Guest Post by Sarah Parsons
Like all of you, I am busy. I have a six month old son. I work full-time in Corporate America. My husband is a freelancer, which means he works a lot, or a little, and here, there, and everywhere. We try to have a social life. We also have a home, eat food, and wear clothes. Am I the only one who is still surprised that dinner comes every single day?
One of the many pieces of advice I was given as a new mom was to not worry about keeping the house perfectly clean. Those comments only intensified post-maternity leave. Trust me, I let perfect go a long time ago (not easy for this Type A personality!).
At the same time, I can only live with pink rings in my sinks and toilets, and piles of dishes and clothes for so long. I have had people tell me to just hire a housekeeper or cleaning service. I’m going to assume that if you’re reading a blog on frugal living, then like me, you probably don’t have extra money in the budget for a cleaning service.
So… where does that leave me?
There are many really great organizational theories and systems out there. Many advocate a 15-minute rule for getting things done, where you set aside just 15 minutes to work on a task or project at a time. Some talk about tackling one room at a time or doing specific tasks on certain days of the week.
The problem: sometimes even 15 minutes, one room, or set daily tasks seems impossible.
My solution: Just do one thing. This might seem obvious to some of you, but to my Type A personality, this has been revolutionary. I don’t try to finish a whole task or clean a whole room. I just work on doing one thing.
How it works:
If I am going upstairs or downstairs, I take one thing with me to put away (dirty towels, toys, books, etc).
When I am pulling a shirt to wear today out of the clean laundry pile, I grab one more with me to hang up.
If I am in the kitchen, I put away one clean dish. Or put one dirty dish in the dishwasher.
If I am in the bathroom, I grab the dirty hand towel and use it to quickly wipe down the counter before it gets thrown in the laundry hamper.
If I am using a table/counter/desk that is piled high, I deal with one item while I am there.
Doing one thing is a step in the right direction. If I avoid the clean laundry pile because it’s overwhelming, there will always be an overwhelming laundry pile. Action, any action, makes a difference.
Some days, one thing is truly all I have time and energy for. Other times, I find that once I make that first step, I have motivation to do a little more. Maybe 5 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. Occasionally, I finish a whole task. Giving myself permission to only do one thing, gives me the freedom to want to do more, rather than feeling like I have to do more.
Will my house ever be spotless with this method? Probably not. But it will save my sanity and keep things clean enough for this season of life.
Leave a comment! What are your tips for cleaning and organizing in small doses?
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I read about the “ONE TOUCH” theory invented by one husband. For example, if you take off your coat, immediately hang it up. Don’t leave it on a chair to be moved (touched again) to get it out of the way in order to sit down. If you touch items just once you’ll save a lot of time & effort that it would take to touch it multiple times in order to get it to its proper place.
One basket or box in the doorway of each room. In goes anything that goes to another room. When going from that room quick check to see if anything in it goes where you’re going. The basket or box shouldn’t be too big though!
I think this is a great mindset to adopt! It sounds like we have very similar personalities and I can totally see this working for me! Thanks for sharing!
You know, its really a mindset and perspective problem. We make things so much harder than they really are.
If you do the load of laundry all the way through, it really takes 10 minutes to fold or hang and put away.
It only takes a couple of minutes to put the dishes away.
If you think, I’ll take a couple minutes and get this done you will be way ahead of the game and you won’t have overwhelming piles.
I’ve been a single mom for 19 years, and I’m alive to tell about it!
Try flipping the switch on your thought patterns.
I do exactly what you describe! I try not to go to another room of the house without another reason or chore that I can do at the same time! (Which really chaps me when I do that thing…where you say, “Why did I come in here?!) Anyway, it really helps slay the housework “dragon, to do a little at a time and not get OCD over finishing right then! Thanks for a great reminder! Now, what was I doing? Oh yeah! TAXES! ):
I love this post, thank you! I have been operating (recently) on the one touch principal. If I’m going to rinse out a dish, I’m also going to put it in the dishwasher because I’m only going to touch that dirty dish one time. Same thing if I’m picking up the mail, I’m going to sort it (seriously I timed it, added 1 more minute). I think the one thing philosophy and one touch rule pair well.
The best tip I ever heard: make your bed. It’s fast and easy to do, helps make your bedroom look somewhat “organized”, is cleared off IN CASE you need space to sort anything, and it’s lovely to get into a made bed at night (even if you didn’t get anything else done).
I am a perfectionist; have been all my life! My house stayed perfect when I was single and after I married. Two years after I married, we moved and I got pregnant at the same time. I decided at that time, rather than locate work outside the home, I would stay home during and for a short while after my son was born. The short while turned into 10 years. I still managed to keep my house in perfect shape. But something happened when I went back to work; I just couldn’t do it anymore! It is 19 years later, my son is married and on his own; I still can’t do it! We are moving to our retirement home as I write this. It is my goal to find my perfect home once again. I’m enjoying the purging in my life, one thing at a time! Thanks for helping me find this simple freedom once again!
This is along the lines of what I was trained to do in a professional kitchen, which is to CAYG – Clean As You Go. So, for starters, whenever I am going to be in the kitchen cooking, the first thing I always do is fill the sink with hot soapy water. Then as I am sauteeing or waiting for something to boil, etc., I turn around and wash dishes as I am cooking. Makes clean up a sinch! Another strategy that was drilled into our heads was to always have full hands to reduce trips, and to plan your steps. So if I am going to head upstairs to get something from the baby’s room, I think before I go – Is there something I will need to bring up there later that I can bring now? And the bathroom is on the way, so is there something I need to bring down from the bathroom I can do at the same time (i.e. the garbage in there is full and needs to be emptied). Is there laundry up there that needs to be brought down? In the beginning you have to actually stop and think about what steps you are going to do, but after awhile it becomes habit and you don’t go far without thinking about what you are going to grab in both directions. It’s well worth it to re-train yourself to think in this way both at home and beyond.
Love it! Those are excellent tips!
Here it is two weeks later and I just wanted to thank you for this tip. It is that little saying ‘just do one thing’ in my head that has given me a notably tidier home in a very short time. Perfect? No. Still clutter areas that need to be worked on? Oh sure….but when I had my friend over for coffee she NOTICED! I hadn’t spent loads of time……and I’ve not been mentally blocked from even getting started! Perfectionism in a bizarre twist of ‘well if I can’t do it completely right I won’t touch it at all’.
Heck, last night when my 3 year old was bathing right next to me, I grabbed a few cleaning wipes and wiped down the fronts of the bathroom cabinets and swiped the baseboards! It was my ‘one thing’ while I was a captive audience to my bathing toddler!
So thank you….Thank you! It is the one thing I see being a genuine change in how I do things in my day to day living and it’s becoming a habit. How simple….and what a difference! ~ Deb Stuart
Thanks for posting this! That was the same piece of advice given to me over and over (and stressed again when daughter #2 came along) when I first became a mom. NOT cleaning my house is not an option for me so even though it was tough, I did hire a housekeeper and it was a sanity saver for me. Now that the kids are older, I can clean (and they can help) on weekends and it isn’t such a big stressor in my life. I can tell you it was the best money I spent as a new parent!
Another tip is to cut out things in your life to do. You can get burned out with trying to stuff more and more tasks into your life by getting more and more organized. Instead write all the things down you want to do and cross off the least important.
Great tips! I also try and follow the 30 second rule. If it takes 30 seconds or less, I just do it! Another thing I wish I would have done when I had three kiddos age three and under, was to hire a “mommy’s helper” to spend a couple hours a week cleaning, doing laundry or just playing with the kids. If you find a teen or preteen who loves kids, this can be fairly reasonable.
My house is always spot less no matter what I can’t handle things out of place beside the toys from my princess but other then that everything has a spot and if it’s not there I have to pu it back lol
“Do one thing…” So simple, yet genius! I often overwhelm myself into accomplishing nothing. (Hello, perfectionism.) Allowing myself “permission” to do one thing ought to help. Thanks!
i wish there was a button to share this! such a great article!
AMEN! I have learned to do something within a 10 to 20 foot radius of wherever the little sweetie is at the time. That way I kind of make it to all parts of the house in a given day.
I have no great tips, but I love this suggestion!