The Organised Mum Method

[IcanDorisIwillDoris]

Does anyone fancy joining me in following the organised mum method?

Back to work tomorrow after the summer off (work term time only) and need to get on top of a house work routine after struggling this last year or so to stay on top of things.

I suffer with anxiety and can easily get lost in my mood without structure and I like what I saw on the website. Will probably tweek the method as I go but it's a good structured plan to kick things off.

I work odd hours around the kids being at school but have a clear hour each day to dedicate to this. Plus I am sick of losing my weekends to playing catch up when I could be doing nicer things with the kids!!

Four of us in a 4 bed semi which is clean, just full of stuff that comes with having kids. It can get pretty messy!

Have done the odd bit of decluttering over the summer which has made a bit of a difference!

Looking forward to having a house that doesn't embarrass me on the odd occasion a guest arrives unannounced

I started this just before the summer holidays and my house has never been so clean! It seems to really suit me. At the moment I always do level one jobs then choose own other thing to do over the rest of the day/next couple of days. I’m going to get going properly with the 30mins in each room when my lb starts school this week. My bathroom is lovely and clean all the time, it feels like a hotel I don’t think I realised how much the mess and low level dirt was impacting my mental health, I’m much happier even just doing a little bit more.

Looks good. I took a look at her webpage then got distracted by all the recipes and Dyson vs shark Hoover review. This is why I need help

I’m trying to do the living room around two active toddlers & just need to hoover now as I’ve managed to sort out all the toys & start organising where I keep all the crafts.

It’s looking so much better & I’m hoping once we’ve got the Kallax for toy storage.

Made a plan of what to do in the living room for the half hours to be more productive & get house cleaner for when we’re away.

I am determined to have a clean & decluttered house by end of this year.

This works for me because:

1. I like someone else to tell me what to do and when
2. It maintains cleanliness, rather than letting things slide so far that you have to spring clean/de-clutter for hours. Makes me feel calmer.
3. When I'm feeling low or stressed, I tend to decide my whole house is filthy (it never is) and clean like a deranged woman, only making my state of mind worse. This stops me doing this because I know the house is under control.

Try it

I agree, I like a system where someone tells me what to do. It helps me feel less overwhelming lmed too, as I just do what's on the list for that day and try to ignore other things that need doing - I was getting overwhelmed and so doing nothing the feeling miserable about that.

I also like that the method is time limited - it gives you permission to stop after 30 mins (or 45 in total). I found some days that I would work on the house for hours and still feel I hadn't done enough.

This way really suits me and has definitely helped my mental health

I quite like a few of her slow cooker recipes as well - anything of the "fling a handful of X from the freezer" in type of cookery is my kinda stuff!

Like I say - I don't do hall/stairs as a day on its own. I do hall, stairs, hoover dust bunnies in bathroom and our bedroom on one day, kids' bedroom and kids' bathroom on another day because I'd never get all the duvets washed and dried on one single day basically (and I still need a kid on hand to fling stuff down from the top bunk bed).

I often skip kitchen "day" as well - since I tend to have a packet of multi surface wipes around and do the surfaces and cupboard doors most days - I do a clean of the fridge shelves, reorganise and chuck in there, and attack the finger marks on the front of the fridge and steam mop on actual "kitchen day" but since I started following the method - the kitchen annoys me too much if I leave DH to make mucky marks in it for an entire week so I tend to wipe it all down quickly while unloading the dishwasher after tea most days anyway.

For the daily wash thing I got rid of the laundry baskets around the house because people would fill one, and then start filling another and there was never the impetus on me to get it done ASAP - so I get everyone to put anything removed and dirty straight into the machine drum, fling it on once everyone's dressed on a morning and it's usually done before we need to leave the house and I can get it out to dry. Washed, dried, and then stacked in piles on the stairs and I grab a pile every time I head upstairs to the loo and put it away - if it went into a clean laundry basket it tended to pile up and become a huge job to sort out and we reverted to grabbing clothes out of the pile of clean laundry - so doing it that way works better for us.

Likewise the bathroom I keep some wipes in the bathroom (if you're going to have an eco-bash don't hijack the thread) and I'll grab one on a morning, wipe round either the bath, shower or sink areas, then use it to wipe the loo as a parting shot and then bin it and I try to alternate which areas I do (the kids' loo just gets a proper doing once a week and just visited to check for the phantom loo-not-flusher visits and bleached the rest of the time) so the bathroom stays clean that way.

I'll never have a show home (unless I rehome the entire family) but just not being embarassed and not wanting the kids to have friends home is my goal for it all. Before that the house used to get really out of control and I'd bust my arse reining it back in before losing it again constantly.

I do this and love it, I didn't do the de clutter before hand just doing it as I go along. Ive found it hard while the kids have been off but looking forward to getting back into a routine this week

Can't get properly into the swing of it today, as 1) it's rained all day, so I couldn't put any laundry out, & 2) DD (6) & DH don't start back until tomorrow so they're both under my feet & have been the whole summer. They are both untidy wretches. I have just read them the riot act about it & said that if DD doesn't start doing 15 minutes tidying every day, I'll start binning/donating any of her stuff that's left around the house. I'm fed up of constantly stepping on it. I'm disabled & have a blind spot, I shouldn't have to deal with this. I have been asking her for the entire summer, plus at least a year before that to do some tidying. DH got a few sharp words too, as he's no better. At least the living room now looks slightly less like we've been burgled, though.

OK. I'm in too. I hadn't heard of TOMM before this thread but it sounds good. I'm a bit sceptical about getting all the levels cleaning done in 15 mins though. Took me longer than that to hoover my high traffic areas today.

Need to print out all the info yet. Not very eco friendly, but I know if I have to pick up my tablet to see what I should be doing, I'll get distracted

Marking place. This may be the lifeboat I've been looking for

Yeah the hoovering is going to get me - I have a bit of an obsessiveness about it and it's just taken me the full 15 mins to do downstairs. I will need to look at that I think!
I was told in counselling (when I finally managed to get some) my expectations of myself were set rather high and was told to learn to lower my standards. I have managed it with some aspects of my life but the hoovering is one thing I can't let go of for some reason - I realise I may sound crazy but I am trying my hardest not to be

May knock the hoovering down to every other day to give me a chance to focus elsewhere.

So all my jobs done and within 10 mins had to ask the kids to remove all sorts off the sofa. I literally turned my back for 2 mins and the little urchins had found the sofa and cluttered it up give me strength!!

It’s called Team TOMM on fb, can’t figure out how to share the link sorry!

I'm a bit dubious about getting the bedrooms done in 30 minutes; I couldn't declutter one in that time, and it only takes 5 minutes for the DC to reclutter them. 🤷

I am going to give this a go too, I used to do flylady, but can't be doing with all the extra crap, so going to try this instead 😊 Does anyone use an app for it (I used to use home routines with flylady but not sure if it would be compatible with this method?)?

They are developing an app at the moment, not sure when it’ll be launched. I tried and failed at fly lady! Weird shoe thing going in there!!!

Hopefully the link to the weekly sheet
theorganisedmum.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TOMM-PRINTABLE.pdf

It will all beokay. I definitely couldnt do a room in 30 mins at the moment but was thinking if it got 30mins every week it would help...

Do the bootcamp if it's taking more than 30mins x

It gets quicker each week. Also one of the reasons I like the method is, if you can't get through everything in 30 mins, you just focus on most important things to get done and pick up the rest the next week.

I should fess up though and admit that my standards are probably pretty low compared to many of you

I'm in op, this is exactly what I need!

@ItWillAllBeOkayInTheEnd I don't think I can do bedrooms in 30 mins either - dusting, tidying and vacuuming 3 rooms, changing the sheets on 4 beds alone takes 20 minutes! But i plough on

Thanks for the welcome. I did the living room in two 15 minute bursts:quick tidy, bit of dusting and a proper hoover. It's looking ok. Amazing what 30 mins can do when you use it well. I think what might work for me is not having to make a decision: what to clean, how long etc. I'll just do what I'm told!

I think I'll do the kitchen tomorrow, and leave the bedrooms till Thursday when DC are back at school. At least that way the rooms will stay tidy for a couple of hours.