Homemaking Meme

Barbara H. of Stray Thoughts has put together a little homemaking meme which provides a great opportunity to get to know one another’s homemaking styles.

1. Do you make a plan for the week? The day? Or just go with the flow?

Once upon a time, not too long ago, I had a weekly plan. I assigned a task to each day: laundry, upstairs cleaning, downstairs cleaning, grocery shopping/kitchen tasks (like baking bread, making yogurt, etc.), trash/recycling, and outdoor work. I followed it pretty faithfully and it worked pretty well.

Lately, though, I’ve spent so much time at work and been so exhausted when I get home that I haven’t done anything except laundry, which I still do faithfully every Thursday night.

2. When is your best planning time?

Humph. I don’t plan for my home life anymore. I never know what my work life might look like so I never know when I’ll be home or what sort of condition I’ll be in when I finally do get home, so I’m currently just flying by the seat of my pants on the home front. (If you think of me, pray that I could place some appropriate boundaries around work life–and learn to have a home life again.)

3. Do you clean room by room or task by task (e.g., do you dust the whole house at one time, or do you clean the living room completely before going on to another room?)

It varies from day to day–and whether I’m caught up on things or not. If I’m doing decluttering, I tend to do it in a circle around a room, taking care of one surface at a time. I get that surface entirely clean, dusted, and everything that needs to be done in or around it done and then move on to the next. On the other hand, I prefer to do all my vacuuming (in the whole house) all at once.

4. Do you do certain tasks every day every week, like a shopping day, a laundry day, etc.?

I guess I sorta answered that one on question 1. This is a habit I’d like to get back into.

5. What’s your least favorite housecleaning task?

Catching up. I hate when I get so behind that I really have to scrub and WORK at cleaning. I prefer to do it little by little so the task never gets that big (not that I’m doing that currently, bah!)

6. Do you have a favorite housecleaning task?

Making my bed with fresh linens. I love making hospital corners and having a made up bed.

7. What do other family members do in the way of cleaning the house?

Not make messes.

Which my other family member (in the house) does a much better job of than I.

She also does dishes and cleans the kitchen pretty frequently.

Otherwise, she doesn’t make messes, so why should she clean them up?

8. What, if anything, do you do to make housecleaning more enjoyable, (e.g., play music, set a timer, etc.).

I used to listen to audio books quite a bit while I cleaned. Now, I tend to set timers and give myself 15 minutes of cleaning or decluttering and then 15 minutes of internet time (rinse and repeat as many times as I can bear.)

9. What things make a room seem messy or unclean to you?

Stuff on the floor (which is totally one of my personal failings).

10. What are particular areas that are standouts to you that other people miss?

I think I’m a very unpicky cleaner. While I prefer to cover everything with a fine-toothed comb (when I’m deep cleaning or in “stove job” mode), I don’t generally look too deeply when others are cleaning.

It does drive me nuts when people wipe a surface and don’t get rid of all the “sticky” though.

11. How do you motivate yourself to clean when you don’t feel like it?

That is the question of the day.

I’ll let you know when I get motivation.

Frankly, I usually invite someone over, which does a good job of motivating me towards basic presentability (at least, getting stuff off the floor.)