utensil as I finish with it (at suitable times, of course - I don't abandon all cooking just to wash up! but there are times when the food can look after itself) so that it doesn't build up into a mountain at the end. I'll give the counter a good wipe in between stirring dishes, etc.

If you put the rubbish in the bin when you're finished with it, it should take seconds to gather it up and put it in the outside bin.

It might take about 15 minutes to hoover around the house and then maybe another 10 to do the stairs. Do you hoover the skirting boards/doors too? It'll obviously take a bit longer if you do.

The benefits of modern living is that the products (organic, natural or not) are designed to take as much of the work as possible out of things, so you could spray your hob and then clean something else. By the time you get back to the hob, it's ready to wipe off. Though I do remember cleaning my cousins when I was babysitting and it took me about 2 hours, not one word of a lie! It was caked in grease and filth :eek: She was all surprised and oh, look what you've done when she came home, but I had to. I couldn't have cooked on it otherwise

What about inside/outside shoes, or a new mat for the dirty shoes situation?

The bathroom is the easy bit, IMO. Just put whatever cleaner you want down the loo, spray the bath, spray the sink and tidy out any new products, change the loo roll, remove old ones, etc - 2 minutes tops. Then clean the sink, the bath and then the toilet. Then give the floor a clean. Fifteen minutes at the most, for it all?

I also bought dusters, they're the ones that you don't have to add chemicals to - they just 'pick-up' the dust. An incredible waste of money really, but my daughter thinks it's a game. So she gets a duster and has to dust as much as she can in a certain amount of time :A Maybe you could do things like that? Treat it as a game (I know, I know, you don't like it, but still. It gets the jobs done!), each time getting quicker and quicker, trying to beat your last score.

And - you may or may not hate me for saying this - but if I get up early before work/college, say about 6, I'm far more motivated to do the cleaning that I am when I get home. I'm naturally a night owl and have to work to at getting up at that time, but I love the peace and stillness. I open the back door, listen to the birds, have a cuppa and enjoy the silence before the day begins, then go do what needs to be done.

Anyway, I'd say 2 hours would be more than sufficient to have a sparkling house. Now I've rambled much more than I should've, and I apologise for that - if you've managed to find anything at all in there of any use, I'l be glad

P.S What most people forget when thinking of time and motion studies is that when Taylor designed his scientific management, he included a suitable rewards package to keep motivation up - so choose a suitable reward to keep you going!

Ben84

Living in a perfect house isn't the everything, so I'm fairly relaxed about it. However, keeping things clean enough is important and I need to be able to find my things. So, I don't want to spend lots of time on it, but accept that being reasonably tidy and clean matters. Don't worry about things that aren't important to you however. I'm not worried about crumpled bed covers from skipping the ironing, but I am worried about a dirty loo.

The best way to get something done which there never seems to be time for is to reduce the time and effort it takes. When it's easier you'll do it more often. Buy good cleaning stuff that makes things easier. I don't have a big pile of stuff, mostly just stardrops and soda crystals, but I buy in to some modern convenience now. Mr Muscle oven cleaner makes cleaning the oven way easier so now rather than avoid it, it actually gets done a couple of times a year now. Same in the bathroom. Cleaning the toilet was always a pain because any cloth used to wipe the loo needs cleaning thoroughly afterwards or it smells bad later, but then I don't want to rinse it in the sinks in the house so have to do it in a bucket outside. Just wiping the loo over took ages, so although it got done a few times a week I was wasting time and avoiding it sometimes. Now I just use disposable wipes from poundland. Generally not a fan of disposable cleaning wipes, but for this one task it makes sense. I'm also realising I don't vacuum as much as I'd like to because my vacuum is really heavy and inconvenient to get out (1970s vax), so I'm considering getting something lighter that I could get round the house with in less time, and that doesn't need a small hiking team to get up the stairs. Maybe with a more powerful motor too as my old lump isn't picking up much either so I'm going over the floors endlessly it seems to get the bits up. I could probably halve the time it takes and I'd be willing to vacuum more often too if it wasn't such hard work. Cleaning doesn't have to be hard work, so identifying what's stopping you doing certain things might present solutions.

Also, get all your cleaning stuff together in a bucket or tray with a handle so you have everything to hand whenever you need it. You can waste ages rummaging through cupboards and carrying stuff around the house when it could instead all be ready to go whenever you want to clean something. I really don't do big cleaning sessions, I'll just grab the bucket of stuff and go over a few things when I have spare time. When everything is ready to go, 10 or 20 minutes here and there does make a difference.

happy35

i do a full clean at the weekend and then try to follow the Flylady through the week on the nights that I am not out ferrying DS to his hobbies.

I dont mind cleaning once I start the thought of it is actually worse than doing it for me. I have one small dog who doesnt make much mess but have a modern home that is very high maintenance with black gloss furniture, wood floors and a lots of brushed steel in the kitchen. I wish when I had bought these things someone had told me that they would be such hard work as every spec of dust shows.

Bathroom has slate tiles that show every water mark and walls have glass tiles again show every mark.

When the time comes to replace these things I will definitely be considering how much cleaning they will take to keep them looking nice