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Feb 28

Week Six: Riding into the Future

The drill is ROUTINE by now: maintain your routine weekly schedule, doing deep cleaning tasks from the perpetual calendar.

If you have also be doing 1) reading about how to clean and 2) weekly evaluations of how things are going in your real world, you’ve probably done a lot of tweaking to your routine plan and how you work that plan.

If you are looking forward to apprentices shouldering responsibility, then it’s  time to think about when and how you will work yourself out of a cleaning job. Read more

Feb 26

Week Five: Testing the Deep Cleaning Chart

After all the long, arduous instructions to build the calendar, this week is a breeze: just begin doing what is on the deep cleaning chart by your preferred method.

Of course, you need to decide on a plan to do the deep cleaning tasks as well as the routine cleaning.

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Feb 23

Week Four: Using the Cleaning Calendar

In a twist of your sub-conscious mind, as you have been sitting there plugging in tasks, you have been alert to the actual days of this current year. You may have plugged into April 6:  Q: B1: wash win1 (Quarterly task in bedroom 1, washing window 1 in the room) into a slot that just happens to be a Saturday, because you always do jobs like that on a Saturday.

But it won’t always be  Saturday, will it? Next year, April 6 will be Sunday, and who washes windows on a Sunday? Or even worse, if it is leap year, it could be a Monday–or is it a Friday? What possible good can such a calendar be, and after you’ve wasted ALL THIS TIME MAKING ALL THESE LISTS!! Read more

Feb 21

Week Four: Building a Cleaning Calendar

Admittedly, if you have only your Executive Oversight time for design planning, and no quiet afternoons or pleasant evenings on the back porch for extra fill-in-the-calendar sessions, week four may stretch over two or three actual weeks to co-ordinate all the tasks on the calendar, but that is really all right. In the meantime, you can simply invest more time concentrating on the weekly routine plan: tweaking it by combining tasks into little efficient packages, taking note of distractions, and discovering ways to permanently solve nagging frustrations. Besides, slowly building the cleaning calendar and routine cleaning plans has an ulterior motive.

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Feb 19

Perpetual Calendar and Time Trial Sheets

Today you get your first look at the highly efficient perpetual cleaning calendar. If it only did the actual cleaning it would be perfect!

Do you know why I like charts? Even before it was so easy to make simple computerized forms, designing a chart or writing an article ratcheted up the professional level of a home project. My charts are embarrassingly simple, functional, not made to win design contests, but to get things done efficiently in a home that could always use just a little more time. Some of you amazing design whizzes out there can surely make them fancier. . .just send me a copy when you do. I appreciate good artwork.

Here is the  Perpetual Cleaning Chart.

Remember some simple codes will help you as you insert your own cleaning tasks. I’ll list mine after the break.

For a bonus, since the sun is shining and the snow is melting and a visit to one of my two favorite sisters is only a week away:

Here is a blank  Time Tracking Activity Chart  sheet. Print one of these and carry it around timing everything in sight for several weeks; time things more than once: four, five, six times or even more. Time your Bible study, dish washing, taking showers, getting to work, grocery shopping, team meetings, bed making, resolving childish arguments (the children’s arguments, mind you–not the adults having a childish argument). I guarantee you, you will be amazed at how little time some things take that you always put off doing because you don’t have time. Have fun! Read more

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