attn: balabustas | Imamother

amother

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 9:59 am

Can those of you who are naturally organized HELP me????

I want to spend no more than an hour and a half a day keeping the house clean (tidying, dishes, laundry, etc.). Is there any way this can be done with numerous small children and a part-time job working out of the home???

If you have any time-saving tips to keep your house running smoothly, please let me know! Thanks!

ssbarnes

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 10:03 am

I get the most done between the time DH leaves for work and the time that the children wake up.

Start in one room. Once that is organized, it is easy to keep up and start on the next room.

baseballmom

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 10:04 am

My advice is do as much as you can after the dcs go to sleep, but before you do. It makes such a difference if the whole family wakes up to a neat home, than to one that "just needs 10 mins to straighten up" -they will treat it totallyl differently.

shopaholic

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 11:06 am

I clean as I go. Put food & ingreidents away as O use them, make the beds when we get out of them. Put laundry in the basket as soon as the kids take it off. Hang the bathrobes back up as soon as the kids are dry, throw things away, clean off the supper table when everyone is done. As for the toys, I get the kids to help before bed time.

mumoo

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 11:20 am

I agree with putting away as you go. touch objects only once-to put them away. it's the same energy to throw clothes in the basket as to throw them on the floor. Have a place for everything: beware of the "I'll put it here, for now" people. Most important.... throw/give away half of your stuff, it's very liberating

MOM222

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 12:53 pm

Specify a place for every item, so you don't move the pile from one place to the next only not to have put the item away.

shayna82

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 1:04 pm

hi.

this is how I do things:

1. mental or physical list of a daily schedule when it comes to cleaning.
2. toys will be toys, that means expect them to be on the floor and couch until your kids are out of the house at 18. they wont go away until then, so try to live with them, and keep only a small amount of them out. I realized today that its time to do that again- take toys away that hvent been touched in over four months- time to put those away. less mess, more time to clean other stuff.
3. wash the dishes right after using them if possible, and wipe off your counters right after.. I do it instinctly. it not only keeps your kithen clean, but makes you feel good at the same time.
4. depending on how many loads of laundry you NEED to do a week, make a scchedule of when exactly you can fit it in- I.e- monday, wednesday, thursday and saturday night- if need be- in the a.m riht after breakfast, fold and put away.

for me, its all about sticking to a schedule, not going crazy with the things that are impossible to do with kids around the house

good luck

greenfire

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 1:26 pm

you actually fold your clothes?!?!?

shayna82

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 1:29 pm

versus stuffing them in a drawer? yes, I fold them and I like doing laundry. doing it and folding it are not a problem. going up and down two flights of steps to get there, priceless-- for everything else- mastercard

(I just had to add that in)

in the long run, stuffing them in a drawer dosnt help- you cant find anyhting and its disorganized. im a neat person, and need everything nicely folded and put away in the correct drawer.

happymom

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 1:32 pm

make sure everything is done before you go to bed. go throguh all papers every single day... have a routine of when u do certain things and do them at the same time each day. for example, thurday at this time change all linen etc.....

miriam

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 1:48 pm

I love throwing away junk mail. I keep a small garbage can underneather the mail table. I have a small table near the front door. As soon as the mail comes, I usually toss most of it. I hate having old mail laying around the house.

mirisimma

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 2:12 pm

obviusly if want the home spotless its about cleaning cleaning cleaning... I have days like that Smile

but here are a few tricks I have up my sleeve:

dont bring the mail into home, sort it infront of mailbox. if you want that catalogue you need to through another one out.

designated storage places. if you dont have a storage place for something, it'll get piled up. if you dont have enough storage you need to get it.

convenient storage: trunks for clothes, standing hangers (butler) or hooks for clothes in the midst of being used. I use the play pen as a toy box, and its mentally and visually alot better than having the same exact pile on the floor.

make list of things that NEED to happen every day: garbage out, dishes washed etc and designate time for when each task is best accomplished. and backup plan for what to do if it doesnt happen: (stash dishes in oven!)

the end of every play activity with the kids HAS to be putting their toy away. one or two toys out at max. they'll get used to it.

I know I'm gonna get slack for that last one... IM READY FOR IT!!

southernbubby

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 2:32 pm

I may have posted this suggestion before so excuse me if I did. When my kids were small, I bought a set of cubbies from a school supply catalog and put it in my front hall closet. It had 5 little "closets" (2 of our kids had to share a cubby.) Each closet had a shelf on the top, a shelf on the bottom, and a large space in between to store jackets and backpacks. The upper and lower shelves were for hats, gloves, sports equipment, etc. I still have it and use it for umbrellas, tote bags, etc until the day when one of the grown kids decides to lay claim to it and cart it out of here. (Watch, my phone will now ring!). These cubbies are probably still available through school supply websites. There are also do it yourself closet ideas that accomplish the same thing.

amother

Mon, Mar 12 2007, 11:36 pm

Thank you, everyone!

LOVE the idea of using the pack & play as a toy box!

“Touch objects only once”—LOVE it. Going to try to keep that it mind.

My husband sorts the mail—I.e. dumps it on his desk until several months later he has a chance to throw everything out. So yay, at least I don’t have to deal with that.

I would love to have some sort of mud room/cubby setup for the kids, but the layout of our house is very inconvenient. The front door opens immediately into the living room, and the side door has a set of stairs on the left and another set of stairs immediately in front of it. It’s driving me nuts, b/c the hooks I’ve set up work okay for jackets and briefcases, but there’s nowhere workable for boots, so we have a massive pile of boots to trip over every time someone comes home.

Kids have to put toys away immediately—I so want to do this, but I’ve found it takes so much energy. My kids are not used to it. It’s going to be a fight. But I’m going to try it again, b/c you’re right, otherwise the house becomes a sty. And they really can’t sort all the different toys back where they belong, it’s too complicated for them, they just end up stuffing all the toys in one big jumbled-up box, and I spend hours resorting. Argh. So yeah, I’m going to start cracking down on this.

I see the wisdom in tidying up as you go, but I seriously DO NOT KNOW HOW. I’m not joking. How do you people manage to eat, for example? If I clean up the kitchen before sitting down to eat, the kids will be done eating by the time I’m ready to eat, so if I want to eat, they’re off playing unsupervised and fighting and making a mess, or else whining that they want to sit on my lap, eat my food, etc.

My kids wake up at the crack of dawn, so no chance to clean before they’re up. And my baby doesn’t go to bed until quite late, and frequently needs lots of cuddling (not that I mind, of course—he’s such a zeeskeit!), so doing stuff while the older ones are in bed is also not pashut.

I think I’m going to try giving supper a bit earlier, so the kids can play while I tidy up the kitchen. Usually after supper it’s straight into the bedtime routine, so I don’t have a chance to do dishes etc. until much later. You guys are convincing me that I should really do stuff right away. I hate to do it. I feel like I never get a chance to relax. But you’re right, it’s very counterproductive to have crusty food on the plates and spend much more time scrubbing.

Someone mentioned the importance of a schedule (like changing linens on a set day). Can any of you geshikte balabustas give me an idea of what your schedule is like? I’m having trouble figuring out mine (yes, I’ve tried Flylady and other things, didn’t work for me). I know that I need to do 1-2 loads of laundry a day. I know I have to make supper, clean up, sweep, etc. I feel like it takes me all day to do this. And I feel so stupid, b/c they’re not very difficult things to do, right? Supper takes me 1.5-2 hours to make, b/c my husband has special dietary needs and I make a lot of healthy vegetarian things from scratch. And I bake wholegrain bread weekly and freeze it, which also takes a lot of time—but this is important to DH, and I can’t remove it from the schedule. Shabbos prep is another big item on the schedule. I don’t know. I’m just getting depressed thinking about how much I have to do, and the fact that my housework fills up every spare second of time I have that’s not spent with the kids or working. How do you get your kids to play nicely by themselves while you work? I find that mine often won’t do that….

lotte

Tue, Mar 13 2007, 1:09 am

Pay $400 a week-and be a queen! Queen

mirisimma

Tue, Mar 13 2007, 10:28 am

www.stacksandstacks.com

I use the site to find stuff then find it cheaper somewhere else

your house will turn into a file cabinet!!!

mirisimma

Tue, Mar 13 2007, 10:29 am

my favorite is the kitchen cabinet organizers