While growing up on the rolling prairie of western North Dakota my mom had a militant abidance toward a clean household. Country living is a never-ending cycle of sweeping; the wind-driven dust was always finding its way indoors. Raising six kids meant that the washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher hummed without ceasing. Thus, an embroidered sentiment adorned the wall in her kitchen proclaiming;
A women’s work is never done.
When the rest of the kids my age were watching cartoons, my sisters and I were taking part in our weekly Saturday morning housecleaning. We would clean before weekend trips to the lake cabin, we would clean before catching the bus to school – but the cleaning ritual that was the most exhausting was spring cleaning. At the time I detested the labor-driven process. However, I must confess that I appreciated the gleaming result upon completion. Every inch of every surface within had been scrubbed, not a pinch of dust was left undisturbed.
After I became a mom, I struggled to maintain order and domestic cleanliness. My time was spent on the priorities of parenting and being a wife, coupled with career responsibilities. Thus, it was far to easy to let the cleaning chores continue to collect yet another layer of baby drool and grime.
Determined not to abandon the standards set by my own mother, I began to chip away at the chaos and clutter until I finally found a groove and a method that reduced the stress of straightening up considerably. As the warm weather is upon us, I have compiled 3 targeted tasks to launch your spring cleaning.
The process involves zoning the home into five-minute bursts of focused action. Walk through your home and pay attention to the areas that incite frustration and apprehension. Then, approach the cleaning mountain with thoughtful intent and vow to simplify the chore and in turn, gain time by cleaning less.
Size Up the Clothes and Wardrobe
Most mothers are wholly unprepared for the laundry volcano and most homes do not have their laundry room location designed with modern parenting in mind. Thus, tackling laundry is neither an intuitive nor convenient process. Suddenly piles become the norm and the household acquiesces with the compromise of, “at least the clothes are clean”.
The solution? As the temperatures transition, so do the clothes. Sort through all of your little one’s closets and drawers and take out any item that they have either grown out of or are soon to outgrow. The sweaters, boots, and snow-pants can all move into the donation bag and your closets will suddenly have space to close properly. This is also a good time to evaluate why certain outfits are worn more than others. Are they easier to put on or less likely to stain? Anything that has been sitting in a drawer for a while (despite fitting) should also hit the donation pile.
Have only 5 minutes?
Sorting through clothes is a task that can easily consume an entire day. To reduce the intimidation factor: Quickly go through each family member with a donation bag in hand. Spending only five minutes per closet or drawer – pull out all of those tattered undergarments, pants, and stained shirts. This is an activity that should be done monthly. If you and your family members don’t have 30 pairs of socks or 20 pajama sets then you are less likely to let the laundry intervals to widen.
What? You can’t live without your clothes? Start by reducing your bathing towels. One for each family member and two extras (divide equally between dark and light). It’s an extreme reduction but this will force you to do laundry more timely and make it more manageable to fold loads. It is more enticing to spend five minutes to fold one basket instead of the hourly marathons it takes to deplete the towering and oh so intimidating couch clothing pile.
Reduce and Organize the Toys
Any mother could attest that their children have too many toys. Additionally, these toys are continually strewn about every inch of the house. This chronic occurrence leaves the home looking disheveled and disorderly. Up until recently, even if the all of the toys were picked up – their resting place still looked messy!
The solution? Take a cue from your daycare provider. Sort your toys by typology (blocks, cars, chew toys, etc.) and pile it all into an organization bin leaving larger items on a shelf display. Then, have your little one toss all of your hard work around the room. Proceed to pick it all up. Organize it again. If this cleanup process takes more than five minutes, conduct the reduction exercise again. Commence toddler toss again (much to your little one’s excitement) until the toy bomb clean-up time in each child-ridden room is under five minutes.
Why 5 Minutes?
If your little one’s attention span is anything like mine and you have any hope or prayer that they can follow through on helping with cleaning – pick up must be simplified. You are the gatekeeper of the home. Avoid feeling the guilt of reducing your kids’ toy collection. Take it easy on yourself: it is difficult to have to constantly restore toy order. Embrace the dump and done approach, your little ones will adapt.
If reducing the toy population in your household will cause undue distress – other mothers have suggested tote-storing three-quarters of their total toy population and having a quarterly seasonal rotation to keep the nuance of their kids’ toys alive.
De-clutter the Over-stuffed Kitchen
All too often the kitchen is the biggest source of daily frustration. The dishes pile up and the countertops are bursting with items that every mother wishes they had more cabinet space for. Reasonably-priced kitchens are notorious for being chronically short on drawer space. When in doubt, combine and contain.
The Solution? By now you should know the theme. Reduce. Rinse. Donate. Organize. Repeat.
Where should I spend my five minutes?
- The can cupboard. Chances are you have some gems that are a year or so past their ‘best when used by’ dates. I discovered that I had eight cans of pumpkin puree and 10 cans of sweetened condensed milk. I also realized that I had enough tea bags to have a cup of tea a day for nearly six months.
- Your storage containers. Toss out all of the tired and underused plastic storage containers clogging your cupboards and drawers. Let your nicer containers of legitimate Tupperware and Pyrex have spatial priority. Send the disposables to the donation bin and marvel at all of the extra room you have.
- Your cupboards. Utilize the approach used with your little one’s toys. Analyze your most stress-ridden cupboard contents and evaluate how they can be combined into storage baskets for easy containment. These baskets allow you to cheat and have mock drawers in your cupboards. In mine, I have pull-out open-air containers for vitamins, medicines, and syringes with another for powdered sugar, brown sugar, and other baking goods. Larger containers were adapted to hold for the all of the oddly sized Kitchen Aid and Cuisinart attachments, and the ever disorderly sippy cups and lid collection.
Final Thoughts: As Springtime is now upon us it is the hope that these five-minute spurts can sprout your cleaning routine to help you clean less often, or at least faster. These targeted spring cleaning tasks were designed to motivate, even inspire, the busiest, tired and most overwhelmed mothers among us. Evaluate your trouble areas and make a plan to begin.
