Rock The Housework Chat

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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 wish there were a couple of weekend level ones, given that the idea of the method is to do at least those basics every day. I usually end up using a weekday session I haven’t played in a while. A Wednesday session split between the hallway and maybe the bathroom would also be great for those of us without stairs 🤣

I don't know if this one is on the app, but the 20min "weekend spruce" up is good. It could be one of the older ones that didn't transfer (that's why I stayed with Patreon and link.through the website)

It looks quite a good combination for what needs doing tomorrow for me...

Oh, that looks like what I need! I'm on the app and can't find that one so it must be Patreon-only. You'd think she'd want to have as much as possible on her own platform 🤔That said I can easily cobble something together with the bitesize bits and just setting a timer

They had trouble transferring some of the earliest ones over.

I'd already committed some of them to muscle memory, so stayed with Patreon.

I'm looking forwards to the weekend sessions dropping this week.

I've done a few "scurryfunges" for general maintainence recently.

I was cleaning out the fish tank today so just shoved some random cleans on which was nice to hear something different. It was the Motivation Burst clean to get going which I'd forgotten about, but is good for a light refresh.

Oh, I just saw the weekend ones on the facebook page, I don’t really visit it that often. That sounds good. I cobbled together a few of the shorter cleans on Friday and did about an hour’s worth of laundry, bedrooms and living room to get ready for the weekend. By about 11 am on Saturday it had all been undone 🙄

It's still kind of good to know it happened. Like a less fun version of earning a hang over

Well done to both of you. 😊 Not to be condescending but I don’t think we are told ‘well done enough. I know that feeling @SydneyCarton - but it would have been even worse if you hadn’t done anything on Friday! That’s what I tell myself.

I did The Overwhelmed House Clean parts one to three at the weekend. It worked great - 20 mins of tidying, 20 mins of cleaning surfaces/ bathroom/ kitchen so very quick and 20 minutes of floors. The house felt a lot better and an hour is all I could really do due to work commitments and a family birthday. Today i did regular L1s and set the robovac off in a few areas. Feel good about it in terms of managing life, work and home right now. Just sectioning things up helps.

Thanks @Amore2 , much appreciated, and well done to you too! I don’t think I’ve tried that clean yet but might give it a go this week

Part1 of the weekend reset done. It covered enough ground that I was happy with that for what had to be done.

Alas the washing machine and tumble dryer are having a late evening... I went to help autistic teenage DS condition his tangled hair after swimming and found it swarming with headlice 🙈 He's been doing it himself recently, and I hadn't done anything with his hair in the past week to really notice. I'm just relived that my hair has been tied well out of the way. At least he now has clean cuddly toys...

Oh no, the dreaded head lice! I remember that and it creates a lot of extra work. Hope you have got them all now. 🙏
My DD has had a friend over for a sleepover which seemed to necessitate lots of extra kitchen cleans as they are in a baking phase. I don like to stifle their creativity and it keeps them off the screens! They try to clean up and are getting better but it always needs an adult to do another clean up at the end! So I have fine deconstructed kitchen clean parts one and two and letting the robovac handle the floor!

The microwave one is brill

Officially headlice free now 🎉

Clutter has been building up a bit for a while now. The kind that you know is there and annoying you but you look at it and can't quite tell what to do with it. Everywhere.

Yesterday I went off-piste, set a sports timer for 5 mins work 1 min rest with enough reps to get around each room and got 5 mins of tidying/ decluttering/ cleaning in each room which was a good general freshen-up.

The kitchen had a rough weekend as the dishwasher was out of action with an E15 fault that needed it to dry out for a few days.

Hurrah for no head lice! I’m hoping that we’re coming out of the lousy years but never say never….

I started doing the 30 minute house reset at the weekend but ended up going off piste as well and just did a 30 minute timer. I also got inspired by the fifteen minute post school run clean and have been trying to do a quick bed make and living room tidy before leaving for work. Definitely makes it nicer to come back to.

I hadn't seen headlice in years. He's a teenager 🤦‍♀️😂

I asked if he realised he had them and the dozy dear said "I wondered why insects were falling in my eyes" 🤢🤢🤢

Anyway, I can vouch for the efficacy of a Nitty Gritty comb combined with a few weeks of regular patience!

The calm kitchen sessions also work a treat too 😁 (but not for nits)

I have a shiny clean kitchen

Did 2x the Kitchen Bootcamp. It had reached the point where a regular clean just didn't really seem to be producing much results, or lasting results.

The window was rather grubby so it got Jiffed, squigeed then window cleaner. It's always a PITA trying to reach it so never ends up being a little and often job.

It just needed a good session of pull everything out and dealing with the stuff lurking that you go blind to.

My kitchen window and windowsill are always a state because as you say it's a PITA trying to reach across the width of the countertop to clean them. I did clean out the kitchen cupboard of doom the other day, which was full of random Tupperware, first aid bits, emergency candles, lunch boxes, hot water bottles - all kinds of crap. It's looking a lot better.

Just noticed the deconstructed bathroom clean which I really think I need - it looks super grotty but I can't muster up the enthusiasm to do the whole thing in one go.

May I join? I have been listening to Gemma for about 18 months and she’s been life changing. I even got rid of our cleaners because I found I was doing a more thorough job.

I prefer the prescriptive sessions to the more loosey goosey ones - probably because I need to be bossed about to get things done and I don’t like having to think.

The deconstructed bathroom one is excellent because it has a decluttering session at the beginning. I have really found that clutter is the biggest problem with keeping an orderly home.

Ha @CritterPants I’m exactly the same! When she says “For the next five minutes you’re going to tidy the living room” I want to shout “NO! TELL ME WHAT TO DO WOMAN!! I NEED TO BE TOLD!!!” 🤣

I haven't used this app for a bit so decided I need a bit (lot!) of motivation to try to get back on top of things. I've started with a guided kitchen one using my own soundtrack but I can hardly hear her. If I turn it loud enough to hear her the music is deafening. Anyone else find this or is there a way of changing it?

@SydneyCarton Yes, I don’t want to have to think! Thinking is how I get distracted and peter out.

@seasallyI use Patreon - I found it added an extra decision to have to think about what music to play.

I'm still on Patreon too. I like that the music (not necessarily what I'd listen to) becomes part of the routine of the clean and is a cue to keep going.
I stuck with it because some of my original favourites didn't transfer over to the app.

Did the email session today. 1500+ emails gone!

I find that if I try to delete them on my phone, it doesn't sync properly back up so they're not actually cleared.

Filtering parkrun shifted a few hundred... I get a load most weekends with a family involved with running at 5k and running and volunteering at juniors. I can easily get 10 in a weekend.

Scouting and Guiding are also buggers for volume, plus they come in at different levels. They're a pain for sweep settings as they vary in usefulness so I don't want to auto-delete.

Plus school... I should probably try to do a school purge in the holidays.

Summer House Reset here I come...

The DCs break up at the end of the week so I'd like the house in order before the chaos resumes, plus disruption like holiday packing.

I'll then be RTW after a long spell as a SAHM, but in a different LA to the DCs so will get a few extra days to restore order before my new lifestlye begins...

I'm hoping that TOM Rocks will help to keep order long term and not descend into the chaos that we had when I worked while the DCs were young...

That was really good. There were some points at the end of a room where I "cheated" and paused to finish the room off more thoroughly (like mopping the kitchen floor) but I've ended up refreshing most rooms to some extent.

It's a really good session for when the whole house feels a bit chaotic/ overwhelming, but actually it's not that deep and just needs a general whip-around. It's nice getting the hall and laundry into a general session as they're often left out.

I think what I need to do next is a list of my clutter hotspots and do a cluster of 10-15 min sessions to tackle those as I'm at a point where general cleaning isn't hitting the spot for long.