Researching the right one
I used to be horribly messy. I had a picture for a long time of what a disaster my freshman dorm was. Do not worry readers, I tried to find that shit for you, but couldn’t. Did I search all of Facebook just now for it? Yup. Did I get completely distracted? Also, yup. But back to it, I will just have to paint a picture. I had a brightly colored comforter and sheets, because I thought it would look cute when I made it every morning. I am not sure that bed was ever made. Every jacket I owned was hanging on the bunk bed post. There was so much stuff accumulated on my desk that I couldn’t use it and instead piled other things onto my bed, like my laptop. There were shoes all over the floor. It took me forever to find the papers I printed out to turn in. You get it.
Cue mid sophomore year when I just decided to change. Much to the surprise of my then roommate. One morning I just got up, walked over the mounds of dirty clothes, searched the piles on my desk for the assignment I had to turn in, struggled to find a matching pair of shoes, and decided to change. So while my roommate was in class, I tidied up, scrubbed, and then even styled my room. Ok, the style might have been hanging on of those tie dye cloths with a sun on it that is a dead give away you smoke the reefer, above my bed, and painting the wall with laundry detergent and getting a black light so my artwork would only be visible using it. But it was cleaned and styled. Well, half way. We were living in a room where the beds weren’t bunked. My bed was on the left, hers on the right. So I cleaned my side and moved her shit to the other side. There was a very visible vertical line straight down the middle of the room of who I had been, and who I was deciding to be. That being said, she was not in love with it when she came back. If you are slobs together, it is not so noticeable, but if one person stops, then the other person feels much worse.
I never looked back. I’m not saying I stick to my cleaning schedule every day. I do my best, but especially when I am having bad days, I don’t feel like it and I let things slide. But I am no longer climbing over dirty clothes, they are in the hamper. I no longer have to search for papers, they are organized in their dividers. Come tax season my marital parter was very impressed when he asked for my W2s and I had them in 5 seconds. I did a lot of searching to find a schedule I liked. I might have looked at every schedule on Pinterest. My goal was to look for something easy. I don’t want to come home and spend the rest of my evening cleaning. I want to play video games! Or knit, or cry about how no one listens to me at work while I stuff my face full of popcorn and watch Seinfeld. I found one that doesn’t take much time, and is easy even with a full time job, so you too can play video games.
Daily items
Morning
- Make the bed
- Open the blinds and curtains
- 10 min tidy of common areas
- Water the plants
- Read emails and notifications
- Update planner
Evening
- Dishes
- 10 min tidy of bedroom and bathroom
- Consolidate and take out the trash and recycling
- Wipe down counters and dining table
- Sweep the kitchen and under the dining table
Weekly items
- Sunday – start the laundry
- Monday – fold and put away the laundry
- Tuesday – do the monthly item
- Wednesday – vacuum and mop
- Thursday – clean the bathroom(s)
- Friday – dust
- Saturday – do the shit you didn’t do during the week because your friends (what friends?) invited you out to margarita night on a Tuesday
Monthly items
- Week 1 – take inventory and update calendars
- Week 2 – clean appliances
- Week 3 – clean fridge
- Week 4 – yearly item
Yearly items
- January – kitchen cabinets and drawers
- February – organize papers
- March – bathroom cabinets and drawers
- April – garage/parking area
- May – yard, patio, driveway, garden.
- June – walls, moldings, doors
- July – shampoo carpet, rugs, furniture
- August – windows, sills, blinds
- September – organize closet and donate unwanted clothes, organize pantry
- October – garage/parking area
- November – oven and stove
- December – walls, moldings, doors
That’s it!
Frame it up
I have a command center where I have three months of whiteboard calendars and a bunch of other stuff. One of the other stuff is this schedule I found, framed with glass, and hung on the wall. That way I can check off what I have done. My plan, once we have kids, is to print my own design of this so I can assign people some of these tasks. My parents never made us do chores, and there are things I love, and things I don’t love about that. They wanted to give us the space to just be kids, and I love that motivation. It also means I had none of these skills, hence my messy-ass freshman dorm. I remember other people on my hall making fun of me because I didn’t know how to use a washing machine.
In addition to all of these things I have a rule I learned on tik-tok. Don’t put it down, put it away. If you tidy as you go, you won’t have as much to do. That sounds obvious, but even with the rule I leave books lying around, I have dishes on my desk, etc. Like I said, it’s not like I am a neat freak who wants to spend all evening cleaning our place, but it is generally tidy.
If you start cleaning, you will find you get happier. They have actually done studies on this, but the cleanliness of your environment changes your mood. Clutter adds stress and stress adds health issues. It doesn’t matter what schedule you use, but cleaning is a form of self care. You are telling yourself you are worthy to live in a nice/comfortable space, and you are willing to spend the time on your space to make yourself comfortable.
What cleaning schedule do you use? Are you clean or messy? Did you wake up one day and randomly start cleaning your dorm room too? Let us know in the comments!