I’m channelling my inner Britney in the title there. I just thought I’d give a little life update. Following on from my mini breakdown last week I feel like I have come out on the other side feeling a little stronger and a lot more determined. I’ve recently come across the advice, on more than one occasion, that you should get your own house in order before you can find order in the other parts of your life. That has to be a sign, right? I’m certainly looking to bring some order into certain (most) aspects of my life - family, finances, parenting, work, home - so that’s what I’m going to do. And for once in my life I’m going to listen to advice and I’m going to start with my home.
So I created a cleaning schedule for myself. We live in a small house (a blessing and a curse) so there aren’t a lot of rooms. I’ve created a schedule for myself where I clean one room (thoroughly) a day. This works for me because we don’t have too many rooms. Each day I have designated tasks for a particular room. This has helped me so much (so far) because it means I’m not overwhelmed by all that needs doing (and so end up doing nothing). I have tasks set out for me each day so I know what I need to be doing and I can just crack on and do it. If there’s one thing I love more than making a list, it’s completing a list!
My sample schedule:
Monday - Molly’s Bedroom
Tuesday - Stairs, landing and hallway
Wednesday - Our bedroom
Thursday - Kitchen
Friday - Bathroom
Saturday - Living Room
Sunday - Outdoors
I’m sure that this is probably not an original idea, there are so many different ideas out there, but it’s the one I came up with that will work for me.
Of course there’s still the daily tasks such as washing the pots and cleaning up after Molly etc so I still do these. But I was doing these before anyway. The problem was that I was only doing these things so other things were just starting to get neglected, they were piling up and then becoming a bigger job. A job that I didn’t want to tackle.
I’ve only been doing this for a few days but it’s already making a big difference to my life. The house is cleaner and I feel a lot less stressed about it. I also feel like I have more time to enjoy with Molly and not worrying about what needs doing. Only time will tell if it’s sustainable or not but I’m feeling optimistic about it. And once my house is in order I will start to tackle the rest. I’ll get a cape and you can start calling me wonder woman. I’m just kidding. If I could just get to the end of each day having not cried and feeling like I’ve accomplished something then I’ll be quite happy.
