The organised mum method - does anyone else find this?

[Loverofallthingsleopardprint]

So I've been doing team Tomm for several months now. Yes it does work if you stick to it, although I still don't know how you are supposed to clean 3 bedrooms including changing the beds in half an hour. The house is clean and organised (ish) and I don't have the panic and epic clean before a visitor.

She says do your 30 minutes then go and do something else, because there's more to life than housework.

I find that the 'do something else' is literally, make dinner, clear up after dinner, ferry kids about, help kids with homework, spellings, reading books, try to fit in a bit of exercise, get kids to bed. If I'm lucky I'll get an hour to chill and watch tv.

I do get the kids to help and dh does a lot, but I'm still doing jobs none stop.

Is this just mum life no matter how organised you are?

Do you work and how old are the kids? I think the go do something else, life is too short, I think only applies if you’re a SAHM and doing your 30+ minutes during the toddler’s 2 hour nap. If you’re doing it of an evening after you get in from from work then yeah of course there’s all those other things that relentlessly need doing!

I try and do it here and there but it's the other jobs that take the most time (general clearing up crap / dealing with meals / washing etc)

That’s called Parenthood unfortunately! Are there any parts you can outsource? Try car pooling to reduce the ferrying around?

the kitchen one is the one that gets me. That could be all day if I let it!

the Only saving grace I can give you is I only do my bedroom now, the kids do (or not) theirs, if I’m feeling generous I do their beds

@Loverofallthingsleopardprint if the kids are old enough get them to do their own rooms and then you do a more thorough clean every other week?

I tried doing this method and I agree it's quite good to keep on top of the jobs no one likes doing eg the oven, cleaning skirting boards or behind furniture....but I still end up doing a full blitz of everywhere if someone is coming over as I find if I did the bathrooms on Monday and someone is coming over on Thursday they'd need doing again and same with any rooms they'd be going in lol!

TOMM is just about housework though. It condenses it to make room in your life for all the other stuff. Parenting and general life stuff will still take 90% of your waking time.

Yes or if I do actually have time to do something else I waste it because I feel guilty for not doing something productive 🤦🏻‍♀️

I hate it, patronising and completely oblivious that for full time working families finding 30 mins each day is still not easy if you also want to let your children do clubs, live ethically (so no unnecessary journeys etc), exercise and have some downtime.

I don’t find it patronising but I agree the 30 minutes can be difficult to find around work and children’s commitments. When I worked full time (and also when I was pregnant with hyperemesis or had a baby) I just used the general room plan to do something in each room on the designated day, whatever needed doing most. So some weeks it would literally be a 5 minute tidy, others a quick vacuum. I also did a lot of dusting one surface with my sleeve as I noticed it 😳

The bit that annoyed me is the bit where people insist that if you stick to 30 minutes your house will get cleaner over time and I disagree. If you have a bigger house with more people living in it then 30 mins will keep it passable but it’s not going to be enough to get it cleaner and cleaner.

I don’t actually follow it now but just follow the idea of the Friday focus to work my way around the house so everywhere gets a more thorough clean at some point.

I know it's just life/parenthood. But I feel a bit cheated 🤣 as I thought I'd get more time.

I work, eldest daughter does do his own room but it never gets done properly, so I end up going in there sometimes still.

The creator founded it on spending all of her spare time cleaning. So all those things you listed as doing something else was her something else.

I don't change beds once a week. I rotate. Changing 3 beds in one day doesn't work for me.