Is a Flylady type of routine possible if you work every day?

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

I used to do Flylady when I only worked a few hours a week and found it great but I've upped my hours in work and now work every day so am out the house from school drop-off time to about 3.45 (2 days a week, that is - after school on the other 3 week days I take the kids to after school activities and another day I do a food shop after school. So there are really only 2 week days when I'm actually back in the house for 3.45.)

I find I can just about get the basic cooking, washing up, laundry and ironing done, but everything else seems to go to shit till the weekend, and even then if we've got a very busy weekend and also want a lie-in then very little extra gets done even then. DH usually works away during the week or gets in very late so I'm more or less like a single parent during the week. He is great at helping out when he IS here - he cooks and plays with the kids but everything else house-y is down to me.

I know that others on this board work fulltime and don't have a cleaner so really I know if I'm not exactly fulltime I should be able to manage it all. I need to know how you do it!!!

Hi
I only work half time but my working day hours are longer than yours. I find that while I am at work and the children in daycare, the house stays really quite clean, so less cleaning is needed. What seems to be sufficient for me (and making a gradual but definite difference) is that if I clear the kitchen table, sink and dishwasher every night and also try to clear the breakfast plates and load and start the dishwasher before we leave in the morning. Then I need about 30min (on Tuesdays) to clean the bathrooms and about 1 hour (on Thursdays) to dust, vacuum and mop the floor. This way, our house is clean for the weekend and we can have lie-ins and outings instead of marathon vacuuming on Saturday.

In addition, I've experimented with setting the timer for 15 min once a week to declutter / deep clean. This helps me to tackle areas that are outside my routine. Keeping a house organized is much easier if you get rid of extra stuff and try to establish a system where everything has a place where it belongs. We try to put everything into its place right after use. I find that if I never let the house get really dirty and chaotic, I will need much less time organizing it. So quick bursts of daily pick-up and maintenance really pay off.

The Flylady system is too time-consuming for me - I don't have time to read all that material. What works for me is a simple checklist of things to do (I've pretty much memorized it). I found this a good starting point.

I think the breakthrough was when I realized that I will never have enough time and energy to do the entire housecleaning in one go. However, if I break what needs to be done into a couple of 15-60 minute chunks, I can easily stay on top of it all. I found it easiest to take a look at a couple of existing systems, copy them, sit for an hour at my laptop and customize them to my needs (I have two written sheets to remind me what needs to be on daily and weekly basis). My strategy is to do the two bigger chunks of cleaning on Tue (baths) and Thu (1-hr cleanup).

BTW, I don't iron. DH irons his shirts himself on Sunday nights and for the time being, I've decided not to wear anything that needs ironing.

I must be doing something wrong - it takes me well longer than 30 mins to clean our bathroom and we only have one! EVERYTHING is tiled, and the tiles around the bath get filthy because whichever idiot fitted it did such a bad job of tiling round any non-straight bits that the mould grows horrendously unless you really scrub it often.

And 1 hour to do all your dusting, hoovering and mopping in the entire house? I can only think that you must literally RUN round the place!

I like your idea of breaking things down into chunks - I'll have to do that more - I tend to just think I'll do stuff in one big go and then it just gets too much and depresses me when I actually do it! I had a checklist but if I missed a couple of things because I was just too busy then I thought "sod it, I'll start again properly next week."

And then the same thing happens next week! I will do the 15 minute timer thing, I think. And train the kids to put their stuff back after they've finished with it. We just have so much bloody STUFF.......

My house is probably much smaller than yours. We currently have just two bedrooms (129 m2). I used to have a massive house that had a living room like a tennis court and 5 baths, and had to hire a housekeeper to keep it sorted.

Our current house is easy to keep clean - parquet floors and tiled kitchen and two bathrooms (the shower cabin is easy to clean, I use a dishwashing brush), and no stairs. I've had to become much more pragmatic and less perfectionistic, too. If I want to have a career and a social life, I cannot scour wall tiles each week.

I've got a bit business school training and I recommend using your professional, analytical eye to coolly look at your house. How can you maximize visual impact and minimize time spent on achieving it? In our house, keeping floors dirt and dust ball free and the kitchen floor clean gives and overall look of cleanliness so I prioritize that (sweeping under the kitchen table at least twice each day). I also do my best to keep the hallway clean and clutter-free. Resisting the temptation to use every available surface to store things makes the house visually more pleasing. Getting rid of extra furniture and toys speeds up vacuuming a lot, getting rid of knick-knacks reduces time spent on dusting. And taking out recycling promptly helps, too. We still have way too much stuff but I'm set on decluttering even more.

Good advice there, DonaAna. I would love to do more decluttering but getting DH to sort his stuff out is useless, he just doesn't want to face doing it. And the kids seem to accumulate more stuff every time I get rid of one lot! They've both had big birthday parties in the last 6 months, and honestly, there were mountains of presents for each (lucky kids, I know, but really, a child just doesn't NEED so many toys! They spend most of their spare time on the computer or Wii or playing with Lego or just doing imaginary games)

Also my inlaws seem to think they are being generous by giving us daft bits of cheap "bargain" tat nearly every time they see us - I just don't need the stuff and have nowhere to put it so I've started getting more ruthless and putting it straight into a charity bag when we get home. FIL just accumulates junk - there is a converted attic in their house and DS2 went up to see what was in there the other day. I took one look at the first shelf of stuff and thought "I wish I could just sweep all that stuff off into a bin bag and chuck it". There was a plastic horse statue thing with the tail missing, a big box of old face cream stuff that he'd taken from a pile of returns to be binned outside the QVC depot when he worked next door to it about 5 years ago. Various crap from xmas crackers. Sounds terrible but I dread the day we have to try and help them sort it all out when they move out or pop their clogs.......

I find our cluttered house feels so much worse when you've been away on holiday and managed with only a few things while you're away - you realise you just don't actually need so many things.....

Hi Curly - I've told all my relatives and in-laws that my children don't need more stuff. To prove the point, I've invited them over and shown them the girls' room in when it hasn't been picked up... and that has helped. Also, I have clearly outlined what they can give us (books, baked goods, their time, special outings, and money for the girls' savings accounts for birthdays).

I've emptied our attic twice this year so I feel your pain. Did I mention that I had my DH rent a van to take stuff to the local charity shops and landfill?

One wonderful strategy is to create a death's waiting room for stuff you or someone else in the family feels they can't part with. I use our attic for that. Things left there quickly accumulate a layer of fly droppings, pigeon feathers and soot - DH just recently got rid his LP player and old telly and some hideous speakers left to marinate there.

Finally, I'm learning to resist the urge to buy in bulk. I used to have a separate storage room and loved to buy three sacks of rice and 10 bottles of olive oil in one outing. Now I've decided that storing things at home costs me a lot of money and energy, so I'm trying to buy strictly what I need and keep supplies short (we live near a corner shop so it's not like we are going to die if we run out of loo paper).

Hi Curly

It sounds like we are in a similar situation. I work when DCs are at school. In the week everything revolves around them until they are in bed. Then I clear up the kitchen, prepare for the next day, and by then it's after 9pm and I've been on the go since 6.30 am, so I need to sit down and relax mumsnet. DH away all week every week.

Fortunately for me, we don't have school or work on Wednesdays so children chill out in pjs until about 11 am while I do a bit of cleaning but we are never completely on top of it. If the place is tidy, the bathrooms need doing or if the kitchen is sparkling there is clutter in the hall.

Regarding your bathroom, we have a similar problem around our bath. There is a little tiled shelf for shampoo bottles but it's not entirely horizontal so tiny amounts of water pooled in it. I have found it much less work since I started wiping down with a towel after every use. Could this work for you?

We are putting our house up for sale so need to get rid of the stuff that has accumulated over the last 9 years. We have a big garage which was great until about 3 months ago when we saw how much stuff we had stored in it! So every day I try to sort out something even if just a single drawer. I am usually too tired too manage more than a couple of nights after work but I am slowly making progress on weekends.

DonaAna, great idea about the photos. I am going to take a photo of DS's bedroom as soon as he is awake and email to all the grandparents so no more Lego ever enters the house again!!

Yep, Otherside, sounds like our situations are pretty similar. I think you're right by doing things like wiping down with a towel, or tidying a single drawer. I reckon little and often will be my best bet, rather than just leaving the cleaning and sorting to do in one big go every so often - by then things have built up and it becomes such a big job that I put it off for another week. So I think my biggest problem is my attitude towards tackling it. And being less of a perfectionist.

I'm off with the kids for another week now and have been trying to get on top of things so that I have a clean slate, so to speak, for when we are all back at work/school.

How old are your children? Could they help out at all?

Perhaps we could use this thread to motivate each other?
I could do with someone nagging me to get off mn around 9.30 pm and to go and do something useful. Of course if you are in the UK that's be 8.30 pm for you!