To ask for tips on how not spend a whole day each weekend (or more!) doing chores?

[huggybear]

It's endless.

The washing and ironing especially. People say to forget ironing but my clothes come out of the washing machine looking like they've been 5 rounds with Mike Tyson.

I live in a small house with no kids or pets, it should be easy surely? But no, each weekend we spend a heap of time on it all. I'm not even including gardening in this as that's more a hobby.

So lovely people - any tips? We do keep on top of things during the week but it doesn't really seem to help as everything still needs a big clean come the weekend.

Cleaner not really an option as I don't really want people in the house while we aren't here.

Lower standards? I don't think they're very high at the mo.

@Horehound mine doesn’t smell like BO, but shirts definitely smell stale after one day’s wear - being on the tube, carrying bags etc and shirts always look crumpled at the end of the day.

A few men I work with always have that crumpled look and slightly stale smell so I guess they’re part of the two-shirt wear club.

TOMM here too 🙋🏻‍♀️ once you get into the swing of it, it really is done an dusted in no time!

@ShirleyPhallus I can assure you my husband shirts are not crumpled or stale. They look and smell fresh and he wears a waistcoat with them and he looks dashing. He's a very proud man and wouldn't go out looking unkempt. 😍
But no public transport..Maybe that's the difference, not sure.

@huggybear. I’d get a cleaner if I was you. If you can afford it. You sound slow at housework (sorry): they’d probably get it all done in 2 hours

@Horehound we will have to agree to disagree, I simply don’t believe that any man wearing a shirt for the second day looks or smells as fresh as the first day.

Haha ok @ShirleyPhallus

5 bed house, 2adults, 2 dc. No cleaner.

There is no way I’d waste that much time!

Dp hoovers the carpeted floors once/week. I do the hard flooring inc mop once/week.
Dp dusts/polishes as and when.
I wipe down kitchen cupboards as and when.
Kitchen surfaces are cleaned after cooking or sometimes in the morning. Dishwasher emptied whilst cooking.
Fridge cleaned if it looks mucky.
Toilet bleached as it needs.
Shower cleaned during a shower.
Dc do their own bathrooms.

I do do lots of washing, but have 2dc, but I never iron.
Dp mows the lawn once or twice/week in the summer.

I think both spend 2hours/week on chores spread across the week.

Online food shopping.

You seriously need to drop your standards and this need for everything to be “done” on one day. Or you accept that it takes this long!

If you aren't there in the week how are you cleaning for an hour a day?

Wash overnight and hang out in the morning.

Dresses and shirts don't need washing every wear. Make sure you are clean and using deodorant and you'll be fine.

I would do washing in the week but I'm not here to do it. I don't like drying stuff inside unless absolutely necessary. Some food for thought here though, thanks.

Does your washing machine have a timer on it? I wash in the week, set the timer so that it does a load at silly o'clock, and time it so that it finishes around the time I get up. If it's fine, it goes on the line outside and I bring it in when I get home from work. If not, I dry it on hangers indoors. Thorough shaking and careful hanging means that I iron very little (a few linen or heavy cotton things is about it).

The bathroom only gets a deep clean once a month. I wipe the bath and basin, and chuck bog cleaner down the lav, every day before I go to work, and just give the floor a quick sweep at the weekend.

The kitchen gets cleared and surfaces (including the hob) wiped after dinner every night. Once during the week I run the hoover over the kitchen floor, same again at the weekend followed by mopping. Every other week it gets a deep clean on Saturday morning. I hoover, polish and dust the living room at the weekend, takes about 20 mins. The weekend I don't do the living room, I do the bedroom. I change the sheets one evening in the week, put them in the machine, set the timer and hang them up/out the following morning. I hoover the stairs most weekends too, 10 mins max.

The spare room never gets touched, because it's brim full with junk waiting to go in the loft/to charity shops/to the tip. Most of it is DP's!

What job do you do? Unless you work in an abattoir I really don't think your dresses need to be washed after every wear and cardigans can definitely go longer than two days.

I used to be exactly the same as you OP. Me and DH working a 5 day week and spending a huge chunk of the weekend on housework and laundry. When I went back to work on compressed hours over 4 days after having DD, I was determined that that was going to change and we’d have quality family time together. These are the things that worked for me:

Do a load of washing per day. Carry it downstairs when you first go down, straight into the washer - 1 min max. Hang it up / in the dryer just before you leave or as soon as you get home. Another couple of minutes. Carry any dry stuff up and put it away / dump it on the ironing pile when you go up to bed. If you do all the washing on one day then of course you feel like you’re spending a full day doing laundry.

Ironing - don’t bother with pillowcases etc, just the stuff that really needs it. I iron what we need for work and nursery for the week and a few days worth of other clothes on a Sunday. Takes about half an hour. Then I might do another 15 mins or so on my week day off. I have a basket with a lid for the ironing. If I don’t do it all who cares, no one can see inside. I tend to pick a couple of items from the bottom when I do iron so things that we don’t wear often aren’t in there weeks on end.

Housework - have a routine. I allow myself around an hour doing upstairs on my day off while DD plays. This is 20 mins bathroom, 15 mins vacuuming, 10 mins dust and 15 mins deeper clean in 1 room (different one each week). I do everything against a timer (makes you work much much faster) and stop when it goes off. At first I didn’t get every bit done but as I’m doing it regularly it takes less and less time to do. Saturday I have an hour or so downstairs with a similar routine while DH takes DD out.

Work days we do very little. We make sure the dishes and kitchen are done before bed, and do a quick tidy of the living room and bedrooms. We spot clean if anything is spilt, and will briefly run the vacuum over the middle of the floors once or twice a week if they need it and we can be arsed (cordless. Takes 2 mins). While I do the majority of the main cleaning and the ironing, DH is equally responsible for the laundry and general keeping the place clean and tidy, and he does 90% of the cooking.

Once a month we have a ‘productive’ morning or afternoon on a Saturday where DD goes to her grandparents and we get any bigger jobs or DIY type things done.

Sounds like you’ve already Marie Kondo’ed anyway, but a major declutter was a game changer and part of the turning point for us.

I spend far less time cleaning now but our house is cleaner and we are more organised then we’ve ever been.

Also you need to iron faster

OP, you're being slaughtered here but take advantage of the helpful advice. I do this:

1. Robovac - hoovers by itself, worth weight in gold. Ebay for cheap ones.
2. Use a slower spin in your wash cycle - anything over 700 spits out crumpled pellets, not clothes. Shake out damp washing, apply hanger as nec., dresses are ready to go.
3. You can always spin wet stuff that doesn't need to be non-creased twice.
4. Use face packs, deep condition hair, dry fake tan while cleaning house, saves time in bath.
5. Damp dust with microfibre cloth - takes off way more than Mr Sheen.
6. Boiling water over washed up dishes dries them in 2 min.
7. Use kettle boiling/microwave pinging time to do small jobs during week. You'd be amaze what you can sort in 3 min eg fill watering cans, fold the sheets.
8. Reward self at end of chores, always.

Oh and I use Koh cleaner for absolutely everything. Have a spray bottle and cloths upstairs and a set downstairs so if something needs cleaned it takes seconds to get the stuff and do it.

There's two of us and a cat.

I got a cordless vac and run that round downstairs twice a week (15 mins tops) and upstairs once a week (25 mins for the whole house) Occasionally use the hetty Hoover to do a big clean through everywhere, including using the soft brush for getting rid of dust.

Wipe a microfibre cloth over the surfaces quickly twice a week; washing is done three times a week- clothes on a Monday and Friday and Wednesday's for bedding and towels. I don't iron anything, it's such a waste of time. DH does the bathrooms once a week and kitchen every night after dinner. I'm pretty lax about things like skirting boards and windows and do them may be once a month.

I really can't figure out how you would spend the whole day cleaning.

You have said it yourself but your downfall is that you want there to be that moment at say 7pm on a Sunday where you sit down to admire your beautifully clean house, where every room is spotless. I get it, because I was the same before I had a baby, but unless you do in fact spend an entire day this won't happen. I kinda think the washing is being too focused on here.

A cleaner would achieve this spotless finish in a shift, but otherwise accept that on Tuesdays your kitchen may be clean but your bedroom might be dusty or the stairs might be full of bits.

Monday - mop
Tuesday - dust
Wed - hoover stairs
Thursday - shopping delivered and hoover everywhere else
Friday - bathrooms

Daily - kitchen and tidy. Everything in its place by bed. One load of laundry per day. I don’t iron but I suppose if you don’t want to do it at the weekend do it daily?

Stuff does need to get done at the weekend but this maintains a standard. You just need to do the less regular jobs then such as the oven and windows

The tips on the washing machine speed are helpful, I had no idea!

I accept my laundry is slow - it's the folding the pants ()

I third the team TOMM method, it's revolutionised my cleaning habits, but you do need to be uncluttered and tidy for it to work!

I think 5 loads of washing is perfectly reasonable but struggling to see how it takes 2 hours to iron. I find it better to do a load a day and then it never gets too much.

How do guys not need to clean our floors on a daily basis? I have had to Hoover the whole of downstairs at least three times a week and the kitchen area daily- sometimes several times a day

I tend to end up doing a big clean on weekends, like pulling things out and it usually takes me about 3 hours or so. But then it can last a whole week so I don’t stress too much about the weekend clean because it means less cleaning in the week 😂

Get a cordless vac, I've just hoovered (dysoned) a two bedroom house with a dog in about 6 minutes.

@chopc no DC
If I spill something on the floor or crumbs then I deal with it straight away. I work FT so I'm not home to make mess!

I do a big proper hoover at the weekend (ceilings etc) and a cordless hoover job on targeted messy areas as I go during the week.

Bathrooms - I clean up after I have a shower daily. Big clean weekend
Kitchen - general clean after cooking, bigger clean on a sat or sun
Bedrooms - tidy up as I go along, bed and dust and hoover weekend
Washing - wash all week as a load forms never save them up
Ironing - hang in airing cupboard only iron if can’t get away with it
Pets - daily clean up, weekly proper clean up

Tidy up before bed each night

So the going along method then means on weekends it’s a good dust hoover sinks and bath really

Hmm, I definitely really shake my washing out, really very vigorously and that gets most of the creases out. I have about 4 dresses that I find need ironing and I carefully wear them on days when I won't get too sweaty. I do have to wash more things in the summer, but surely cardigans can do more than two wears? I wouldn't dry clean a work jacket that often. I really try to wear things as long as they aren't smelly as it's time saving, better for the environment and better for the clothes.

Pillowcases are very carefully folded and put in a draw with the sheets so they come out very flat when they are used again.

Pants don't need folding. Sure it's a good plan for your t-shirts or whatever. But it's clearly not bringing you joy. So stop doing it.

Same applies to Aldi. I pop to Aldi maybe once a month, get the things only they sell. And then i accept that I pay more for my food and do an Asda order most weeks and accept it costs more.

I also don't find upstairs needs hoovering every week at all, shoes aren't on when we're up there, and there's not exactly much traffic. Downstairs I hoover once a week ish. And don't "deep clean" my kitchen or bathroom weekly. I wipe down the surfaces whenever they have crumbs on them. Same for the cooker and spills. And then other stuff is e.g. cupboard doors which I do if I spot something while the kettle is boiling. Same with the toaster while I have something on the hob. Fridge and oven are treated carefully and only get done rarely when required. Bathroom gets wiped down as necessary, bleach, descaler as and when.