FOCUS - Getting Started - 12/27/09

[Indiana]

The FOCUS thread for cleaning has been ongoing for a few years now.

Instead of doing a fall cleaning, spring cleaning or cleaning right before the holidays our homes are maintained throughout the year.

Each area is worked 4 times a year. The last area is finished well before Thanksgiving and then maintenance of the areas begins with time available for holiday preparation.

FOCUS cleaning is worked in with other cleaning routines. There are daily routines which include AM, PM and sometimes noon routines. Then there are weekly, monthly, quarterly, seasonal, and annual routines. There are other non-cleaning routines. We are only concentrating on cleaning in FOCUS.

It sounds like a lot of routines but they all fit together and work together. The routines don’t take long. They get easier and take a shorter time the more they are done. Then they become a habit and are just done without thinking.

The key to routines is to make them work for us not against us. They are to make life flow smoothly not to put us under stress.

When I do something I think it through from end to beginning. How do I want my home to look? How can I maintain it? Working backward what things are done yearly, then by season, quarterly, monthly and weekly. Not everything obviously needs to be done daily, etc. I didn’t want to spend 4 hours on Saturday doing weekly routines so for me it works better to break them up over 4 days with Friday being just a little item. The same thing with daily routines. For me the most important one is the evening routine because I set everything up for the next morning. Mornings are a breeze.

No one set of routines works for everyone. We each need to make them our own. We each work differently and are motivated differently.

BUT even though we can’t all work the same routine, SHARING our routines is great to see how we each tweak routines to give each other ideas. There may be some – “oh I didn’t think about doing it then” or “have you thought about switching X routine with Y routine”?

I’m changing the wording in the FOCUS thread to make it simpler to use.

Enjoy tweaking your routines.

[blessedw2]

flexibility and focus thank you indiana!!!

[lucylee]

Okay, I'll go first -- tell me if this sounds workable.
My morning routine is really just enough to get me out of the house, clean & fed. I do try to s/s the master bath before I leave.
Afternoon, necessities like mail, bill, quick errands -- about half the time this includes picking up supper for dinlaws -- and maybe starting a load of laundry.
Bedtime -- again, just getting myself ready for sleep, with s/s of guest bath & kitchen, prep for next day's lunch, etc.

Now, what I think I need to do is work in WEEKLY stuff like vacuuming/dusting, ironing, etc.
AND the FOCUS rooms -- de-cluttering and more detailed cleaning.
I would like to try to add at least 30-60 minutes doing those things each day.
I think I will try an EXPERIMENT and see if I can tweak my M-F routines to include these things and just see where it gets me through the first round.

I've already modified the Focus schedule to put my specific rooms into the schedule and I've printed it out.
Now I'm going to put these onto my cards and get busy!

[Harriet]

I'm a sandwich generation example, maybe? I'm at home rather than payroll, with a dh and dd10. But I also have my parents' neighboring household as a responsibility (my mother93 continues her own cooking and daily kitchen clean-up). Other specifics that affect my routines - rural area means I've learned extra mouse-vigilance, and laundry twins' presence in my kitchen means I do daily laundry early to eliminate evidence of it the rest of the day.

My household routines are guided by 3x5 cards with grouped tasks, an idea from Pam Young and Peggy Jones, 1992. My most vital are 3 Daily cards for 3 times of each day, with time limits. If these 3 are done well, the household can run smoothly during even difficult circumstances. I give them 2.5 hours total daily and I often use a timer.

Morning Daily Card – 1 hour
Make bed
Gather stray clothes to baskets, choose the day's ONE laundry load
Start laundry while unloading dishwasher
Pick up through the front of house
Check yesterday's drip-dries for trips to owner's closets
Swipe front bathroom, straighten
Laundry to dryer or hung to drip-dry - washer/dryer tops clear
Sweep/mop kitchen floor on easy laundry-load days when time is available (10 mins)

Afternoon Daily Card – ½ hour
Any ready trash bags out to cans
Check mailbox, sort mail through to put-away
Plan supper, possibly set table
Make pitcher of tea in hot months
Check dryer, fold, put away

Evening Daily Card – 1 hour
Pick up through house - straighten
Follow-through on laundry if any can be put away
Finish dishes into dishwasher
Feed pets
Clean kitchen counters/sink to absolute pest starvation mode - no water droplets
Last thing is to start dishwasher

The next most important Daily Card is Decluttering. This year I plan to organize my own house's declutter weeks to precede the next Focus Cleaning week, so that helps organize. Minimum per day is 15 minutes, per my card, but I need more, and my parents' house needs more. Papertaming has been a special card since Nov 1 - may specify that further in 2009, not sure. I'm not really mentioning personal routine here, but the most time-consuming, if anyone's interested, is about 20 minutes per day of Exercise following my Morning Daily Card.

Further cards –
Weeklies are variable because I am so often interrupted, and nothing ever takes the same amount of time twice, so no guidelines to give. But main categories are Desk Day x 2, Errand Day x 2, Cleaning Day x 2. (Laundry is included in weekly cleaning at my parents'. I don't really have "dailies" there.) Wednesday's Trash Day Card is vital, but hopefully I will have been vigilant with afternoon dailies and not need to rush.
Monthlies - this year I’m going to join our village Focus Cleaners as far as deep-cleaning areas of my home, so that organizes most of my “monthlies” into a different way of sorting, but it works. I do feel obliged to say that I expect to need hours per week to truly clean some rooms, even though I realize we'll be coming back to them. I know you are following "Focus" if you just give 20-30 minutes per week, but you haven't seen my house!

[Harriet]

lucylee, thanks for the reminder to go ahead and put Focus mentions onto cards. Also, the idea to just modify ahead of time with our own specifics about areas - good, smart, will copy! I think you are doing great, plus so many hours payroll each weekday - I would drop. I really wish I could say bright words to help you. If I say, "Saturday morning", are those fighting words? I know you need your weekends, but I was just thinking you might actually enjoy a "homemaking morning" for a "change of occupation is rest". I guess it would depend upon dh and plans. What time of day do you think you could add in the 30-60 minutes? I'm scared to suggest any, because your days are so full.

[lucylee]

Harriet, honestly, Saturday would work fine for me IF I could get dh out of the house -- and on most afternoons, Sat. included, he is out, usually for an hour or so when he visits his dparents.
My problem is that I just CANNOT motivate myself to MOVE on Sat., after the week I usually have, as long as he is lying on the couch watching ballgames. But if he gets out of the house, it's amazing how much energy I sometimes can muster up, and you're right, it's nice for a change of pace.

I'm just going to try to save my "sit down and read the paper" time till later, and try to keep moving till after supper. Especially when he visits dinlaws and I am home alone!

Thinking in 15 minute sessions will help a lot to keep me going. You're right, HOURS are needed to do the deep-cleaning this house actually requires, but OTOH, 15 minutes is better than nothing.
Also, I have learned that if I stick with it 15 minutes, it is often not hard to stay with the job another 15 or so.

[Indiana]

lucylee I like your idea of 15 minutes. You won't get burned out in the beginning and may want to increase the time later.

Also you have a good idea on getting things done before dinner and then sitting after dinner.

[Debmasterx]

Speaking from the perspective of someone who is ♫ Still Struggling After All These Years♫ (think Paul Simon—still crazy after all these years). I'm going to be focusing on AM, Midday, and PM routines. And I'm trying to balance making sure I include what I need to do with not overloading the routines to start with. I'm thinking:

PM:
Feed and water animals (we only have a cat and a hamster)
Check calendar for tomorrow
Teeth
Face
Short devotions

AM:
Short devotions
Make bed
S2S
Put in a load of laundry
S/S bathroom

Midday:
Switch laundry
Put away clean laundry
Dishes

I don't know, but that's the best I can come up with after mulling it over for about three days.

[Harriet]

DebmasterX, that sounds great to me - you'll be able to work that plan a while and come up with any changes that make sense while you're doing it. It's not going to overwhelm, but it will keep you on track.

Again, can't say enough about idea to modify our schedule ahead of time with our own areas. In the past, I would see an area/room I didn't have coming up in the schedule and think to myself I would plan the week when I got to it. But now I have written into my own modified schedule the EXACT place I'm supposed to be concentrating on for my needs that week, I'm much more interested, engaged.

[blessedw2]

Getting ready for the new year.

I am setting up my calendar again and my card file
I am thinking about the dinner, small champagne, tradition I do not like: herring but its tradition
little poppers etc.
are we having a family dinner?

goal 2010: exercise
night time routine