Last year, I had a 'family motto' for the year. I really enjoyed having that as a kind of overriding thought for the year and want to do that again this year.
My 2018 family motto was A clean home is a happy home. I really spent the year trying to focus on keeping the house more picked up. By nature, I am a good-intentioned slob. I'm scatter-brained and a bit lazy, so while I don't WANT to be messy, I can't seem to ever truly get my act together. Some things were successful: I made our bed more in 2018 than probably the entire sum of my life before this year! Some things were not: enforcing making the kids help.
Enter this year's family motto:
I told the kids a few weeks ago that I was tired of being the only one who picked up and the only one who cared about how the house looked. While I most definitely picked up A LOT more in 2018 and our house looked, on average, MUCH better...there were still lots of days it got away from me. We decided that we're going to sit down and come up with our guidelines - some of which are the same as our 2018 motto {#1-3} but didn't actually happen all that consistently:
1) When we get home from school, rooms, bathroom, and playroom are picked up - adding to this that they will also unpack their lunchboxes/put away anything they have brought home from school {largely Drew}.
2) Before dinner/while I'm cooking, they will pick up anything of theirs that is in the kitchen/living room.
3) After dinner, they will help me clean the kitchen - someone can vacuum the kitchen, someone can load the dishwasher, etc.
4) They are responsible for folding and putting away their laundry - and honestly I don't care if it's folded - I'm just tired of folding SO MUCH LAUNDRY.
5) Together, we are going to come up with a list of chores for every day - for example, taking out the trash or vacuuming their rooms - a small 5 or 10 minute activity - that will take something off my plate.
I basically told them if we all pitch in 10 minutes, it saves me 30 minutes at the end of the night, ha.
I'm also toying with the idea of doing some purging - maybe a room/month {not that it should hopefully take me a month ha} - our closet and office could definitely use some cleaning out {I'm looking at you bag of cords that have been in a corner of the office SINCE WE MOVED IN} and we have several junk drawers in the kitchen. In a lot of ways I don't hang on to stupid stuff, except the stuff the kids bring home from school or ALL the drawings Drew makes these days, but I have a lot of piles of 'I don't know what to do with this stuff so I'll just stick it in a drawer'. Eventually that stuff is needed or it isn't, ha.
So there you have it - my continued quest for cleanliness and organization in our home. I think 2018 was a good start, but I'm really excited to take it further this year and hope detailing it out and putting more thought into the steps will help!
I also have some small goals for 2019, so I'll do a post soon about how my 2018 goals went and also what's on the agenda for 2019 - I'm sure you're so excited!
4 comments:
Actually this DOES excite me..ha! I'm all about order and organization (this would be my nerd alert moment). I've been in my new place for a month now and it's still not where I want it to be but i get a little done every weekend so it's starting to feel more like "home". Love this goal and getting kids involved will be good for you and them!
Given my post this morning, I actually am excited about your 2019 goals post :)
Also, one thing which works well at our house is when I set a timer for 10 minutes and we do what I call a "10 minute tidy." This basically consists of me giving the kids small tasks to do (I give orders, everyone else does stuff) or allows time for a 10 minute blitz of a problem area (usually basement or playroom). It works well because there's a short time limit but you can still see results afterwards. And the whole family participates so it's really 40 minutes of cleaning up which goes a LONG way.
Also, I don't know if you've read this before but here's how I got my kids to do chores and a few of the things they do on a (somewhat) regular basis: https://daveandnatasha.blogspot.com/2018/03/help-i-need-somebody.html
I did announce this morning that the holidays were over and it was time for them to remember how to help around the house. And then Sam had to put away the clean dishes :)
I love this goal!! I am a neat freak, and I err towards being very particular about how things are done...a.k.a. I don't always love Millie "helping," because she probably won't do it the right way (MY WAY), hahaha. And I'm sure it's not great when she does something and then just watches me redo it. (Matt doesn't care for that much either.) BUTTTTTT I know it is good for people besides me (and my house cleaner, hahaha) to do things, so I am trying to loosen up and appreciate help when I can get it. One thing that I do like is finding jobs that Millie can do (AND DO WELL) and delegating that to her. Lately I've found that she's pretty great at vacuuming up a localized pile of crumbs/mess with the handheld vacuum. Like she likes to sit on the floor in the bathroom while I get ready and eat a cereal bar, which she makes a mess of. But she is super good at vacuuming up all the crumbs, and she generally enjoys that. So I can loosen up a little about allowing food somewhere other than the kitchen, knowing that even if she makes a mess, she can clean it up herself. It's awesome. Hahaha. Anyway, now I just sound like a totally bonkers control freak person, so I'll shut up. ;)
LOVE ALL OF THIS! As a cleanfreak and big proponent of chores for kids, this is everything I love. I do find we struggle with after-school responsibilities (I tend to shift our chores/clean-up to morning/weekends) so I'm interested to see how that works for you guys. Purging is my favorite of all - I wish I could fly down there and help you purge your entire house. To me, there's nothing more fun than donating/recycling huge mountains of "stuff." And yes, I AM excited for your 2018 goals recap & 2019 goals. My posts are coming out next week (2018 recap on Tues & 2019 on Thurs) - post with me LOL. Whew, lots of enthusiasm in this comment.
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