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!'

The app is £5 (4.99?). You can share tasks with other people (ha ha) and leave notes so others know you've already cleaned the oven (for example)

I was recommended this by a poster on a different thread. Is the app worth £5, can I allocate tasks to DH and DCs?

Although we do quite like a physical list to tick off ignore!

Hoorah! My neighbour just took a large estate car's full of clutter to the recycling centre for me. He had to drop the back seat but it all fitted in bar a spare Henry (!!!) and that's just the stuff from the kitchen and utility. I also threw out 35 binbags full - thanks to a road full of generous neighbours who all let me chuck stuff in their bins. It helps living in a road full of peeps who all know each other and are friendly.

My neighbour is booking another visit to the recycling centre in a fortnight (you have to have an appointment round here) so my super sweet DIL is coming over to help me de-clutter two bedrooms starting over the weekend. When I think about the little room my DH used for his computer/gubbins/crap my heart quails a bit but I am determined - this time is once and for all.

I am on the path to minimalism and it makes me very happy.

Forgot to say - I'm still on the Clutter Buster upstairs - can't move on to messy house bootcamp up there until this phase is over.

I do it as a family so we all do ten mins. I then allocate bigger jobs on Friday. I plan to take on a more management role eventually!

DD has started rushing to get her mini Henry Hoover when I start the daily whizz round and declaring 'I'm helping!'

She's at nursery today (she goes Mon and Friday) so I've been able to tackle the bathrooms for Focus Friday. Took way longer than 30 mins but that was partly due to the fact that at some point, cough medicine must have spilled in one of the upstairs bathroom drawers and it had gone absolutely solid and stuck everything to it, so I had to take the drawer out, carry it downstairs, and pour numerous kettles of hot water into it to clear it. But it's now sparkling! I also sorted out all the medication into Tupperware as it was just all chucked in there, and got rid of almost-empty bottles of stuff that had inexplicably (almost certainly by me) been chucked back into the drawers.

I actually had a moment earlier where I realised that if someone came to the door, I could let them in to any room and not be embarrassed. I'm not sure I've ever felt that before - whenever we've had people round before, there's always a frantic few hours of cleaning and tidying in the rooms they're going to be in and the other rooms just have their doors shut. If someone had turned up unexpected, I'm not sure I would have been able to let them in! I hadn't realised how stressed it had been making me and how ashamed I'd felt about it.

Looking forward to a relaxing weekend, although I have booked a slot at the recycling centre to get rid of my cat's scratching post (it's one of those really tall, wide monstrosities and was his favourite perch, but he died a few weeks ago and my other cat has never been interested in it) and far too many wine and beer bottles for a household that barely drinks! Really wish they collected glass around here with the recycling. The nearest glass disposal place is the recycling centre, but you have to book, so it's a bit of a pain.

I’ve read the TOMM blog but I’m still not sure what is particularly helpful about this method.
Is it the allocated days for each room/area?
The getting level 1 jobs done daily?
Is it sticking to the times/days and not pushing yourself to do more, otherwise you will neglect something else?
I spend way more than the allocated time for level 1 & 2 jobs.

If someone could clarify, thanks!

Is it actually possible to do this with a DH or do you have to be "in charge" of jobs and tell him what needs doing?
That's not happening here.

The whole idea is that over time, stuff takes less and less time to do because you are doing it so frequently. So cleaning the skirting boards in the hall might take you 20 mins the first week because you haven't done it for months (or years if you're me) but by the time it rolls around again it only takes 10, then next time 5, etc. And nothing has a chance to get dirty again.

I like the structure of it, that there are specific things to do each day so I can use the limited time properly rather than fannying about doing a few things in each room and achieving not very much. Also that it leaves weekends free - we were spending hours at weekends catching up on stuff but today is the first Saturday in god knows how long we haven't had to blitz the house.

I have the daily jobs printed out and pinned on noticeboard so when we do our 30 mins, my husband will say what he's doing or vice versa and the other will do the rest,

I’ve been doing it for nearly two years now. It’s amazing.

I used to wear myself out cleaning and still not having a tidy house. I used to panic if someone said they were going to visit.

Now, my house is always “visitor ready” and I’m not exhausted.

Gemma is a lifesaver!

I’d completely forgotten about this method. I did it a few years ago and it was great. I’ve started a new job and I’ve been wondering how I’m going to cope. I’m sitting staring at the hoover right now

I'm not so interested in having clean skirting boards that I'm going to clean them every week! Not for me/us.

Skirting boards was just an example, don't think that's part of the weekly clean, I just added it to the hall weekly one myself because we have a cat and dog and they tend to get very hairy if left! You can entirely customise it to what you want to do, so I've added some bits and taken off some others.

The printables have good ideas of what you do on a weekly basis and what's on an 8-week rotation on the focus Fridays: https://www.theorganisedmum.blog/free-printables/
(So skirting boards in the hall are 8-weekly by default).

Even if you don't want to do TOMM, I think they are a good place to get some sort of routine going. I need structure or I just fart about and achieve nothing

I love TOMM. I’ve taken a break over summer and can’t wait to get back into it. It honestly changed my life. I never thought I would be ‘that’ person claiming something I found on Instagram transformed our lifestyle but it really has!!

I used to do the housework in such a disorganised manner it wasn’t really efficient at all. Having a set routine is just brilliant. The house is always ready for visitors. Never perfect but not a complete disaster zone like it used to be!

None of that is going to happen in our house daily or even weekly, no time!
If I get up early it's to do yoga.
Straight to work after dropping the kids.
Errands at lunchtime (or occasionally exercise e.g. bike ride, swim).
Home, supervise kids or take them to a club (some kind of exercise, or swimming lesson, or stop them killing each other).
Tea, either put one to bed and then get on with e.g. paperwork relating to DS SEN, or supervise DS to stop him eating the whole cupboard of DH anti-hypo snacks or do some therapy with him, then put him to bed.
Tidy up kitchen if I didn't cook tea. Attempt to find surface of dining table for breakfast, wash DD clothes that she had an accident in at school, get kids bags ready.
Collapse on sofa (and can't use the hoover anyway as DD is asleep) or run up and down sorting DS out.
That's why we have a cleaner.

@Cocopopsss

I’ve read the TOMM blog but I’m still not sure what is particularly helpful about this method. Is it the allocated days for each room/area? The getting level 1 jobs done daily? Is it sticking to the times/days and not pushing yourself to do more, otherwise you will neglect something else? I spend way more than the allocated time for level 1 & 2 jobs.

If someone could clarify, thanks!

For me it’s useful to have a routine and do set things on set days but I’ve done that for years and still struggled. For me it’s all about the Friday focus. All those jobs that you would dread doing because they’re so disgusting, or the things that you never get around to now happen regularly and as a result are less disgusting. A few examples from my house: the window frames, pre Tomm I’d open the window and they’d be all black and cobwebby inside and it would be a job in itself to clean them. Now they get a quick wipe every 8 weeks on the focus for that room and it’s no longer a big task to be done in addition to other cleaning. (The window pictured was done 5 weeks ago). My bathroom cupboard used to be a disaster and a jumbled mess of products currently being used and spares waiting to be used. I’d spend ages organising it but people would shove stuff back in wherever, new stuff would be piled on top etc. Now the same still happens but because it’s sorted more regularly it gets less messy and takes far less time to sort. We have really high ceilings and I used to clean the cornices at Christmas which was a disgusting job involving several changes of water and a black cloth. Now they get quickly dusted every 8 weeks and at Christmas last year it was a 5 minute job to wipe them over. Basically nothing ever gets dirty enough to be a big or time consuming job.

A lot of it is common sense and I always thought I was quite good at keeping on top of stuff but there were always things that I put off in favour of other things and now that doesn’t happen.
I don’t actually follow Tomm mon-thur as I still do my own routine but the Friday focus has changed my house. Having allocated time for all those extra jobs had never occurred to me before and I was always doing them on top of other stuff

@drspouse

None of that is going to happen in our house daily or even weekly, no time! If I get up early it's to do yoga. Straight to work after dropping the kids. Errands at lunchtime (or occasionally exercise e.g. bike ride, swim). Home, supervise kids or take them to a club (some kind of exercise, or swimming lesson, or stop them killing each other). Tea, either put one to bed and then get on with e.g. paperwork relating to DS SEN, or supervise DS to stop him eating the whole cupboard of DH anti-hypo snacks or do some therapy with him, then put him to bed. Tidy up kitchen if I didn't cook tea. Attempt to find surface of dining table for breakfast, wash DD clothes that she had an accident in at school, get kids bags ready. Collapse on sofa (and can't use the hoover anyway as DD is asleep) or run up and down sorting DS out. That's why we have a cleaner.

In fairness, I don't think TOMM is aimed at you.

Well, I live in hope of having a clean and tidy house but I suspect that's not for us either!

I’ve fallen off the wagon over lockdown and want to get back to it. It made a huge difference when I used to do it regularly, apart from the kitchen I used to be done in less than 30 minutes for each room.

It’s now a big old mess again.

I lost all pride in the house over the lockdowns as it was impossible to keep on top of a home that was also functioning as an office, school and effectively prison!

Now the kids are back at school I might try and revisit TOMM as I am still working from home for part of the week. I'll need to juggle the days around so that the busiest days (kitchen/bathroom) can be done on days I'm WFH so won't lose time commuting and keep the straightforward hall/landing jobs for days I'm in the office.

I've been half following this for ages but I think I need to do the bootcamp so then its gets easier after that. Thanks for this thread OP!

Love it. I have had to to adapt it to suit though. I work Wed to Fri so I'm a zombie by Friday, which is why I do Friday focus on a weekend.
I do kitchen living room on a Monday and bathroom bedrooms on a Tuesday.

What Gemma has taught me is that it's not about what day you do what on, it's having a routine and sticking to it.
The deep cleans are fantastic. Best thing about it in my opinion. So satisfying knowing every room gets a designated deep clean every 8 weeks.

@Row1n

I've been half following this for ages but I think I need to do the bootcamp so then its gets easier after that. Thanks for this thread OP!

Good luck! We did the bootcamp first - I actually did it over a couple of days while DD was at nursery and just spent the whole day blitzing the house as I'd got so sick of everything - and it was really worth just powering through with it to get to a decent baseline.

I've done nowt today except my level 1 stuff and that's a revelation for us as weekends have traditionally been spent trying to tackle a week's worth of housework and laundry! The laundry basket is actually empty - I'm not sure I've ever seen the bottom since I bought it

I think it makes a lot of sense.

I havent got into it yet cos I'm at the clutter clearing stage. I've shifted to konmari method for decluttering. Just done clothes and books so far and feels much better.

One thing I did adopt as soon as I bought TOMM book was the laundry load every day. It really helps. Previously the basket would be overflowing and I'd never get on top of it.