The Organised Mum Method

[SylvanasWindrunner]

Is anyone doing this/just started?

We just started this week and oh my goodness, our house is clean! Someone could turn up unexpectedly and I could let them in and not die of shame!

Even toddler DD came downstairs today and said 'Oh, it's clean here!'

Had a word with myself, most of the levels 1s were done, dh is cleaning the bathroom which was supposed to be yesterday, I will vacuum the downstairs after the Lego is away!

Level 1's and finally level 2 - main bedroom all done! I didn't change the bed though - I tend to do that Friday/Saturday as I like to wake up at the weekend in a nice clean bed.

I had to have a word with myself too. I finished work at 3pm and made myself go and do the weekly shop. Ocado deliveries are like hen's teeth at the moment here. Then I dropped DS and his mates at the gym. I had precisely 45 mins to whizz round before I needed to leave to pick DP up. I was going to sit on my arse but I forced myself to crack on. So glad I did - the amount of dog fur the vac picked up was alarming . The worst culprit is going for a groom tomorrow. She doesn't know that yet. She won't be happy .

The best paint for woodwork we've found is zinsser self priming interior paint, if you don't mind a satin wood finish. We use it in our holiday home (that we let, so it gets a bashing). We've just done our own hallway woodwork with it. You don't need to sand the existing paint, just sugar soap down and paint. It doesn't yellow either.

www.toolstation.com/zinsser-perma-white-self-priming-interior-paint/p67474

Cats don’t make things easy!

I’ve only been back in my bed for 1 week, after 2 months spent in spare room due to a bad roof leak. I bloody love my bed. Fresh bedding on yesterday. Folded duvet back this morning and got on with my day (2 loads of washing hung out in the garden and a bit of decorating).

Popped upstairs with the dry washing. Cat had vomited RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of my exposed sheet.

It’s a good job I love the bones off him 🤣🐾

Oh god, I remember once I got into bed and there was something wet and squishy. DCat had vommed under the covers

I've also got up to go for a wee in the night and trodden in cat sick. Such lovely creatures. Sadly we lost one of our cats recently, but it was the cat that was the prime puke and wee offender so it's been a lot easier to keep the house nice as remaining cat is very neat, never toilets outside her tray, isn't often sick, etc.

I bought myself some flowers today. I haven't done that for ages because the house was never that nice so it kind of felt silly having flowers in a vase when everything was a mess. Like putting lipstick on a pig or something. I had forgotten how happy some bright flowers in a vase make me.

DH is upstairs playing on his computer, DD is asleep, DDog is asleep, remaining DCat is asleep. It is peaceful and clean and smells good so I am having a cup of tea and a donut

@Indecisivelurcher I am impressed by your fortitude and motivation! When we were getting work done, I just gave up (not that the house was particularly clean beforehand). The dust is the worst thing I think, it just gets everywhere. I'm still finding bits of it now and the building work finished in January!

What is it you're getting done? For all the hassle of our building work, it was brilliant to have it finished! So much more usable space.

I trod in cat sick at 6am the other morning, so sharing the love!

Building works here will get worse before they get better, hoping will be finished in 4 weeks. Then the kitchen fitter will be in to move things and floor will still need doing. Floor fitter told me today they're fully booked until Dec, so not sure what the heck to do with that! Anyway, it's going to be important that we can live comfy lives in the rest of the house, so will keep up with TOMM as a part of that.

Urgh, so glad the vomit wasn’t under the covers, that is not an experience I want to have! And standing on it is definitely not good!

Hats off to those of you ploughing one while having building works done. Painful now, but must be exciting to think of how things are going to look when it’s all finished.

Happy Friday Focus Day, folks!

It's the office/playroom/study/library for me today. Lots of moving furniture to dust behind it, and an overhaul of the shelves that the kids' remaining toys live on (they don't really play with much any more). They're always chaotic.

I won't be starting for a while yet though. Our elderly cat, who has been living outside during the day for the last two months since we got the kittens, has cracked and come in, because it's lashing rain. She's curled up against me on the couch. I've missed her so very much, and I may very well spend the whole day just sitting with her. Some things are even more important than TOMM.

Morning.
A poor effort in the kitchen last night only getting round to the toaster, microwave and worktops. I’m embarrassed to discover I could have made a loaf of bread with the crumbs that came out of the toaster

Hall day on Friday Focus feels like a cheat as i only cleaned it on Wednesday so apart from mopping the floor it doesn’t really need anything else. I’m going to spend the 30 minutes in the utility room instead.

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername Aww, enjoy your cuddles. Definitely much better than cleaning!

@Redcrayons I did our toaster the first week of doing TOMM and there was SO MUCH in it. The trays were absolutely full. Whoops.

I'm not sure what I'll do today - not sure the hall needs a full 30 mins, but I have my parents coming to visit for a couple of days and they arrive this afternoon so I might use some of that time to give the bathrooms a deeper clean instead.

Work has gone crazy busy buy am trying to tick off what I can - something is better than nothing!

Wishing everyone a housework-free weekend!

Yay I finally got done decluttering and organising everything tomm starts Monday for me.

I’ve been deep cleaning my house for the last week or so ready to start TOMM

Newly renovated so want to keep it nice :)

Am adapting to do m/w/f (my WFH days, will do instead of a lunch break) and will do bedrooms on Saturday morning… I think the ‘Friday focus’ is really the key, which I will probably do each weekend

I’m dividing my zones by type of floor so I can Hoover/mop easily . Also setting up a new Eufy robot vacuum which I think will help

Looking forward to a pristine house - even if I don’t have half a day on the weekend to get there!

Welcome to the fold!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends with no housework

I've been struggling to keep up, I just don't seem to have the energy!! But I have noticed, it doesn't take as long to tidy up and get the house looking tidy.

Thanks @SylvanasWindrunner: your thread was v motivating. I had actually hired a cleaner a few weeks ago, but realise she does a sloppy job, so planning todo it myself (fortunately I quite like cleaning, but without a routine I was doing level 1s, level 2 more or less on the weekend and spending around 3 hours, then deep cleaning would be an exhausting marathon maybe once a year)

My routine looks like this:

• Monday : kitchen & utility
• Wednesday- bathrooms & entry hall (as this has tiles so I can mop at same time as bathroom)
• Friday - my home office (which has wood floors) & living room - also floors, so I get the wood mop out once : this is my fave as it marks the weekend for me :)

Bedrooms & hoovering stairs is a Saturday morning job for me, and I will do any catching up & my Friday focus then

I think I’m going to adapt the focus cycle a bit as I’d like to deep clean some rooms more often: kitchen/living room/bathrooms

I like the idea of my going into the office days being totally chore free, and using my work breaks at home to do something useful: enough to make it worth getting mop etc out, but not enough to be totally exhausting

Realistically, I think I will be spending 45 min the 3 week days, and an hour to an hour and a half on Saturday but I find that ok

One thing I’ve bought this week is an extendable duster (from Sainsbury’s) - it’s a microfibre ‘mop’ on a pole, which will make some of the focus tasks like dusting ceiling corners/radiators/skirtings/behind furniture much easier .., I’m excited about having a realistic system to keep on top of the deep cleaning which otherwise builds up massively! I really think this is going to make a huge difference so pretty excited really :)

Spray mop has been a game changer here. Before our floors got mopped once in a blue moon but now I can really quickly whizz round the kitchen and hall in a few mins!

Makes a difference! Reading about your mop, I pulled my cordless vac out into a more convenient spot so I can get the kitchen floor (it has stupid non flat slate tiles so sweeping doesn’t do much 🙄)

Realising what a short time many household tasks take (once you have the equipment out) is quite a revelation…

A spray mop? What is this? Must google...
I have bought a decent handheld cordless hoover and my stairs have never been so clean.

Cordless hoovers are brilliant - we have a Shark one and it makes doing the stairs a much less awful prospect!

Spray mops have a bottle on them you fill with floor cleaner and a trigger on the handle you can use that sprays the cleaner onto the floor in front of the mop. They usually have microfibre pads that Velcro on the bottom. So you can just whizz around squirting and wiping and it's much faster than traditional mopping (and the floors don't get as wet!).

@Indecisivelurcher

That's depressingly true