I’ve been revamping my organizing/cleaning style of late.
What used to work just hasn’t been working any more. You might say that it has been a slow painful death of my doing things the way I always did them. Since my very first university days on my own, I have always scheduled specific tasks for certain days. One day, I might do all the laundry, another I might deep clean the bathroom, and another wash all the floors. When I organize, I tackle one large project at a time.

Between children, animals, and any number of things that may accompany them, I am finding that laundry is never ending, cleaning needs to be done more frequently in interrupted segments if it is to be done, and if I take on a big organizing project, I will only end up with more mess.

Enters FlyLady….In a moment of “I have got to figure something” out, I asked a friend for suggestions and she sent me the flylady link. I haven’t read much so I’m not and out and out follower of her methods. Yet. But within minutes of browsing the site, I had three helpful tools that are significant to me. I’m only going to share two right now, just to save space.

One: Do a load or two of laundry daily.

From start to finish including being put away. Fold directly from the laundry and place it where it goes (doesn’t matter that it may currently be a corner of our bedroom floor for the time being). So simple, so silly, so works for me.

Two: The bathroom swish and swipe.

This is was a light bulb moment for me and I’m not joking. I used to scrub the bathroom once or twice a week…unless I didn’t get to it. It worked fine until the littles came along with their newly acquired independence in doing potty on their own, brushing their teeth, and washing their hands; things just haven’t been staying or smelling very…fresh. My sensitive nose prefers for my house to smell nice, including the bathroom. So with the flylady advice of giving the toilet a swish and everything else a swipe, I came up with a plan and gave it a test run. We have one and a half bathrooms, full bath upstairs and half bath down. For my test run, I put my bottle of all purpose cleaner and some rags in the full bath. Every single day for a week and a half, I spent about a minute giving it a quick clean. The half bath, well, it got cleaned once. The difference? I thought about cleaning both but the cleaner was upstairs in view so that is the one I cleaned. Every time I planned to clean the downstairs bathroom, I would get distracted.

Enter my bathroom cleaning basket!

a bright red bucket for three dollars, a small $1 spray bottle filled with all purpose cleaner, an recycled jelly jar for the scrub, old cut up t-shirts.

Neatly in plain sight for I and any other family member to give a quick clean.
This is our half bath that once was a closet.

Upstairs, I repurposed an old peach basket (Thanks, MomIL!) to hold cleaners, rags, rag bucket, and some garbage bags (grocery bags from those times when I so irresponsibly forget my cloth bags but console myself that they will see dual purposes) (Said grocery bags are knotted until use as a safety measure for children)

And voila! My bathrooms have both been cleaned. I put about a weeks worth of rags and have the bucket to toss the used one in until I throw them in with a load of towels. I start with the mirror, give everything a quick spray of my all-purpose cleaner and wipe down everything, ending with a quick swish of the toilet with the toilet brush and a wipe of the outside before tossing the rag in the bucket. I use the tub & toilet scrub on days when I have a little extra time or they need a little deeper clean. The cleaners are entirely safe for kids to use so even Aneliese has given the bathroom a wipe down.

There, don’t you feel as if we have arrived at a new level of friendship because you know how I clean my bathroom?

And finally…I do believe that I have found the perfect apron at the thrift store to ensure my success in housekeeping endeavors. Not only is it handmade, it has pockets and ruffles (both signs of a dedicated house wife.), AND it is full length. WITH a bottom ruffle. I can feel myself improving daily as I wear it.

What are your best quick cleaning tips?