"Little and often" is actually quite a lot of time and work?

[oldsprouts]

I have a smallish house and it is just me and DH here. I am the sort of person who really needs to keep on top of the housework and clutter as if it gets too bad I feel really overwhelmed and start procrastinating and when the house is unclean and messy its just bad for my mental health as I feel like I need to get the house sorted before I can do anything else but I feel so overwhelmed I just can't take action.

Currently though I am on top of things and the house is ticking over. However it feels like it still takes a long time to do all the daily chores that need doing besides cooking so things like wiping down the countertops after dinner (and sometimes after lunch too), cleaning the hob, the sink, round the bins, emptying bins if need be, sorting recycling, sweeping the floor, spot cleaning the floor, sorting washings, putting washing away, giving the bathroom a quick wipe down and squeegeeing the tiles after a shower (partly to reduce mould), making beds, resetting rooms when going to bed, washing up cups, general squaring up, organising and decluttering as I go. It all takes hours work every day and that is not even counting a proper clean of a room. It is little and often and it does mean I keep momentum and don't get that overwhelmed feeling but little and often is also quite a lot of work and time if I am honest!

Does anyone else find this?

I’ve followed the organised mum for yonks, since she had only a handful of followers. Still can’t do my house in 30 sodding minutes a day!

I listen to her guided cleans, I have a good pace on, but it always takes me longer. I can’t just stop. In for a penny…

The most frustrating thing is that however long I spend cleaning, it still never looks clean to me. There’s always more to do. As I’m cleaning and looking at things, I always find more jobs to do. If people are coming over, I can spend 4hrs cleaning the downstairs only and still spot things that need doing when my guests have arrived and cringe about them. I’m not even a proper clean freak or show home kind of person.

I can’t figure myself out! 🤣

wtaf is a guided clean ? Sounds like the emperors new clothes to me.

@CappelliBand seriously love, just cut the habit. None of your guests are coming to inspect your cleaning and if they are they don't deserve your effort. To quote Bridget Jones Diary, they are coming to see you not oranges in sugar cages. Free yourself from the tyranny. Women everywhere rise up ! Reject the cleaning and do something for yourselves with that time. Colouring, take up that instrument you've been wanting to play, go fir a run, ANYTHING BUT WASTE YOUR ONE PRECIOUS LIFE CLEANING

It all comes down to how much time you have to spend on cleaning. I work full time, run in my spare time, see friends, go to the PT, park run, organise my kids, keep the kitchen clean, shop, cook, put fuel in my car, put the bins out weekly, and keep on top of the washing. That is it. I don’t have time to even think about my skirting boards, top of the cupboards or drawers.

If You Want Something Done, Ask a Busy Person To Do it, is my belief.

This is what I wanted to say but couldn’t think how to word it. If you’re timing every single thing you do, including cooking etc, from the moment you get up until you go to bed, then yes, it does take a few hours. But I wouldn’t lump a lot of that in with daily chore times. I’d only time when I’ve specially gotten up with the intention of getting some cleaning done. I wouldn’t include doing things like making the bed after I’ve gotten up, or throwing some bleach round the toilet or wiping the bath round after I’d used it, or plumping the cushions after I’d gotten up as daily chores.

Trying to think what I have done today, I don't do much daily but there is only me

Cleaned the toilet
Washed up once
Wiped the kitchen surfaces once
Put some laundry away
Sprayed method daily shower spray after my shower
Pulled back the duvet to air as I got out of bed

That's basically my daily stuff then weekend is

Changing bedding
Hoovering
A bit more in depth cleaning/dusting

If it looks dirty/dusty then I clean it as I see it

You say little and often, OP, but you aren't doing the little, just the often

You have described me and my DH. I’d love to be able to blitz the house together like that but he drives me nuts. His cleaning priorities are totally different to mine. If we agree to ‘wipe down the kitchen’, he’ll take the trash out (slowly) and then disassemble the hob and start scrubbing it. I mean, he will do the countertops eventually, but all the unnecessary crap gets done first and then I can’t use the stove to cook dinner for the DC at the usual time.

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew Ha! Yeah, it probably sounds a bit mad but a guided clean is a 30 minute recording of her guiding you through which tasks to spend time on, along with a music backing track. “Right, let’s move on to washing down the surfaces for 3 minutes”… fades into disco. That kind of thing.

If you clean too much, or indeed, not enough, it’s supposed to help you spend “just enough” time on each task and then move on with your day. But if I stopped when she said so, I’d have suds everywhere and half a job done. Perhaps I just need to put my sports bra on and do it at double speed.

Like I said, I’m not even a show home type of person so where it stems from, I just don’t know, but by god, does it cause such great internal shame to have anyone round.

I don't see how you can do that unless you know what the person's room looks like. My worktop size is very different to my MILs and make of a more difficult material to clean.
how can you say how long a living room takes to clean ? I don't have any ornaments so it would take less time to clean those but the room is 24' x 14' so takes much longer to hoover than it would if it was 12 x 10

If you want to spend less time, OP, you need to drop your standards.
Today, I:
did a load of laundry (10mins to hang out)
emptied dishwasher (5min)
pushed hoover round kitchen and living room (5min but we have a small house)
wiped and dried kitchen surfaces after breakfast (5min)
chucked some cleaner down the loo (2min)
Lunch was a sandwich and some fruit, anything I use goes straight in dishwasher and I don’t consider that cleaning; ditto for spraying shower on my way out of it or wiping down sink while cleaning teeth.
After dinner, we will repeat the kitchen surfaces and load the dishwasher (5min each).

So in total, generously, maybe 40min, and ideally shared with other family members.

The fridge, the cupboards etc get cleaned when they look dirty - maybe if you added all that up over a year and divided it by 366, it would average an extra 10min a day?

I understand what you mean, OP. I try to do TOMM but there’s no way I can do the level 1 and 2 jobs within 45 minutes. I think it depends a lot on your family and your house. I have a large house (not massive but larger than the average family home) and 3 young children so I have to do at least one load of laundry per day, usually two, plus the associated folding and putting away, and ironing (only where absolutely necessary). A quick toilet and clean takes way more than the 5 minutes allotted, as we have four loos that are used all the time. Things like the insides of cupboards and skirting boards get done once in a blue moon!

I don’t know what the solution is, I don’t even manage the minimum amount of housework I need to get done each day.

oldsprouts i am like you .
!
i clean kitchen each am , but always cook lunch( eg today homemade veg burgers) - this led to 2 pans, one bread board, plates, cups , food processor. And a messy work surface. Needed to wipe that and cooker top and table .

again- cook from scratch this am.

i guess as we cook from scratch it both uses up time ( which may feel u are doing jobs a long time) ? And also means 3 kitchen top cleans a day.

it all adds up compared to say a sandwich at lunch and say a ready meal at teatime.
a sandwich takes a few mins and a micro meal minutes- wereas from scratch cooking generally can add 1.5 hours of work to yr day? Hour at night/ half at lunch?