Today’s Homemaker

These days, I am much more interested in playing games with my kids and getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas than I am in cleaning my house. So I do what I can, when I can. If I can spend two 15 minute sessions a day cleaning, then usually things can stay sane, and I have more time to do things that are actually appealing to me. But to get enough done in 15 minutes, I’ve found that I really have to stay focused. And here’s how I do it.

I’ve mentioned before that I follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done system to organize my life. It’s very simple, and one of the premises it operates on is a list of “Next Actions”. This is NOT a daily to do list. It is an ongoing list that carries only the “Next Action” for each project you have on your plate. So when you get a minute, you just do one of the things on that list.

I have created one of these lists that is JUST for cleaning so that I know exactly what comes next when I start one of my daily 15 minute sessions. When I get ready to clean, I look at my list. I look at number one, and if that is done, I move on to number two. If that is done, I go directly to three…and on and on. I work like this for 15 minutes (using my oven timer to keep me on track), and when the timer beeps, I’m done. Off to bigger and better things!

Here is the first list that I use (pdf). It is a general cleaning list that hits all of the major stuff. I’ve also got a more detailed list (which I’ll be posting later) for when I run out of things to do on the first list. Ahhh…I love things that make life simpler.