Does anyone follow Team TOMM & does it work?

[UKhomemaker]

I have given Team TOMM a half hearted try but long shifts (14 or 24 hours) meant that I never felt like I could keep up. I'm changing job soon so am trying to find an effective routine. I'll soon only be working 8 hour shifts ...... trying to discover this work life balance thing.

What cleaning routine do you follow?

Sort of.. I basically do 15-30 mins a day. I don't follow a certain room on a certain day but I find doing a little bit daily helps
I just look at what needs doing, like today I know I need to sort the recycling, put some dishes away, wipe the kitchen surfaces and cupboard fronts
Yesterday after work I just hoovered, did a load of laundry, washed up and wiped the bathrooms

It doesn’t work for me because my inner stroppy teenager rebels against whatever I’m supposed to be doing on a given day. Completely ridiculous, I know, but I actually do better with a less rigid structure.

Every weekend it annoys me by announcing that it's a housework free day, no such thing as a house work free day in my house. There's probably a way to change that but I'm probably too busy doing housework 😂

It does work if you follow it and if you stick to it you’ll really notice a difference by the second/third week.

I sort of do it. I work 4 days a week 7:30-5:30 but i’m out the house 12 hours so fit it around that.

I have basic level 1 tasks to (plan to do) every evening:

Clear clutter from living room
One load laundry done (either washed and hung up or folded and put away)
Quick clean of bathroom sink/mirror/toilet
Clear kitchen worktops

In reality it ALL gets done on my weekday day off 🤦🏻‍♀️

Look at Motivated Moms. It's American, but you can ignore stuff like cleaning the aircon! It gives you a daily list of chores. Basic daily ones, weekly and monthly stuff. It's all preset on a cycle so they come round regularly. It's a little and often approach, but you know if you miss something, you can do it the next day or wait for it to one round again!

I do similar shifts to you op and it works for me.
I make it work because I don’t want to be doing it all on my days off.

After a period of illness I’m starting boot camp again to get me started.

I use it in that I make a half hearted attempt to get the DC to clear up their mess in the various rooms on the right day of the week and I do the daily stuff/bathrooms whilst they’re doing that.

No way am I doing 45 minutes of cleaning a day on my own. 💪

Me. Followed it for a few years now.
I swear by it.

I just started following it last week. I'm liking the routine but I do struggle to fit the jobs into the time frames. I have 3 toilets and 2 bathrooms for example and a daily clean of those takes 15 minutes alone, let alone including a quick kitchen clean, vacuum of the living room and a load of washing. So in reality, with that plus the daily 30 minute per room (which usually over runs) I think I'm actually doing more cleaning than normal. They say you get quicker each week, but I still think there's a lot to fit in, especially if you have extra rooms.

I’ve just started it a couple of weeks ago, I like that there is a routine and a set time to stick too. I’ve found I’ve felt less overwhelmed about needing to clean everything and instead just focused my 30 mins on the allocated room/rooms and not worry if it’s not fully done because I’ll get to it next week or on the Friday focus. I’m hoping that gradually the general standard of cleanliness will increase. At the moment I’m just following her structure but I think I will tweak it in a few weeks as it seems crazy to just do a hall on one day and then have to do all the bedrooms and change bedding in another. Plus there are a few rooms like utility room and downstairs toilet that I haven’t figured out when to do yet.

@Blossomandbee you don’t need to do all bathrooms each time. One toilet one day, another the next, a sink the next day etc.

@Sunshine1235 I add our extra room on hallway day. Downstairs toilet I would include in daily bathroom clean but as above alternate.

@Seesawmummadaw I know I don't have to (although the TOMM lady says she does her toilets every day) but as a family of five they do need a quick wipe/sling some bleach down daily. Altogether I've got 3 toilets, 3 sinks, 2 showers (one a large glass cubicle which is a nightmare to maintain) a bath, plus the floors needing mopping. Trying to split that alongside the other level 1 jobs into 15 minutes over 5 days is a bit of a challenge!

Yes and yes.

I've adapted it to suit me, which the TOMM creator encourages you to. She created it just for her and her lifestyle and never intended for it anybody else.

Level 1s for me - hoover (I have to, two hairy Labradors), wipe down of kitchen sides, wash on, quick wipe of loos.

Some rooms take less time than others so I steal the time to add to others.

I am very strict about the 30 minute time though. Sometimes I'll do 20. Good is good enough!

I tend to stick on the washing machine each morning and try to do everything (cleaning, phone calls etc) I need to do within that time frame (1.5 hours), then hang the laundry and done for the day. Team TOMM is good for when you're completely overwhelmed and at a loss of where to start, the declutter boot camp worked well for me to begin with.

The Facebook group for it is a tad crazy though, Gemma (creator) said she gets up at 5am to just have some peace and quiet before her day begin and a load of women were on about getting up at 4.30am to clean so they can sit and relax at 5am like her..... I bowed out at that point!

I follow it. It’s made a major difference to me. My house is now always “visitor ready” and I never feel like I’ve been doing housework all day the way I used to.

I have done it for years and yes it is good to have a regular routine for the house and if it gets missed one week it gets sorted the next week. I find it especially helpful to remember to clean the windows.

Her videos on her channel show you how easy it is. I will say that her original house only had 3 rooms downstairs whereas I have more but she did have 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms upstairs. The videos show how she tackles it. And yes, my children do fold their duvets back to air their beds every morning.

If you haven't done bootcamp then you need to but you can do a half arsed version and it just gets better every week. She has an app that costs a fiver I think but it has her spotify playlists on, I find that distracts me whilst I clean.

I’ve stolen two aspects of it

1. Having a separate day for hall/stairs
2. Friday focus

I already had my own cleaning routine (takes me a bit longer than 30 mins though) but the hall and stairs are no longer neglected and the Friday focus is simply brilliant-all those jobs I never got round to doing before now get done.

My house is quite often a bit of a mess (too many kids, too much stuff) but it’s mostly clean underneath and only takes a quick tidy to be presentable