just five things

What I wanted to title this was “Just Five Things I Do Every Day to Keep My House Under Control,” but that seemed a bit wordy. So I’m going to to hit my top five habits that I feel help our house not look like a hot mess every day.

Empty the Dishwasher Early

Until very very recently, I was guilty of unloading the dishwasher while I was making dinner almost every day. What I wanted to do was empty it first thing in the morning, but the motivation just wasn’t there. Now that we’re back in the school groove, I’ve been unloading the dishwasher while I make my coffee. Some mornings I only get halfway done, and other mornings I get the whole thing unloaded, but I try to at least start unloading it every morning so it’s ready for dirty dishes to come in.

Do Some Housework

I have a pretty solid cleaning schedule in place (more on that later), and most days I have at least two tasks I want to accomplish. For example, on Mondays I dust the living room, water all of my plants, and vacuum the whole downstairs. Do I always get them all done? No. Do I usually get at least one thing done? Yeah! I figure anything is better than nothing, so I do try to get some routine housework done every day.

Clear the Coffee Table

This one is really for the boys to do, but they need a lot of reminding and “encouragement” to get it done before dinner most days. Flat surfaces… they’re just begging for clutter, aren’t they? We have a large coffee table, and it’s the main drop zone for the boys to put things and work on things (drawing, coloring, etc). When it starts to drive me crazy, I swipe it all into a basket and put the basket on the coffee table. The rule is that anything left in that basket by the end of the day is garbage, and that if it’s important to you, you make sure it finds a home. This makes sure that my coffee table is completely cleared off every night.

Run the Dishwasher

No matter how full or empty it is, our dishwasher runs every night. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s usually so full that I have extra things I need to wash by hand, but once in awhile it isn’t completely full. Doesn’t matter. I run it.

Clean the Kitchen

All I really mean by this is making sure the counters are wiped down and all the dishes are done. After those are done, I put all towels and washcloths in the laundry room and put fresh ones out for the next day.

By doing these five things every day, my house generally looks pretty clean. For me, a clean kitchen is huge, and I can’t imagine going to bed with crumbs on the countertop or dishes in the sink. It would just stress me out in the morning and make me feel defeated. I’ve found that the clean living room really makes me feel content at the end of the day too. Knowing that we have a fresh start every morning is really rewarding and gives that element of calm that I crave on busy mornings.

Way back in January, I decided to make some New Year resolutions. I feel like this was the first year EVER that I actually was successful in creating a new habit and following through with a goal for a new year. So here’s what the list looked like:

Be more active
Drink less wine
Read more books
Try yoga
Get back into blogging

So how did I do? Well… if I’ve been more active, it’s because I’ve been cleaning pretty regularly. But I do want to start walking this fall as an easy way to be more active. I still don’t read, although I did read a “for fun” book over spring break. I still gravitate to parenting and organizing books though. Someday I will read fiction again! No yoga for me… maybe next year? The one thing I have been successful with is drinking less wine. I decided to only drink wine on weekends or vacations. I have been a “a glass or two a night” wine drinker for years. And it’s not like it was a problem or anything, but I felt like it was often unnecessary calories and honestly just kind of a bad habit. So here we are in September, and I still only drink on weekends or vacations/special occasions. I feel like it was a little hard in January, but it has become a habit, and I’m really proud of myself for doing this!

Now… blogging. Obviously I have not been successful with this one. But recently I’ve been trying to think of ways that I could be successful with it. One thing I’d like to try is blogging on my “off” days. This is the first year of motherhood that I have fairly large chunks of time that both boys are at school. Gerrit is in 2nd grade this year, and Berend is in his last year of preschool doing three full days a week. So what am I doing with my days “off?” Napping for one. I have a massive sleep debt and a bad habit of staying up too late. But when I’m not catching up on lost sleep, I’m running errands and cleaning the house. I would like to push myself into a more normal sleep schedule so I can use my three days a week to do some blogging again. And if you’d ask what I’d like to blog about? I have so many ideas in my head! But my biggest setback is overwhelming myself. I have big plans and no real way to execute them in a timely way. Which leads me to…

…. Just Five Things Mondays! Something I’ve become really interested in and, dare I say, passionate about is my home. More specifically decluttering, organizing, and keeping my home clean. These are not things that come naturally to me (well, maybe the organizing… I’ve always loved doing that), and I’d love to share some things that I’ve learned, implemented, and am still working on. Instead of bombarding myself and whoever chooses to read this with a novel, I thought I’d just pick areas to focus on one day a week. I’m hoping that this becomes a habit so that I can start catching up my blog on my boys, and our life too!

~~See you Monday!~~ After posting my first Just Five Things, I thought, You know what sounds better? Just Five Fridays. I’m so indecisive… so I’m switching to the end of the week instead. I hope you’re shaking your head at me just like I am.

Tag: just five things

Just 5 Things I Do Daily