Some houses are Martha Stewart clean and decorated all the time. Children in these homes spend their free time on crafts, singing and shredding any incriminating insider information. Our house is different. We run on a binge-and-purge system that has emerged by default. The basis process works something like this:
- Accumulate detritus in the form of unprocessed mail and stuff that interests the children for 10 seconds or more.
- Reach a critical mass until one or both homeowners become frustrated, or we’re going to have company over.
- Launch a full assault on the mess, throwing out anything that isn’t nailed down or that doesn’t protest too loudly when picked up.
- Repeat cycle as often as needed.
The folks at RealSimple suggest something different. They believe that a little bit of cleaning every day can keep things looking their best.
The suggestions range from cleaning your kitchen sink every day (makes sense - dirty sinks are a real appetite-killer) to ways that you can keep common areas and your bedroom clean each day.
I’d like to see this method applied in practice in a household with two preschoolers - for now I’m a wee bit skeptical. For example, I am struggling to imagine time to swiff the kitchen floor daily while chasing kids around.
More interesting would be a story about how children could be trained to clean the house in 20 minutes per day. Anyone have a success story to share?
[RealSimple via 43Folders]
