Zone Cleaning Revisited

I've been familiar with the Flylady System for many years, and I even really appreciate it, however for some reason it has never worked for me. I might stick with it for a while, but I find it difficult to personalize and maintain. 

A year or two ago I discovered The Secret Slob on YT. She used the Flylady System to get control of her house, but recently I learned she went a step further and personalized it in a way that seems to work a lot better. So what's the difference? 

The Flylady divides a house in to 5 Zones as follows:
Zone 1: Entrance / Front Porch / Dining Room ... this falls on the first few days of the month, through the first Saturday / the last day of the partial week that is usually at the beginning of each month. For example: The month of April in 2021 just started; April 1st was Thursday, and today is Saturday, so today would be the last day in "Zone 1".
Zone 2: Kitchen ... this is the first full week of each month. Tomorrow is Sunday, the first day of the first full week in April 2021; Zone 2 is from Sunday, April 4th, thru Saturday, April 10th.
Zone 3: Main Bedroom / Extra Bathroom ... this is the second full week of each month.
Zone 4: Master Bedroom / Master Bath / Master Closet ... this is the third full week of each month.
Zone 5: Living Room / Den / TV Room ... this is the last few days of each month, from Sunday until the last day of the month. In this case, Sunday, April 25, to Friday, April 30th. 

In our example, the month of May 2021 begins on a Saturday, leaving no room for Zone 1 ... so in the Flylady system, deep cleaning in Zone 1 is skipped, and the first full week of May 2021 begins Sunday, May 2nd. You can either ignore Zone 1 altogether, which means no deep cleaning in that Zone for a full two months, or you can try to cram it in elsewhere.

Now for the Secret Slob's alterations. First, personalize your zones. I can think of 5 "zones" for my house, and they go something like this: 1. Kitchen 2. Closets 3. Bathroom & Pantry 4. Bedroom / Living Room / Dining Room 5. Outside [front and back porches, and any animal or barn or shop or shed area] ... you might have more zones, or less zones, and you will definitely have different zones than I have listed!! Make it fit your needs, your house, your family, your lifestyle.

Once you have your zones established, think of what deep cleaning needs done in each zone. Make a list of all the deep cleaning (by zone, of course!), and print out the list ... or hand write ... whatever. [after you've been through it a few times you will probably add things, or need to rearrange ... tweak it to suite what works for you, and then make a pretty copy if you want] Now you are ready to ZONE LOOP. 

Regardless of what week of the month you are in, you start with Zone 1 and do that zone for the whole week. You will NOT get around to doing everything on the deep cleaning list for that zone, so just choose what is most pressing. Set aside a set amount of time each week to spend in that particular zone. She suggests only one hour of deep cleaning in each zone, each week, so you do not get overwhelmed ... if that's what you want to do, just pick a day each week that you will do your hour of deep cleaning. I personally would schedule 2 days, about an hour each time, but not doing the whole hour or even both days if it's not needed. CROSS OFF the deep cleaning you accomplished in that zone that week, and then move on to the next zone next week. 

Eventually you will LOOP BACK AROUND to Zone 1. Grab your list and see what did not get done the last time you were in that zone, and start with the most pressing things. And so on.

This seems so much more functional and practical to me!! Why? Let's say you have a rough week, or you go on vacation, or you have an unexpected event that comes up and you need to focus on it instead of your zone. Simply push that Zone to the next week, and keep going. Nothing is skipped like in the Flylady system ... it just gets pushed back one week. 

What do you think? 

Here's the video if you want to watch it: The Ultimate Guide to Zone Cleaning from The Secret Slob

On chores and schedules.

I have always been good at making schedules, even designing spreadsheets, charts and so on, but never good at following through with them. I’d start off with the best intentions, go at it for a while, and then for some reason, at some point things would just slip away. We’d get busy, or something pressing would come up or whatever. There was always something that came in the way.

Not too long ago I devised a cleaning schedule that we all really like and honestly it’s the best one I’ve ever done. My health has had its ups and downs here lately and it’s been a blessing to have this routine in place so things were not being too neglected or overlooked completely when I’m not feeling up to par. It’s been a blessing … so I thought to share it with the blogging world with the hopes of helping others as well.

It all started when I saw some 3x5 chore cards on a sister’s refrigerator … that gave me the idea to try something similar by suited to fit our family. I have one 3x5 card for each day and one 3x5 card for a few things that must be done daily. These cards can have jobs added on to them as things come to mind. There are only a few things I assign to specific people, other than that, we all just pitch in and do what we can. The cards are on the side of the fridge and we try to do the cleaning for the day in the morning to be sure it gets done. If I had younger children I might rotate them through each different job or assign jobs according to ability … but … my children are all nearly adults now so we just pitch in and do all we can each day and things get done.

This first part is written on each day:
- Sweep all public areas
- Keep all rooms picked up
- Weed garden for ~15 minutes each

This next part is unique for each day:
MONDAY:
- Wipe baseboards, tops of windows and doors, and ceiling fans
(while wiping baseboards, the floors around the perimeter of each room get wiped as well; this does a much better job than the mop)
- Dust
- Clean the church

TUESDAY:
- Clean backsplash and cabinet faces in kitchen
- Clean trash can
- Clean refrigerator inside and out (including the top)

WEDNESDAY:
- Organize kitchen cabinets and shelves
- Wipe cabinets and shelves
- Dining room chairs
THURSDAY:
- Organize ALL shelves in the house
- Organize hallway closets

FRIDAY:
- Mop
- Organize living room closet
- Clean the Brother’s bathrooms

SATURDAY:
- Yard work (usually the boy’s job)
- Garage and breezeway (usually the boy’s job)
- Clean church
- Clean tire shop

SUNDAY:
- Organize bedroom closet
- Sweep bedroom (under beds too) and mop as needed
(oftentimes these jobs get done on Saturday)

The other cards we have are one for the bathroom, one for the kitchen and one for the church. These cards break down more specifically what is expected each day and week in these areas. For instance, I expect the bathroom to be swept daily and the surfaces wiped real quick. This could be as simple as taking a piece of toilet paper and quick running it around the rim of the toilet. Brianna has this job and she keeps a cleaning rag in the bathroom to wipe off the sink and uses t.p. to wipe the rim of the toilet. I expect everything in the bathroom to be scrubbed thoroughly once a week.

Where’s the laundry on my list? Well … we do that as needed. I am very careful to keep up on laundry and found it impossible to have a set day or days to do it. I usually go through the whole house and collect all the towels on Friday or Saturday and wash them all together. On Monday I usually have someone gather all the kitchen and cleaning towels from the house and the church and wash them all together. A lot of cleaning towels are usually used each Sunday evening during fellowship time.

Sometimes we skip things … like wiping the baseboards for instance. No one will notice if we skip a week of wiping the baseboards, but they will notice if we skip one day of not sweeping. Sometimes I do things out of order - like the Brother’s bathrooms. If they happen to be around, I will not clean their bathrooms. I wait till they are gone … but just seeing it there on the card reminds me that I must do it that day or soon before or after. If these items are all kept up with regularly, then the time it takes to do them is minimal. A good example: If you hardly ever clean the tops of your windows and doorways, dust will build up and really cake on there and it will take you quite a while to get them clean, however if you do them every week or every other week, all it takes is a quick swipe of a cloth and they are done. If you have a tall child, this is a great job for them  I used to strain and have to drag a chair around with me as I went through the house doing this job … and then one day I realized that my oldest son had really sprouted up and all he had to do was simply raise up his arm and his hand was right there at the tops of the doors and windows. This has generally been his job ever since. I’ll include a list of often neglected or overlooked jobs at the end of this post.
I was thinking how there are some jobs that do not need to be done weekly. A few days ago I washed all the curtains in the house – this seems to be a job that might only need to be done 2 or three times a year. So on the day I washed the curtains, I was thinking of putting the ‘once in a while’ stuff on the BACK of the card. I could put “Curtains: Aug. 15th and Feb. 15th” or something like that.

OFTEN NEGLECTED OR OVERLOOKED JOBS:
- The trim on the tops of windows and doors
- Baseboards
- Bathroom fixtures such as behind the toilet, under the sink and the shower head. These items are often left to collect years of dust!
- Ceiling fans and other fans
- Window sills (we leave ours open all summer long and often there is quite the collection of flies if we neglect to clean them out!)
- Cobwebs … these can collect quickly in corners and in various areas on the ceilings and fixtures. A quick run through the house with a broom will take care of them.
- Under the beds and other furniture
- Bathroom and kitchen faucets … did you know they can look good as new with a little bit of scrubbing? Comet and a toothbrush work well for this.
- The base of the toilet – you know … where it’s bolted down to the ground? I like to use toilet paper for this, that way I can just throw it in the toilet and flush it down when I am done.
- The top of the fridge

I’m sure there are more, but that’s what I came up with in a hurry. Maybe you have some ideas to add?

Cleaning: From Top to Bottom

Well, I've thought for a while about what cleaning job to post first ... but I've also been very busy to say the least.  I was going to start with the bathroom, however I had another thought.  Why not do something that's all over the house?  So this coming week, if you can, I suggest focusing on:

COBWEBS AND DUST

Yes ... both are everywhere!  Do a quick walk through your house and look up - more likely than not you'll find at least SOME of both.  If you are like most people however, you will find a LOT of both.  Cobwebs like to stick to the corners of walls, the tops and corners of doors, the ceiling, windows, and other places too.  While dust can and will be found just about everywhere, for this first cleaning, only focus on the dust that is on the tops of the door and window frames; the other dust [shelves, pictures, clocks, etc.] will be taken care of some other time - unless you have the time and energy to do them now. 

TO DO
Go through your house with some sort of cobweb sweeper.  A broom works well, however you can also use a duster with an extended handle or a vacuum attachment.  Sweep every corner of each room from top to bottom.  Also sweep along the top of each wall where it meets the ceiling.  If it's been a long time since you've done this, or if you have a lot of spiders, you may also need to sweep each wall - paying close attention to where pictures, shelves, or other furniture meet the wall.
Next go through with a damp cloth and wipe the tops of each door and window frame.  In our old house, this was a job for my tall son.  I had to drag a step stool around, however all he had to do was lift his arm up comfortably.  :)  If you have time and baseboards, wipe those too.  This is a good job for a shorter child.  :)  :)
Now, you are done ... unless all that dust sitting around bothers you, in which case, you may want to do a quick dusting and vacuuming. 

That's it for now.  If you have suggestions on this topic, please post a comment.  With as busy as I've been, I'll need all the help and brain-power I can get!

Cleaning your home

I have been cleaning houses professionally for several years now and have a good idea of what people miss when cleaning various rooms in their home.  I plan to have a weekly series of posts in which I describe [in detail, yet as simply as possible] how to properly clean each room from top to bottom. Maybe I'll set up a weekly cleaning challenge??  We'll see how ambitious I get ;)

Keep your eyes open for my first 'cleaning your home' post!