Experiment Day #2

A few weeks ago I did an experiment where I purposely allowed the house to go to disaster mode, then cleaned it as fast as I could... alone. When I told my mother what I had done, she told me I should re-do the experiment with my kids helping, and see how much time we could save.

The kitchen 4:20pm

Another view of the kitchen 4:21pm

The dining area 4:21pm

Yesterday turned out to be that day. I didn't mean for the house to get totally out of control. We weren't even home for half the day. We started the day rushing off to our homeschool group, and returned around lunch-time. We normally eat lunch at our co-op, but we were late and didn't have time to pack a lunch, so we came home instead. 

The family room 4:21pm

Another view of the family rom 4:21pm

The hallway 4:22pm

After making lunch, I was pretty much ready to crash for the weekend. So, I sat down with my computer and allowed the kids to play. We'd already finished our school-work for the week, and I wasn't really motivated to do anything else yet. Shortly after 4pm one of my boys complained that there was "too much pee" in the toilet. I went into the kids bathroom and discovered that the other twin had stuffed about half a roll of toilet paper down the toilet, and there was a flood slowly creeping towards the hallway. I quickly threw a couple towels down to dam the flow of water, and plunged the toilet. This is when I noticed that the laundry basket was totally overflowing as well. 

The bathroom - still with a puddle on the floor, but contained for now 4:22pm 

The girls' room 4:22pm

They had been building tents in their room 4:23pm 

The boys' room 4:23pm

As I looked around the house and realized we were back in disaster mode, I decided now was a good time to try to recover WITH the kids. 

The gathering 4:24pm

I rang our "dinner bell" to let the kids know it was time to gather, and I sat them all down on the fireplace hearth to explain the situation. Then I gave them each an assignment. Most of these assignments were their normal chores for the week anyway. Then I went around taking pictures and helping with the assignments in the normal order I do for the house pickup. 

1. Move Laundry

K moving laundry 4:28pm

K (age 7) had already emptied the dryer earlier, but the washer was still running when she did it. So now she moved the load from the washer to the dryer, then started another load of kids clothes (and emptied the overflowing basket from the bathroom!).

2. Clear Kitchen Table & Counters

C (age 5) started clearing table & counters while I moved on to help D.

3. Wash Dishes

D unloading the dishwasher 4:29pm

The dishes had been run earlier in the day, but never unloaded, and now the sink had more in it. So D (age 6) an I unloaded together while the others worked. 

J2 & M working on the clean-up pile 4:32pm

Also during this time I had assigned the J1 & J2 (age 3 1/2) to work on the "clean-up pile" which involved throwing everything they could find onto the train table. M (age 16 months) tried to help with this too. When K finished moving laundry, I sent her to help the boys with the clean-up pile, since they were already getting distracted.

4. Wipe down Kitchen Sink, Table, Counters & Stove

C wiping off the table 4:32pm

By this time, C had finished clearing off the table & counters and and moved on to wiping things down. 

C moving chairs 4:39pm

When she finished wiping the table & counters, C moved the chairs out of the kitchen so I could sweep. Then she went to start folding blankets in the girls' room. 

D loading the dishwasher 4:40pm

By now D and I had finished putting the clean dishes away, and started loading the dishwasher again. It wasn't full enough to run, so we just finished wiping down the kitchen and moved on. 

5. Sweep Floor

J1 working on the clean-up pile 4:40pm

When D and I finished dishes, I assigned her to start assembling the chunky puzzles so they would fit back into the toy bin, and I swept the kitchen floor. 

Mid-Clean-Up Status

When I finished sweeping the kitchen, I went around the rest of the house to inspect the progress so far. Time elapsed since "the gathering" - 22 minutes. (For reference, the last time I did this it took me 31 minutes to get to this point on my own... and the kids have already been working ahead on the clean-up & put away.)

K had already put away all the stuffed animals 4:46pm

C was folding blankets 4:46pm 

I asked J1 & J2 to put the chairs back into the kitchen 4:46pm 

D was busy putting the puzzles together 4:46pm

6. Straighten & Wipe Bathrooms

A clean bathroom again 4:55pm

Now it was time for me to get back to the bathroom. Straightening didn't take too long, and K had already emptied the laundry basket, so I had a perfect place to put all the wet towels I ended up with after mopping up the flood and wiping the floor. 

7. Empty Garbages

I didn't get any pictures of it, but D took out the kids' bathroom garbage for me, and J1 got a new bag for it.

8. Clean-up Pile

Boys' room picked up 4:59pm

Girls' room picked up - two of the girls wet their beds the night before, and their sheets were just moved to the dryer 5:00pm 

The rest of the girls' room picked up 5:00pm

With my help, the rest of the clean-up piles went very quickly and we got everything else to the train table. 

9. Put Away Stray Items

Putting away things from the train table, the puzzle bin is almost full of completed puzzles! 5:00pm

Down to the last few piles 5:04pm

K and I quickly sorted the remaining items on the train table and K, C, J1, & J2 quickly grabbed piles of stuff and put them away.

10. Vacuum

When we finished the stuff, I grabbed the vacuum from the garage and vacuumed the bedrooms, hallway and family room. K moved the cord for me midway through so I could actually get the one corner of the family room I can't reach when plugged into the bathroom outlet. 

Freshly vacuumed family room 5:15pm 

More of the family room, and the hallway, all freshly vacuumed 5:15pm

11. Fold Laundry

Again, I was burned out by this time, and since I didn't fold laundry during the last disaster clean-up, I decided not to this time either. All the clean laundry is piled on the toddler bed in my bedroom, out of the way.

Total time elapsed since "the gathering" - 51 minutes. 

Compared to doing the clean-up on my own - 1 hour 21 minutes.

Verdict - I saved 30 minutes by working WITH the kids... even though I spent a lot of time trying to keep them on task, and several still got very distracted.

Still, less than an hour after "the gathering" the kids were free to play in a clean house. They decided to practice some gymnastics moves. :)

Playing in a clean house is fun!

Simple Housework Recap

I've thrown a lot of pictures & information out the past few days. I wanted to recap and explain a bit more how the five principles I outlined on Wednesday helped me get the housework done so quickly and efficiently in Thursday's post.

1. Have less to clean.
I'm sure some of you were shaking your head at my "disaster" house, thinking it already looked pretty good. I know I would have thought the same thing several years ago, and I had fewer kids back then. Though my kids got out nearly everything that was accessible to them, the total disaster wasn't so bad, because there wasn't much accessible anyway. They did get into things they would not have if I had been monitoring a bit more. There would not have been yogurt left out for the baby to get into, or snips of paper all over the floor in the girls' room. They also could have gotten more out, like the DVDs that would have created a bigger problem. So, it could have been worse.

My twins getting into baking ingredients several months ago... 

But, it would have been MUCH worse if we'd had more "stuff." Or a bigger house to spread out in more.

2. Have a place for everything.
A lot of time can be wasted wondering "where does this go?" Honestly, those questions should be answered in a more in depth organizational setting, and not during standard housekeeping. When we know where everything goes, it is simply a matter of sorting what is out, and putting it away.

One of my twins "making sandwiches" at a children's museum about a year and a half ago. Notice that it's easy for him to find the "food" he needs, because it all has it's own place. In this children's museum, even young children can keep things semi-neat, because everything has an obvious place where it belongs.

3. Create a daily routine.
It can be quite daunting to stand and stare at a huge disaster and wonder where to begin. I used to wish my mother was around more often so she could just tell me what to do. Somehow, it seems easier when I don't have to think. Creating a housekeeping routine can make things much easier. Then cleaning is simply going through the list. I have found it is best for me to have a list that I can use daily, and sometimes multiple times a day... the same list, so I don't have to think about it, or check a chart. I've done the same list in roughly the same order so many times now that when I did the house pick-up from yesterday's post, I didn't look at any chart or list at all. It becomes automatic, and clears up so much mental space. :)

Simple things often become habits that are difficult to break.
Like my son's finger sucking.

If we create intentional routines, and repeat them often enough, they can
become positive habits that require little very little mental energy.

4. Keep your servants working.
The first step in the house pick-up was to start the machines. Laundry & dishes. Later, though it wasn't officially part of the routine, I moved laundry again, since the machines were finished, and I still had more laundry that could be washed. If/when I re-do this experiment with the kids' help, you should hopefully see how enlisting the help of little "servants" can simplify things even more, even when the little ones are still very little.

5. Don't clean more than necessary.
Remember my disclosures from yesterday? There was a whole list of things that I did NOT do during the cleaning. If something needs cleaning, then clean it. If it's "good enough" (a whole post on "good enough" is in the works... watch for it in the next couple weeks), then let it go. Even during my list of dailies I skipped a couple because they were not necessary during that clean-up (emptying a garbage, and folding the laundry). Later, when you have more time, you can get to the extra cleaning.

Notice my "clean" cooktop from the experiment still has crud on it.  My mom came to visit shortly after my experiment day, and she helped me really clean my cooktop.

This level of cleaning was beyond the scope of the experiment day. 

Your turn - What is your housekeeping routine? Can you simplify it? Are you trying to do too much, too in depth, all at once? Are you stuck on where to even begin? Are you using your servants effectively? Do you waste time wondering where things should go?

Challenge - Use my list of dailies (listed in both Wednesday and Thursday's posts), or modify it to fit your own home & family, and see how long it takes you to do each step. Remember #8 and #9 (clean-up pile & put away stray items), will take the longest, and will take much longer if things don't have homes. At least try to get things off of surfaces like counters & end tables and off the floor so it is accessible for sweeping or vacuuming. You can use a laundry basket to hold "homeless" items during your cleaning challenge. Then take a few minutes to find homes for at least some of those items.

From Disaster to Company Ready

Last week I did a little experiment. I wanted to see just how long it would take me to get my house in order, assuming I had let it go all day long. I specifically wanted to see if I could get my house ready to host company. We do occasionally have dinner guests, so this isn't a totally unreasonable scenario. We normally do pick-ups after meals, and we're working on teaching the kids to put things away as they finish with them. But for this experiment, I didn't do any of that for an entire day. The house had looked pretty good (not perfect) the night before, but other than prepare breakfast for everyone, I did nothing else the rest of the day.

At 4:15pm here's what my house looked like:

The boys' room

The girls' room

Another view of the girls' room, with the little one who
was already begging for more attention.

The kids' bathroom

The hallway to the bedrooms

The dining area, if you can't tell, there are blobs of yogurt all over the floor.

The kitchen

Another view of the kitchen, including the broken utensil drawer.

The family room, and several more kids

Another view of the family room

If this doesn't look like a terrible mess to you, you can probably stand to minimize a bit more. :) Or you need to look closer at the pictures. The kids have pulled out every toy that was available during this toy rotation, they have also gotten into craft supplies they were not supposed to have access to, and there are tons of tiny paper snips on the floor of the girls' room. Also, since I didn't make lunch, the kids helped themselves to yogurt, bread, chips & salsa, etc.

But now it's time to clean-up. For arguments sake, I wanted to do this by myself, assuming that my children were distractions instead of helpers. If you remember my list of dailies from yesterday, that is the pattern I follow during this clean-up.

1. Move laundry
4:17pm - before I can actually go move the laundry, I discover that my baby has yogurt all over her face and hands. I'd better wipe that off before she gets it on other things.

4:21pm - laundry moved, washer & dryer running, kids' laundry basket empty.

2. Clear kitchen table & counters - I quickly start putting food in the fridge, dishes in the sink, and garbage in the garbage. My baby is following around whining at me already, so I stop every few seconds to feed her a spoonful of yogurt from a bowl someone had filled and left out. I also stack the kids' chairs to get them out of my way faster.

4:26pm - counters & table mostly cleared

Here you can see my baby who is clinging to my leg most of the time as I work.

The counters already look tons better, but now the sink is full. On top of the water filter you can see the orange bowl with the yogurt I was feeding my baby. 

The counters and stove are empty, but the stove is still gross... I'll get to that in a bit.

3. Wash dishes - remember, getting your servants put to work is one of the most important things in keeping your life simple. I started by getting the laundry machines moving. I cleared the table & counters next so that all the dirty dishes would already be in the sink. Now I can empty the sink into the dishwasher.

4:34 - dishwasher loaded, sink empty, baby finished yogurt and has walked out to play with the rest of the kids for a bit. Now I can add soap and start the dishwasher.

4. Wipe down kitchen table, sink, counters & stove - now it's time to get back to that stove... while it's cleared, it still looks like this:

My daughter helped to make oatmeal this morning.

4:41 - I have now wiped down the kitchen table, counters & sink, and scrubbed the stove. I also wiped up the yogurt blobs on the floor, because I can't sweep with those there.

The stove looks lots better!

5. Sweep kitchen floor - Time for the floor. I start in the entry way, but can't do a whole lot with toys on the floor:

I toss the toys back into the family room and quickly sweep the entry. Then I move to the kitchen and shift the chairs to the family room so I can sweep around and under the table as fast as possible.

4:47pm - in case you couldn't tell before, our kitchen floor was desperate to be swept.

4:48pm - chairs put back, kitchen done.

6. Straighten and wipe bathrooms - off to the kids' bathroom. I throw the toys into the hallway or into the tub toys. Garbage goes in the garbage. As I'm throwing toys into the hall, I notice that one of my boys has wet his pants (the twins are potty training). So, I help him to the bathroom, sit him on the toilet, and wipe down the counter while he goes. When he finishes, I help him get dressed, wipe down the toilet tank and the seat with a wipee, and then take him to clean up the puddle he left in the family room. 

4:53pm - bathroom done. Notice I have a little one with me again.

7. Empty garbage cans - I actually emptied the kitchen garbage can just before I swept the floor, and the bathroom garbage doesn't need to be emptied, so I skip this step and move on to the next.

8. Clean-up pile - This is by far the most time consuming part of the process. I like to start in the back bedrooms, because the kids are not in there right now, and because I can close doors as I go to discourage little ones from making a mess in there again. Now I also tell the kids to put on a "short show" (meaning 30 minutes or less), because I need them out of the way while I put all their toys away.

So, I start in the boys' room by making their beds, folding their blankets, and throwing any toys, paper or anything else out into the hallway.

4:57pm - Boys' room done, on to the girls' room. Again, I start with the beds. The girls have a lot more in their room, so as I make their beds I toss the things I find out of place into a pile on the floor. When I finish the beds, I go around the perimeter of the room and shove everything I can find into the pile. I make sure to search under beds, under the dresser, in corners (especially in the closet), and behind the door.

Beds made

Clean-up pile in the girls' room.

5:02pm - now the girls' room is mostly picked up, but there is still a large clean-up pile on the floor. I decide this particular pile should probably be sorted as I move it. I run to the kitchen and grab a small garbage bag, then return. Dress-ups get tossed into the hallway, since that is where most of the dress-ups already are anyway. Garbage and paper scraps get tossed into the garbage bag. I spread out the blanket next to me and toss anything else onto that. 

The sorted pile from the girls' room... minus the dress-ups.

5:05pm - the girls' pile is sorted. I grab the corners of the blanket so that it becomes a makeshift bag to carry everything on it, and place the blanket, and the garbage bag on the train table in the family room. Then I move on to the hallway. Most of the hallway is full of dress-ups, but there are a few other things there as well. I grab the dress-up bin from the family room (you can see it on the couch in one of the before pictures), and bring it to the hallway. All dress-ups are thrown in the bin, everything else is thrown down the hallway towards the family room, and the dress-up bin is put away in the closet. 

This chair is not actually supposed to be at the end of the
hallway. My husband has been sitting in it to read stories
to the kids at bedtime, so I'll leave it here for now. 

5:09pm - hallway clear. On to the family room. I quickly crawl around the perimeter of the room, pulling things out of nooks & crannies, off of surfaces like the piano & bookcase, and out from under couches. As I go I toss things towards the train table. If it belongs *in* the train table drawers (in this case, the cars, trains & tracks belong there), I toss them into an open drawer. If it does not belong in the drawers, I toss it *on* the train table. The only exceptions to this are the large family room blankets, and throw pillows. Those get put directly away. They take up too much space on the table, and make such a big difference when they are out of the way.

5:14pm - less than 5 minutes later the room is mostly clear, we're just left with a pile of extra things. Notice the garbage bag and the blanket full of stuff from the girls' room.

9. Put away stray items - since I now have the biggest items put away, it's time to sort the rest. This is when it becomes so important to have a place for everything. It's pretty easy to sort things when you know where they belong.

5:16pm - only two minutes required to quickly sort the pile of stuff. Clockwise from the top left, I have a pile of dirty clothes, some pencils/erasers that belong in the school room, some craft supplies from the craft bin, a magazine that belongs on the bookcase, three baby blankets, a charging cable for an old phone that belongs in a basket with extra cables inside the bookcase cabinet, the bag of garbage, extra dress-ups that weren't in the hallway when I put the dress-ups away, a kitchen gadget, two fly-swatters that belong on a hook in the garage, a tub toy, and a whole pile of hair things that belong in the bathroom drawer. Also not pictured here was a cup that missed out on the dishwasher and that my baby wandered off with while I was sorting. All that's left to do here is put the piles away.

5:20pm - Train table piles are put away, and here you can see the older 5 kids just finishing their show.

10. Vacuum - Again, I like to start in the back of the house, this time I start with the girls' room.

 Then the boys' room.

 Then the hallway.

 And finally the family room.

5:32pm. Vacuuming done. I would like to note that from a plug in the kids' bathroom my vacuum can reach the entire house except for one small corner of the family room (the master bedroom has wood laminate floors). That corner is not noticeable most of the time, so I didn't bother moving the plug just to get it.

As I go put the vacuum away in the garage, I notice that the washer & dryer have finished their cycle, so I might as well move laundry again. This time I start a load of adult darks.

Since I'm preparing the house for hypothetical company, I throw all the clothes onto the toddler bed in the master bedroom.

5:38pm - House ready for guests! Total time elapsed 1 hour 21 minutes, including time to take pictures, feed a hungry toddler, and clean up a potty accident.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, there are several things I did NOT do for this clean-up.
I did NOT wash windows or doors or walls.
I did NOT fold the large pile of laundry accumulating on the toddler bed (normally step #11 on my list of dailies).
I did NOT wipe down the master bathroom (guests don't generally use that bathroom anyway).
I did NOT pick-up in the master bedroom (again, guests don't generally go in there).
I did NOT even open the door to the school/craft room (the door has a keyed lock on it, and has not been opened all day, and would not be opened for guests).

If I had overnight guests coming, there are a few extra things I would need to do.
I would scrub the inside of the toilet with the toilet brush (during the bathroom clean-up).
I would double-check that the school-room is picked up (I rarely leave it cluttered, and I'm usually the last one out, but better safe than sorry, especially since this is where guests would sleep).
I would pull out an air mattress and set of sheets, inflate the air mattress and make the bed.

Also, here's the break-down of each step and how long it took me:
1. Move laundry - 4 minutes
2. Clear kitchen table & counters - 5 minutes
3. Wash dishes - 8 minutes
4. Wipe down kitchen sink, table, counters & stove - 7 minutes
5. Sweep floor - 7 minutes, including moving chairs
6. Straighten & wipe bathrooms - 5 minutes
7. Empty garbages - 0 minutes (didn't really do any)
8. Clean-up pile - 21 minutes
9. Put away stray items - 6 minutes
10. Vacuum - 12 minutes
11. Fold laundry - 0 minutes (didn't fold any), but I did move laundry again - 6 minutes.

FYI - I did not keep track of times as I went on this, I simply took pictures as I finished each step, and then took note of the time-stamp on the picture. I figured that would be more accurate, and faster for me. :)

My mom told me I need to do this same experiment again in the near future, but requiring my kids to help by doing their chores.