In Search of a System

I have been trying to find a good system for keeping my house clean, and at the same time teaching my children to help.  Sometimes I have tried cleaning my entire house in one day, and feeling so frustrated that I cannot get it all done in one day.  I also have frustration that I am never completely done as there is always something more that needs done.  Keith made me a chart for a week that breaks the day down into half hour increments. I first wrote in all the things I need to do just to keep my children fed, bathed, dressed in clean clothes, to and from school, and time spent helping them with homework.  It was rather eye opening to see how I actually spend my time.  Then I tried to put in things that are important to me to do regularly such as exercise, teach Alyssa her letters, and work on pharmacy continuing education. 

I have read several books in the past couple of months with some ideas that I have incorporated into a system that is still evolving, but I feel like I am moving in the right direction.  The Parenting Breakthrough, by Merilee Browne Boyack, has great suggestions for developing a plan to teach children to be independent adults.  I also read Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley, also known as the FlyLady, which has ideas for establishing routines to keep a house in order.  One of her ideas is to shine your sink.  I love going to bed with all of my dishes washed, or put in the dishwasher so that I do not have to wake up to yesterday's mess.  I do not do this every night, but do it most nights.  She also talks about having a bedtime routine which includes working on "hot spots" for 2 minutes.  For me one of my "hot spots" is my kitchen counter, which regularly collects paper and other items that can often be addressed if I just spend two minutes a day, amazingly simple. Her morning routine includes swishing and swiping the bathroom.  Since I have three bathrooms, I decided that each day I could do one bathroom, although I do not always do it in the morning.  So I hit each bathroom twice a week for five minutes or less, then they never get really gross and require a major scrub session.  I plan to do the kids' bathroom on the nights I give them a bath, so I just let them play in the tub while I swish the toilet and wipe the counter. 

The final idea that I have incorporated is a home blessing hour.  Cilley loves using the timer, and spending 10 minutes on various tasks around the house such as changing sheets, vacuuming, and going through old magazines.  Mine is less structured, but I try to keep it to an hour.  I like to have home blessing hour on early day, when Caleb and Parker get out of school at 1 pm and have them spend just one hour helping me clean.  Sometimes they grumble about it, but they do help out.  We have only done it for three weeks, but last week they were already expecting it.  We did it on their day off school instead of early day, then they got to play with friends in the afternoon which was good motivation to get done.  Caleb even set the timer for one hour, and had 23 minutes of his cleaning done before I woke up.  I have had Caleb and Parker clean up the Legos so that I can vacuum, clean mirrors, empty garbage, wash walls, help spray the floor so I can mop, vacuum stairs, and clean the toilet.  I love it because we are all working together to clean the house. It is a set amount of time, so after an hour I can say that I am done even though the entire house is not spotless.  My kids see me working alongside them, or just at the same time so they do not complain as much that I make them do all the work.  It also gives me a chance to spend time one on one teaching a child a new skill, such as how to scrub a toilet or vacuum the stairs.  It seems to work since some of the other cleaning is getting done at other regular times during the week. 

I would love to hear thoughts on how you keep your houses in order, teach children to do chores, and which chores you have them do.  I realize that it will probably be constantly changing as my children's abilities change.  I will have to start vacuuming more once Spencer starts crawling around and trying to eat everything in sight.