Rock The Housework Chat

[BogRollBOGOF]

www.rockthehousework.co.uk/

Anyone else rocking the housework?

My housekeeping was always somewhat chaotic, and since these were launched, my house is far more functional and a podcast away from actually looking rather orderly, even at short notice.

I tend to pick what I need each day rather than following the tradtitonal TOMM, but do refer back to that to help get some jobs done if they're in danger of being neglected.

I think my most used tracks are the "Calm Laundry Put Away" the "Bitesize Bathroom Blitz" and the "Quick Kitchen Turnaround"

I hope you're OK now.

At least the guided cleans can help you make the catch-up more managable.

Yeah, I'm a lot better now, thanks.

I've used the productive slots to get things done today rather than specific cleans. Just so I can potter around and do a little of everything and make a dent on the clothing mountain. Fortunately the sun was in fine fettle today and the solar power was in full swing. I had the washer and the dryer going all day.

It's definitely easier on bright days, for mental and electrical energy.

I need to get my butt in gear over laundry (upcoming holiday) and generally sorting the house out. DS has been ill and in rather unpredictable condition so in and out of school and that makes it hard to focus. I got him in today, but spent half an hour stabilising him, so felt pretty wrung out when I got back home.

The 1hr Valenshines looks good for the job though. And the new 30 min laundry will help too.

I hit the ironing with the 30 minute laundry drop - it was enough to get things looking less chaotic. Things are getting tidier and more organized by inches but it's getting there.

I'm not surprised you feel wiped out. It sounds like you've had a hard morning. Hope your ds gets a run of better health - not long till half term and then hopefully he'll be able to get the benefit of a rest from school xx

I'm surprised at what I got done in the 30 min laundry. I had mixed bags of clean scattered around which made the task feel bigger than it was.

I did the Valentine's whole home clean yesterday and the laundry in up to date - evidenced by reaching the bottom of the laundry basket and it being apparent that it needs a clean 🤣

Half term here but my car flunked it's mot and I can't get it to a garage till Thursday, so having a much quieter week than expected. I should probably declutter the utility again, not much of a room really but it is capable of holding a mountain of clutter in a precariously balanced jenga formation none the less.

@FourTeaFallOut I have almost finished my laundry mountain today BUT am struggling to get everything dried! Our tumble dryer is rubbish and it just seems so wasteful to put the heating on to help with the drying. I can cope with being a bit chilly myself - I just try to keep myself busy with cleaning, tidying etc - but the washing just doesn't dry otherwise. This is a real issue when you have two DCs who seem to make it their life's work to become as muddy as possible in as short a time as possible

My car failed its MOT in December and scraped through sulkily after I spent £££ on it I considered writing it off but it was just worth doing. Next time, however...

Does anyone have a meal planning app they can recommend? The TOMM method and app has been great for my cleaning habits, but I really struggle with meal planning, it's like I have a blind spot in my brain where I can't cope with it. Ideally I'd like an app where I can include the contents of my pantry/ fridge/ freezer, import meals from other sources, and produce a general shopping list at the end - Cherrypick seems useful but doesn't do everything I need. Any recommendations gratefully received

Yeah, it isn't a cheap fix and I didn't see it coming really, I thought it was fine 🫣 Typical.

We had a brilliant drying day yesterday, so I had both lines full and the solar was doing well so I had the dryer going as well. Today we are back to grey but it's not raining. Have some towels out the but not sure there's much drying going on.

I can't help with the meal app thing - something like that sounds brilliant though. Between the five of us we have a fussy eater, a coeliac and a dieter - I think we might break any meal planning algorithm and I'm resigned to making two different meals at least a few nights a week to make it work.

Lots of drying done here too @FourTeaFallOut - although it's not getting quite dry, I have to leave it out in the living room overnight just to finish getting the dampness out - massive improvement though! Sadly more rain forecast here for tomorrow

I'll keep looking for the app; DTS1 is an immensely fussy eater and very restricted, DTS2 is a great eater (thankfully!!), DP has a couple of intolerances and moans about anything which doesn't fit in with it... I usually end up eating soup as my brain just can't cope

We had a few years of intolerances/ allergies. Fortunately he grew out of them. Now he's just picky. A ravenous, picky teenager who gets hangry. It's a bad combination. I almost miss the allergy years when at least he ate what he was given!

Well, I did the calm downstairs clean today with the intention to do the upstairs later today but my motivation has deserted me, maybe I should get off here and get on with it? 😀

On the upside we are finishing half term with the house in pretty good shape and, given the diy efforts going on, that is no mean feat.

My car is back up and running again - so I have no excuse to get the clutter to the charity shop.

We're in a state of post-holiday, ill household. The house was tidy when we weren' in it and seems to have rapidly gone downhill with little energy to deal with it. One child phoned in ill (other still on holidays), and I'm in bed playing "whose cough is it" as everyone else in the household threatens to bring up a lung or kidney.

Today's bite-size drops look promising. I love the original ones, and always lamented the lack of a small hallway clean so that's a good gap in the range filled. Bite-size bathroom is one of my most-used cleans.

Our hall is annoyingly long and thin with no space to put much storage in. And we're outdoorsy with (muddy) shoes and coats to match. Things do have places, but the hall doesn't lend itself to "at point of use" and neat, accessible storage which is what we need to function. It therefore looks trashed with just a few pairs of shoes/ coats/ bags being dumped.

@BogRollBOGOF I hope you feel better soon! I had Covid in September and can still feel the effects now; it's awful when you can't spend any time recovering, I WFH and couldn't justify an actual day off. When my DTs were toddlers I came down with flu and was ill (properly ill) for 10 weeks as I just didn't get chance to rest.

I'm also on the hunt for a small shoe rack for our hall as it's in desperate need of more shoe storage, I need something which is narrow but reasonably high - one of those where you open the drawer fronts and pull out the shoes - not having any luck so far

Bitesize clean extremely helpful this week in a week filled with work and parents’ evening. It’s amazing what a difference five minutes can make when determined and with Gemma keeping one moving! 👍❤️
But a deeper clean of kitchen needed this weekend! 🧽

Apologies I haven't read the whole thread but I'm a newbie to this and haven't started but wondered is if it's worth joining the patreon?

What exactly do you get from it? Is it her telling you what to clean with background music? I thought you knew what to clean from the daily plan.

They're cleans where you're talked through the tasks.
Some follow the plan and work with the L1/ L2/ L3 cleans as well as things like the clutter buster. Some free-style rooms/ combinations/ tasks.

The advantage of the guided cleans is that they do work at keeping you to the 15/ 30 mins if you follow the method, and avoid over-cleaning or distraction.

I'm more likely to use the short or multi-room cleans to keep on top of things or just a general catch-up. They do make it much more managable because they save a lot of mental energy. The house is not great at the moment due to weeks of disruption and low energy, but I now know that there are certain cleans that can have a decent level of order restored within an hour. It's taken away so much of the negativity that used to wrap itself around household tasks.

It can be accessed by Patreon or the TOM app, pretty much the same price. I've stuck with Patreon as I know what I'm looking for that way, and search using the website. The advantage of the app is if you prefer your own playlists.

@BogRollBOGOF thank you so much. I think I'm going to try it and see how I get on with it. I have the app so will try it for a while with my own playlist.

I've finally had a productive day restoring some order to the house.
30 min laundry was great at cracking the post-holiday backlog.
I used the unpacking session to deal with non-clothes stuff from the holiday, then did a general tidy along with it.
A couple of bite-size cleans and a general vacuum.

Plan is Level 1s today and then a catch up on the downstairs (calm downstairs clean - 30 minutes). Got to do a load of laundry too plus bed sheets at sone point!
Wish I could manage to get everything done during working week but never seem able to so🤷🏻‍♀️
Love RTH though. Makes it more fun somehow 🤣,productive and don’t feel so alone!

What are you doing/ have done? 💪

It's complete chaos upstairs here as we are mid en-suite re-fit, that has also rendered my bedroom unusable. I'm having to share a bathroom with the savages my children, and so I think it's probably the one place in the house that is cleaner than usual.

I am still using guided cleans to keep the downstairs together, I wish there was another calm downstairs clean - I'm getting a bit bored of the current one and the laundry is up to date bar some ironing I'll do later today.

I hate building work @FourTeaFallOut mainly because as you know, DP's mate was supposed to do most of ours and never bloody finishes anything... instead of nice tiles and a splash back in the kitchen, we have sticky tiles and sealing tape, all applied by me...

Does anyone else listen to the TOM podcasts? They used to come out quite often (at least once a week) but there's been no new ones for almost a month, not sure why!

Building work releases so much dirt and adds to the general effort of keeping up.

I've been making good use of bitesize cleans to keep on top of things.

I'm looking forwards to using the new conservatory clean (probably following a declutter) but I need it to warm up, and preferanly dry up outside so I can shift stuff onto the lawn to make more space to tidy.

I've normally done the first mow by now but the lawn is still squelching when you go on it.

The sun's been out, motivation high and perfect timing for the Spring Clean declutter dropping. I needed that gear change and it feels like the lounge grown now I've shifted some stuff that had sneakily attempted to become semi-permanent features since Christmas. The 30 min laundry has had another airing. Then the 20 min rumble that I'd forgotten about (I think it came out when life was disrupted in Feb) which dealt with freshening floors and surfaces. Then the 30 min washing up. I did the dishwasher within that, but the plastic cups and bottles had built up and were easier to deal with by hand in a batch.

Looking forwards to the rest of the season.

Looking forward to the spring clean declutter! Don't think I'll be doing real time though and might be doing it during the Easter hols 😬

Calm Downstairs clean yesterday with level 1. Brill, much better. Took about 50 minutes total.