Tricks of the Trade 2, Daily Extras

Daily Extras
Besides the Daily Essentials there are other things that I would really like to see happening on a daily basis. I call these things Daily Extras. I find that doing them routinely is still relatively essential. They are different from “essentials” in that if flexibility and “life” gets in the way and these fall by the wayside for a day or even two, they are not going to “get me behind” or ruin the flow of life like mountains of laundry or dishes would do, but it's hard to make good headway without tackling these things on a regular basis.

Here is my list of “Daily Extra’s”;
1. Quick tidy of all main rooms in house (and when I say quick I mean quick... no dusting or vacuuming here, just quick clearing of surfaces, pick up of floors and removal of items that don't belong in that room.
2. 15 minutes minimum dedicated to completing ONE of the chores on my weekly essentials list.
3. 15 minutes minimum-30 minutes maximum dedicated to *working on* (note, I did not say COMPLETING) an organizational/deep clean project.
4. Sweep kitchen, dining room and entry at *least* once a day
5. Couple-Catch-Up (one on one uninterrupted verbal communication with Prairie Guy
6. play room end of day pick up.

I’ll talk more about weekly essentials in the next post but in a nutshell this is how I classify things like dusting, vacuuming, washing floors, bathroom deep cleans, etc. I allot one weekly chore to each day of the week.

For deep cleaning and organizational projects I work one room at a time, 15 minutes a day until that room is deep cleaned, then move to the next one. Deep clean involves cleaning out cluttered drawers, cleaning off shelves, light fixtures, fans, baseboards etc. Some rooms take a couple days (bathrooms) some a couple weeks.

A quick note on multi tasking. There are things that pair up very well and can be completed simultaneously. My favorite multi tasking part of the day is when P-guy gets home. This is when I get the kids to go upstairs and tidy their rooms (I specifically save it for this moment, because they are climbing the walls at this time of day), P-guy sits down at the table to sift through the mail and I fold laundry while we chat. Read Alouds and Toy room clean up are another great opportunity to multi task. I read while they sort through their toys. I love multi tasking, you get twice as much done in half the time.

So If I take my daily essentials list from yesterday;
7:30 devotions
8:00 breakfast followed by wash up (start laundry)
8:45 quick tidy of the main floor, everyone working together
9:00 school
1:00 lunch
1:30 quiet time
outside chores
4:00 initial supper prep,
5:30 supper
6:30 read alouds
7:00 baths.

and merge in my daily extras, here is what I will get;

7:30 devotions
8:00 breakfast followed by wash up (start laundry)
8:45 quick tidy of the main floor, everyone working together
9:00 school
1:00 lunch
1:30 quiet time
2:00 quick tidy of second story just swooping room cleans, nothing dramatic
2:20 weekly essentials chore (I'll expand on this in the next post)
2:45 Room rescue (organizational or deep clean chore)
3:00 outside chores
4:00 initial supper prep
4:30 couple catch up, fold laundry, kids clean rooms
5:30 supper
6:30 read alouds
7:00 baths.

I added quite a number of tasks and time to the schedule, but only consumed another hour and a half, leaving still 50 spare minutes in the afternoon between my outside chores and start of supper prep. Of course, supper can get pushed back and that provides another extra hour in the afternoon of free/flex time if we need to go out or add something to the schedule. Stay tuned for a look at how I line up my weekly essentials.