u/GenealogistGoneWild

Today we are still in our living rooms, but today we are going to do something a little different.

Today we are going to do or plan something fun. Now I know, money is tight. So it doesn't have to be a trip to Disney.

Make lunch and take it outside on a blanket (or in the living room if it's raining) for a picnic.

Visit the library.

Pop popcorn and watch a movie.

Invite some friends over to play a board game.

Get out the Legos and build a town.

Build a blanket fort and read books.

Just spend a minute or two actually planning and enjoying your life. We are all so busy with work, house work, kids, etc, that we sometimes forget to actually enjoy it.

It's raining on most of the Eastern states today. Hubby is going to organize his man cave (the garage) and I am going to do a little genealogy. Won't cost us anything and hopefully the thrift store will get a visit as well this afternoon. (fingers crossed)

Be sure and share your ideas so those of us that struggle to find fun ideas can try out yours!

This week I am working in our Living Room. Call it what you want, but this is where the heavy traffic lives.

Today we are going to dust all the flat surfaces in this room. For me that means mantle, end tables, book shelves. Todays a good day to also decide if we still like the decor in this room. Is that knick knack not giving the love it once did? Are the decorative pillows from Christmas last year just not saying, Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays any more? Is that throw blanket a little worn around the edges? Or is it all in good shape, but it's time to retire it and get something new? I am not talking a complete make over. Just letting go of things that no longer make the room homey.

If you decorate for Fall and haven't already, getting the flat surfaces clean means we have a nice place to put that Mum or Pumpkin.

Still recovering from surgery, but wanted to get us on track for this week.

This week is electronics: How does a TV on the wall, above a fireplace get dirty? I don't know, but they do.

Now for this task, please remember that electronics and liquid do not go together. If you must use a cleaner, spray your rag, not the TV! I like to use a microfiber rag on electronics, because it does a good job of grabbing dust and finger prints.

So here goes:

TVs

Computer screens

Ipads

Remotes (most germy thing in your house)

AC unit control pad

We are going to get the dust and fingerprints off. Break it into small tasks if you need to.

An older friend of mine (mid 80s) and her husband moved from apartment to assisted living last week. They had family come on day to pack up and movers to move. BUT they had so much stuff, that most of it didn't get packed up and is now at the old apartment and they have no way of getting it moved.

So here's the reality. The old complex will send in cleanout people that will toss everything into a dumpster, and they will most likely send her the bill.

Had she slowly been getting rid of things they no longer needed, she could have had her family pack up the essentials and gotten rid of any remaining things that she needed to declutter.

But she was still begging people to come over so she could "go through" the boxes that were left. Even though her health won't allow her to do much at a time. She still believes that things have value and want people to help her throw a yard sale.

Sadly her stuff will most likely be tossed this week. They complex want care about family photos, treasured items, family heirlooms. They will just want the apartment cleaned asap.

So hang in there. Make the hard decisions. Lable items that are of value and remember it's just stuff.

Today's one minute task is back into the bedroom. Your bed is not a folding table. Your bed is not a desk. Your bed is where you rest and restore your body and soul. You deserve a nice place to sleep. You are not trash. You deserve to not sleep in trash or dirty clothes.

Today we are going to clean off the bed. Put the dirty clothes in to wash. Put the clean ones away. Throw away trash. Remove everything that is on the bed that doesn't go on the bed and put it away. If this task is going to take longer than a minute, then take frequent breaks. It will get easier every time you do this task!

Now you are welcome to go ahead and strip the bed and wash the sheets and comforter if you want, but the task is just getting the bed cleaned of anything but bed stuff. We aren't overwhelming ourselves. We are just clearing our bed. Clean sheets can be your reward for a job well done though.

We have a rule at our house. On sheet days, we strip and remake the bed asap. We don't wait until bedtime to make the bed. For us that is Tuesdays. I strip the bed and hubby remakes it. I have timed him. We have adjustable beds, so two twins to be made. He can make the bed with clean sheets and comforter in 4 minutes! The sheets that were on the bed get folded after washing and put away until the next changing. This is the only load I use drier sheets on because they are folded in a drawer and I want them to smell good when we used them next week.

The reason we don't wait is we are tired at bedtime and we deserve to sleep in a well made bed (and so do you) instead of on a mattress or mattress pad. And there is no greater joy than clean sheets.

PS if you are working along side of me, or just reading or scrolling on past, please know I am pulling for you! I believe you deserve your best life no matter who you are, where you are from, or what you look like! You are wonderfully made and you deserve a wonderful home.

We are going to organize and purge our dresser. Now you don't have to dump everything out and make a huge mess. Take one drawer at a time. This can be spread out over a few days if necessary. Just take things out, get rid of the stain, torn, too small, too big pieces and put back what fits, I have 4 drawers. One drawer is for underwear, one is for winter wear, one is for socks and one is for shorts. That's all I fold. We hang the rest. I find it is easier to hang clothes, and closets tend to limit what we can buy. (and yes, we should stick to that limitation as much as possible). And yes, I had a wardrobe when I grew up because our house didn't have closets, so I understand sometimes we have to think outside the box a little.

One thing I like to do afterwards is replace any pieces that I got rid of if I don't have a 2 week supply of underwear. We travel a lot and two weeks has become my norm for what I keep on hand.

Create one new habit.

It takes three weeks of doing something to make it a habit. Today we are going to add one small task to our get ready or going to bed routine to help us get things done easier.

My one task is loading the washer before work. Hubby's one task is he unloads the dishwasher.

In the evening, my one task is to load the dishwasher, and he makes sure the morning load is folded. These tasks take under 5 minutes and have become so much a part of our morning and evening routine we don't even realize we are doing them.

So pick one easy task and add it to your morning or evening routine. You may need to get up 5 minutes earlier, but the reset will be worth it.

Today is Monday at our house and we clean bathrooms and the utility room today. Today's task is to gather up all the bath maps and throw them in the wash. (you can wait if you don't have an inhouse washer until wash day). I like to put 2-3 capfuls of regular Pine-sol in with them. This will kill all those lovely germs that are on our feet when we stand on that mat barefoot all week and it won't leave the mat smelling like Pine-sol. It also helps to clean your washing machine!

While they are in the wash, I like to run the vacuum and mop as well, but those are optional tasks if you have time.

Bedroom edition:

Am I the only one that seems to collect stuff on my bedside tables that go anywhere but the bedroom?

Tonight lets take our minute and clean them off of anything that doesn't go there, and do a good dusting. If you want and have additional time, do the dressers in the room as well.

We want to sleep better and a pile of miscellaneous stuff collecting dust, 8 inches from our noses isn't a good way to do that. Let's all sleep a little easier.

Today we are going to take everything out of the fridge THAT IS EXPIRED. That is it.

You can clean the fridge if you have time and want to do more, but today we are just going to reach in, grab all those takeout containers and leftovers that we had good intentions over, and toss them in the trash.

Now add what you are needing to this week's grocery list and enjoy the weekend!

Today's one minute task is to clean out under the seat cushions in the couch(es) in our living room. Now you don't have to take the whole couch away from the wall and clean under unless you just want to. Mainly we are just going to pick up those cushions and run the vacuum under them and put them back. Vacuum the top and throw a nice blanket or pillow on for decoration.

Does anyone else think their couch was shipped direct from the store with Cheerios under the cushions?

Now yes, if you use the couch as a folding table for laundry, you are going to have to fold and put that away first. There is just no getting around it. That's why we started hanging our clothes straight from the drier 40 years ago at our house. They stay less wrinkled, they can go straight to the closet, and since many of those years we had two cats and a dog in the house, they stayed a little less fur free. But not everyone has that option. So the only other option is to dig in and fold. Actually, I have timed myself and it takes under 3 minutes to fold a load of clothes. Don't let it take 2 months to get yourself motivated to start.

We are all familiar with Target's Dollar Spot. Small decorating or organizing items under $5.

Target has found that once you put one item in your shopping cart, you will be more likely to spend $$ throughout the store.

They got me for $95 yesterday, because they had cute mice for Halloween for $3!

So the reason for a one minute task is; it is simple. It only takes a minute to do. But it also gets you in the room and cleaning and will hopefully start motivating you to do other cleaning in the room. And it's instant gratification in a room that seems daunting to begin in.

And yes, my house is 18 months old. It is decluttered and organized. It is clean 93.5% of the time, and yes, I do every one minute task right along with you. And yes, somedays it takes a little longer than a minute, but not very often.

And yes, I have been right where so many of you are. I grew up there. I had no control over that situation, but I do have control over my decisions now. One minute at a time.

Wednesdays are hallway and foyer day at my house. I have a long one that we use as a buffet when we have company. And I like a middle of the week easy task because I only clean Mon-Friday.

So today's one minute task is light switch plates and door knobs. We are going to wash them down throughout the whole house. Now you can use clorox wipes, a well rung out soapy rag (don't want to mix water and electricity), or a rag and some spray cleaner. Spray the rag, not the light switch. Just wash them off, and move to the next one. I also will do the door around the knobs in bathrooms and exit ways just because those tend to get dirty in a house with little boys visiting.

This task should be short and sweet, but with cold and flu season coming, it can go a long way to cutting down on the germs in your house. And just spruce it up a bit with very little effort. I also try and grab our remotes at the same time, because those things be germy!

Where I live, it is allergy season, which turns into cold and usually flu season pretty quickly. Nothing is more miserable than being sick and not knowing where the thermometer is, or having anything to take to feel better

So today we are going to purge the medications that have expired and we are going to make sure we put replacements on the grocery list. We are going to find the thermometer and make sure we have those silly little caps and fresh batteries for it in a place we would think to look.

If you don't have a thermometer, now would be a good time to buy one.

I like to keep fever reducers, cough medications, stomach medications etc together in one bin under the sink in the bathroom. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just something you can find if your fever starts rising.

And stay well.

Monday's are bathroom and utility room days for me. I also wash the rugs as needed. We don't have shower curtains. Today's one minute task is to restock toilet paper, shampoo etc. If you are running low, add that to the shopping list. I have storage behind each toilet for TP and personal care items. I make sure to refill those from the stock in the pantry at least once a month. If I am running low of anything it's a good time to add those to the grocery list so we are never totally out.

I do not clean house on the weekends. We have routines and schedules that get and keep our house clean through out the week, so I don't clean on the weekends.
So today's one minute task is to quickly run a dust mop or vacuum through the main areas of the house. I do the entire house because one, we only have tile and hardwoods and two we don't have kids to pull out stuff. Some weeks I just do the living and kitchen areas, some weeks I do the entire house. Depends on time, and the amount of buildup of dirt.

Now this is not a major clean. We ain't moving furniture. We are just doing a quick run through to get up the dust, and dog hairs from the main traffic flow. We can do a better job on cleaning day. Today is just to grab what has built up since then.

We have hardwoods and I litterally just run the dust mop around as quick as possible and it's amazing how much dust I pick up, even though I cleaned the room 3 days earlier. If you have kids, this is a great task for them to do while you rest. :)

Now don't come at me if you would need a major overhaul of the bathroom to do this task in a minute.

I clean my bathrooms on Mondays, but we tend to have a lot of company on the weekends, so Fridays I go in and reclean the toilet and sink and mirror. I just spray down the mirror and sink and wipe, swish the toilet and wipe down the outside.

This is not a major clean of the bathroom. We keep our bathrooms clutter free and they get cleaned on Mondays. This is just a little spit shine so they are clean for our guests.

This is a one -five minute task I do every Thursday. Our garbage pickup is on Friday, so we empty all the trash cans in the house on Thursdays. Trash bags are expensive, so I don't like to throw out a partially empty bag.

So once the obvious trash in that room is picked up, I like to top the bag off with items I need to get rid of, but aren't donate quailty.

Examples:

Clothes that are torn or stained. Here's looking at you random socks with no mates.

Food that has expired, or those random empty boxes that find their way into the pantry.

Stuff in drawers that no longer function. That junk drawer for instance.

Now here's the deal. This isn't a full on take everything out of the closet and try everything on task. This is a quick grab those two random t-shirts I know have been worn to death and toss them into the garbage.

It's not a organize, label, put everything into plastic containers. It's get rid of the cream of mushroom soup I bought 2 years ago with the good intentions to eat at home more and that dream never necame a reality.

This task shouldn't take more than a minute or two. The more you declutter, the less there is to grab. But for most of us, there is always something we can toss in to top off a partially full trash bag.

Today we are going to purge all the empty bottles of stuff in the bathroom. If it's a favorite, add it to your shopping list.

This is not a major declutter. Just grab the bottles that are empty or expired and toss them as quickly as possible.

Once that is done, wipe down the mirrors with your favorite cleaner and the faucets and handles.

Again, this isn't a full bathroom clean. Add that to your weekly cleaning list. This is a quick make it look so much better in a moment or two,

Today's one minute task is small appliances in the kitchen. We are going to wipe them down with our favorite cleaner. Toaster, coffee pot, crock pot, microwave, etc. And the counter behind them.

This is not a full on clean. We are getting rid of the dust and finger prints. If you need to do a massive clean of that microwave insides, put that on your to do list.

Even if the kitchen is a disaster area, we are going to do this one small task because it will motivate us to do more later. If you are blessed with a dishwasher, bonus points if you load and run it.