10 Habits to a Well-Run Home Challenge

Lately I have been super stressed.  I look around and my house is in shambles.  Anyone else?  As I was scanning some cleaning tips on Pinterest, I came across something I had pinned long ago.  It was a blog post written by TheStressedMom called 10 Habits for a Well-Run Home.  This post was just what I needed.  It give 10 basic steps to get your home back in order.  I will put the steps in the simplest form here, but check out her blog post for a more detailed explanation.  Here are the steps:

1. Wake up early.
2. Go to bed earlier.
3. Evening preparations.
4. Institute Meal-Planning.
5. Do one complete load of laundry a day.
6. Get dishes done in the evening.
7. Buzz through the bathrooms.
8. A place for everything.
9. Have a bedtime routine.
10. Do not say "YES" immediately to new requests.

After reading these steps I laughed and said to my husband, "I am not doing a single one of these." No wonder I'm stressed right?

I love TheStressedMom's note at the end that talks about taking Baby Steps.  She says not to try to tackle them all, but to do one or two at a time.  It's like she knew exactly what I was thinking.  I would have tried to take them all on and probably would not have succeeded adding to my stress and making me feel like a failure.

So I have decided to take this 10 habits to a well-run home challenge.  I will work on 2 a week and keep you updated on my progress at the end of each week.

My first point of focus will be on #5: Do one complete load of laundry per day.  Let me show you why...

Yep, this is my bedroom floor.  These are all the nicely cleaned clothes that I am too lazy to fold.  Shameful!  I know.  Once the clothes are folded here is where they end up...

These are my girls' clothes just hanging out on my dresser when their bedroom is just down the hall.  Sad really.  But no more!  I pledge to get into a good habit from now on.

The other step I will work on is #6: Get the dishes done in the evening.  My sweet husband did the dishes for me tonight so I have no bad example picture for you.  TheStressedMom talks about how nice it is to wake up to a clean sink in the morning.  I would add that it's so much easier to clean off the dishes the night you dirty them then the next day.  Imagine all of the time I'll save on scrubbing.

So there you have it.  I pledge to do better.  Will you be participating the challenge too?  Let me know.  Tell me about how it's going.  Let's help motivate each other and make our lives a little more stress-free.