Thinking thinking..

So I had half an hour today after dropping the kids off, going to the gym, taking the cat to the vets (stitches out) and popping up to the shops to get nappies, meat and produce to come home and get my house looking reasonable before leaving to pick them all up again. And it was a big job too, I ignored the house yesterday after partying it up on Saturday night haha!

I used to have my house running really smoothly. I am a big fan of FlyLady. I don't follow her routines anymore at all, but over the years I created my own ones that worked better for me. And I found I barely even had to think about housework, it just seemed to always be done. My friends hated me for it apparently. They hated coming to my house and seeing everything was done - made them feel inferior or something. I loved it though - not the part that it made my friends feel bad! - it just seemed so easy.

Fast forward 2 years and my house is often a shambles. I stopped caring about making sure the house was always done before people got here. My friends loved me for it lol. That's when it came out that they didn't appreciate my efforts before hahaha. I can pinpoint exactly when I dropped the ball. It was the day Mr2 was born. Even during my pregnancy with him, juggling my other 2 kids and I used to do home based care too so normally had 4 preschoolers most days, and I still kept on top of my housework. So why on earth has it been so hard since having Mr2??? Well it got harder still, once I joined the gym. I have 2 kid free days a week, and I now spend up to 2 hours a day on those days at the gym, those hours I might have spent tending to my house instead (haha who am I kidding?)

So I realise I need to go back to babysteps again. I need to reestablish my routines. I have a morning routine which is my biggest - that's when I get my house visitor ready. Then I have an afternoon routine which is getting everything ready for dinner etc, then my evening routine which is getting the house back in order around the time the kids go to bed (they are huge helpers here!). My evening routine is my most important - simply because it makes my mornings that much easier, which are my busiest time of day.

Then following on from my daily routines, are my weekly ones. My "zones" as FlyLady calls them. That is deep cleaning for a week in each zone. FlyLady has 5 zones, so do I. Only her zone 1 and 5 share a week. That wasn't working for me so I do a week in each zone, and have it all written on my online Cozi calendar (I actually have the FlyLady version of the calendar, I'm a geek like that!). So on my To Do lists on the calendar, I have all the jobs I can cross off in the zone. Things like cleaning the windows, dusting (because lets face it, I don't dust more often lol, who can be bothered?!), cleaning out drawers, under beds etc. The zone work is something I have *seriously* drop the ball on lol. But that comes after I have reestablished my daily routines.

Who is with me? Make up routines of stuff you do daily, weekly and monthly. Split your daily routine into morning, arvo and evening. And just start small and work your way up.

My first goal is to do my evening routine for a week, then I will check back in and all going well I will make sure I complete my morning routine too for the next week and so on. Slowly working up to reintroducing my Zone (monthly) lists.