Mopping Add mopping to your Weekly Cleaning 2 routine, after vacuuming the floors – but only if you've been doing the edges & fiddly bits from Weekly Cleaning 1. Dust bunnies do not like water. Vacuum or sweep them up first. Shopping Break your shopping trips up in ways that help you eat well and save money. For example, if it’s convenient (too convenient?) to get to the shops, try this: Sunday -- Buy fresh food from the butcher and greengrocer. Thursday -- Top up food staples and household supplies. Every few Saturdays -- Do other planned shopping. Naturally, you should always take a list, and stick to it.
If an impulse-buy tempts you, write it on the list for next trip of that type. You’ll put the item to better use if its appeal holds that long :-)
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Decluttering your food stocks is a surprisingly uplifting chore for every six weeks or so.
Discard:
Reorganise:
Beware:
By now you’ve had the chance to put in routines for weekly planning, end-of-week tidy-up, and weekend cleaning. You’ve diarised your long-term plans, and made a start on them, yes? Now, here’s your next Every: Every month you should check-in on those long-term plans, and write a new Monthly Plan. Let’s do one for August! Monthly Review & Planning 1. Review progress against your Quarterly Plan (Reminder 1) to prioritise this month’s to-dos. 2. Break the tasks down into slightly more detail to give 4 weeks of progress. 3. Diarise these tasks. 4. Add other intentions & expectations for August. 5. Make space for these by maintaining other Everies learnt so far, beginning with Weekly Cleaning 1. Reward yourself for July’s progress.
Set a nice treat to look forward to for carrying out your August Plan :-) Heidi I trust you are keeping up with your Thursday Weekly Plan & the Friday Wrap? If you were also able to fit in the odd-jobs so far, look around -- is your home a little brighter, a little sharper 'round the edges? Great! Here’s the second round of weekend cleaning: Weekly Cleaning 2
The trick with these Everies is to know when to Stop. Because some are too easy, you might be tempted to keep going ‘til you’re worn out. Then what happens tomorrow? Nothing!
Just thoroughly do the given Everies, diarise their recurrence so they become routine, then get on with life. That way, you can benefit from those repeated feelings of completion which permit you the time, interest and energy to cope with everyday demands yet still work on your own Quarterly Plan. (And don’t worry – I’ll give you plenty more to do along the way.) Cleaning Odd-Jobs
You can do odd-jobs while having conversations, mulling over a problem, or to kill time during TV ad breaks ;-) Here are a couple of ideas to get you started: 1. Dust ceilings and walls - see any interesting spider webs? 2. Clean door frames and handles. Diarise when to do any maintenance needs you noticed along the way, such as paint touch-ups. If you solved a problem or got a bright idea while doing such odd-jobs, write that in your diary, too! If you are very busy, break your routine housework up over 2 weeks. This way it is fast & there is no excuse not to squeeze it in. Over the long term it has other benefits, which you’ll discover once you try it. Weekly Cleaning 1
Want to reduce your housework even further? This common trick reduces overall dirt levels more than you’d think:
Create a mini-mudroom where you can take your shoes off at the door – front and back. It can be as simple as a shoe rack & large mat, with slippers nearby; or thongs, as we use in Australia. I like the recycled rubber knobbly ones that ease foot-aches like magic. Wait, not those kinds of thongs – these ones: Here’s a great way to keep warm on these bitter July evenings. (At least that’s how they are in this part of the world right now.)
Declutter for Fire Safety
Declutter All Exit Routes
One of the first actions to take in embarking on a decluttering program is to make your environment safer. Therefore, during the first month or so of these reminders, you can expect to be given tasks to do just that. First up, thoroughly clear away all obstacles & hazards from:
Don’t search first – get up and start decluttering right away. As you go, make a list of problem areas to research after you've done your best to clear all exit routes. Now that you've had enough of writing and thinking, put your Quarterly & Monthly Plans in a handy place so that you will refer to them often, then get active again:
Weekly Wrap-up Do this fast tidying routine any day for a once-over that makes a big difference. Doing the wrap-up on Friday nights is especially good because it’s an easy way to put the work week behind you & reclaim your home.
When you wake up to a tidy living area on Saturday morning, you’ll feel better able to relax into the weekend, despite more chores ahead ;-) Hopefully you were able to spend some time on the weekend getting started on your Quarterly Plan steps. Or did they move vaguely into the background of life already? Either way, the next thing to do is to break your Quarterly Plan down into monthly actions, in the form of a Monthly Plan.
Then break those steps down into Weekly Plans! Isn't that fun? I know it seems tedious to do all that writing -- that's why I gave you a break to dream about the bigger plans just happening by themselves for a few days :-) However, when they're done, you'll find those plans make it easy to diarise everything you need to do to make things happen the way you want. I've put together a simple diary to help with goals-setting and everyday obligations. It's especially priced for testing the first quarter only. You can check it out on my Goods page. Feel free to ask questions, either here or via the Contact Form. And remember to put your diarised steps into action through the week! A. Quarter 2 Review
(In calendar quarters – it was Quarter 4 in the financial year of July - June) This is a fast way to do personal planning. If you have a favourite method already, use that & follow these steps as guidelines. Either way, make a plan!
Go for a brisk walk, or dance, exercise, do vigorous housework – any physical exertion. (Please don’t skip this step. It’s really helpful for writing step B in the best frame of mind.) B. Quarterly Plan – July to September.
Yay! Mark the break between Quarters by doing something on your favourite resolution, just for fun. Introducing...
The Everies Reminder Blog: Reminding you of key tasks to do every day, week, month, etc. I call these tasks the Everies. Think of all the things you are meant to do, or want to do, every day, week, month or year. These cover housework, paperwork, self-care, goals & other fun stuff. The Everies Reminder Blog will guide you through a year of Everies so you can establish routines, reduce problems & reach goals. It’s a short message – just read and do*. Comment if you like, but no obligation! Features: · Realistic – a wide range of doable tasks included, from the commonplace to the visionary. · Short – a paragraph or 2, unless charts, diagrams or references included. · Direct – a to-do list, a suggested routine, or even a single instruction. · Not too intensive – I won’t promise a daily post, but it will be regular enough that you can form your own helpful rhythms and routines. *The Everies Reminder Service does not take into account your individual circumstances. Please exercise due diligence in acting on any suggestions in it. This includes, but is not limited to, any steps that may have legal, financial, health, or relationship consequences. The Everies Reminder Service is merely designed to holistically guide, remind and motivate you to stay on track with your own plans & to build or maintain a harmonious life. After much delay I'm back to let you know what became of the story-blog, and where the Inspector Ross blog will lead now. The feedback I got off-line about the story-blog was that people want to read the story, but not participate in discussion. That makes total sense -- I get that confidentiality is important in my style of consulting, and this makes online discussions less suitable.
I may move the story-blog to a different forum. Here, I want to reinstate something that helped a number of subscribers achieve goals last year -- the Everies Reminder Service. You won't need to subscribe (unless it goes viral and I need to hire helpers :-) nor participate in discussion if you don't want to -- just read and do. It was designed to start in January, but I'm diving in in the middle of the year with it, and will simply post when I can. That should be every few days, on average. I, for one, have become very busy since using my own tools to plan & organise for increased productivity! I'm repeating the introduction to what 'Everies' are, and what the reminders are about, in my first post below. It used to be on the DIY page, but that will now be used for other items of interest or tools that come up as we go along. I hope you have fun with these reminders! Readers' choiceI'm about to start my blog, and here's the challenge in it: I've written a mystery and I want to give it to you in instalments that illustrate or pose situations related to the Inspector Ross experience.
I also want you to be able to throw in your ideas, and I'd love to know whether you'd like to do that by writing what you think will -- or should -- happen next. Or would you prefer to offer what elements of decluttering, organising, tutoring or consulting you see as being relevant to, or in, the story? The key character is...no, not quite an Organiser, nor a Consultant. Savine Kirk is a logical Stylist whose smooth and solo life comes unravelled by family issues and the resurgence of a forgotten gift -- or affliction, as she sees it. Her oldest client's bookkeeper goes missing, and he wants Savvy to find her. Yet her new client unwittingly sets her on a mission closer to home. Somehow, she must work through these obstacles to get her business back on track. When that's done, maybe she can finally sit down and figure out why that guy with the dark eyes keeps watching her... What do you think? And don't worry -- none of these clients are you ;-) I mapped this story out long ago. Would you like to see the first instalment before you decide if and how you want to play? |
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