I spent a lot of work yesterday reviewing my control journal and housecleaning schedule.  I’ve developed a new list that I can print out so if family members want or need to help they can easily see what needs to be done.  There is one page for daily and weekly chores, and another page for monthly chores including a special column for duties specific to that particular month.  There is also space to write down special things for each area; if I think of something during the day, I can write it down and get to it during that room’s allotted time.  I’ll be testing it out for the rest of this month!  On the daily/weekly list, I have a section that details what I try to get done during my “Daily Room Rescue” – that is an hour after dinner that I devote five to ten minutes to each room, primarily daily tasks.  (This was originally developed from FlyLady’s 5 minute Room Rescue; I’ve expanded it to include the whole house at once.)  Grandma helps Dot clean her toys up during that time.  I have been doing this for a few weeks now and it is going quite well; even when I have to skip a day or quit early for various reasons, the house still looks great.  I am truly amazed at what just five minutes nearly every day can do.  I’m getting pretty good at doing the daily tasks, and move on to weekly and monthly chores in that room if I get finished before my timer goes off.  Even so, I may allow each room a ten-minute day on a rotating basis so I can get to more of the monthly list.  That still allows about ten minutes extra that I can devote to extra cleaning, special projects, or just personal time!

Here are links to my Daily and December schedules as they are now in rough draft form.  Many of the things on the monthly list need to be shuffled around because they really do not need to be done every single month; I’m not certain how I want to do this yet.

If this works, I will eventually be keeping my entire house clean in less than six hours per week!