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.

Specialized Routines

You may also want to consider several specialized routines. Making these their own special packages may help you be more successful with your own work, or they may help you with your training plans. These little habits go a long way to keeping order, making the home welcome for returning family members and/or guests, and are simple routines for apprentices to master. Also, each routine is short enough to become a “break” or “focus changer”  from another project.

A wonderful thing happens when a student sees five minutes on the clock and thinks, “A five minute bedroom tidy will be a good break” from finishing my report that is due in three days.”

Or when nap time starts and mom knows the five minute living space tidy up is all she needs to do before resting herself. Or the bathroom gets tidied while cookies are baking.

Routine 1: Ten minute personal bedroom tidy-up.

Ten minutes attending to your own bedroom. Great for you, especially if once you leave the room, you don’t see it again until bedtime (my case). Also an excellent starting point for apprentice training, since a bedroom tidy also covers clothing care, personal possession care, and personal space stewardship.

Routine 2: Five minute late afternoon tidy-up.

Before the out of the house people come home and/or before supper when everyone is home. Once apprentices have this down, “instant” clean can happen before bed, before company, and almost any time.

Routine 3: Five minute tidy-up of the guest bath.

Or restoring the family bath to company readiness, if the living space has a single bath. Disposable wipes are a profitable inefficiency here.

Routine 4: Five minute get it done projects.

Well, this isn’t exactly a routine, but is more of a list. Once you have done a lot of time trials, you will know many things you can do within five minutes (or two minutes, for that matter). Compile a list, and see all the quirky times you (or others in the family) can find to do the tasks.

For starters: when and where could you do these five minute wonders?

• Folding one tablecloth
• wiping the sink while brushing teeth
• speed walking through the house while waiting for the last five minutes on the bread-baking timer
• straightening the hanging garden tools before starting the lawnmower
• dusting two tables before going to bed
• deleting old emails
• paying one bill
• complimenting and/or thanking someone on something they did for you
• reviewing sermon notes or a memorized verse.