Hello Gupshup folks
I got married a few months ago and it’s been a bit of a difficult adjustment to being pampered by my mum to having to run my own house! I work full time and I really think my house suffers- there’s always so much washing and ironing to do, not to mention cleaning and cooking. I’m struggling to get it all done and as a result I feel like a bit of a rubbish wife sometimes. So I thought I’d ask everyone for any time saving tips, how do you share the chores in your house and any ideas on how you make effective use of your time.
I wake up ridiculously early and get stuff done and out of the way. If that's not an option for you, then plan ahead. Have set days for washing, cleaning, etc. Discuss the issue with your family and decide together who is going to pitch in where.
Also, this does not, and should not, make you a bad wife. Don't sweat it.
I'm in the same situation, married and working full time, running a household and battling the OCD tendencies too :)
My main tip to keep on top of the housework throughout the week, so that you can still keep the weekends for leisure time. Little and often is better than letting it all pile up for the weekend in my opinion.
I also try to multi task and combine household chores i.e running the vacumn around whilst waiting for the dishwasher or washing machine cycle to end, doing my ironing whilst catching up on tv viewing, doing the dusting whilst on the phone, cleaning the
bathroom whilst deep conditioning my hair, putting on a load of laundry before leaving for work in the morning so that its ready to iron later on in the evening etc etc.
I do tend to go to bed very late though
Your freezer is your best friend :)
And get rid of as much clutter as possible, it makes tidying up much easier :)
I agree with Brit Chick - little and often is the way to go.
We do a deep clean once a month on a weekend, the rest is upkeep. What's also really helped me is organising every cupboard and drawer in my home properly, this saves time when searching for things, but also means things go back into their designated place straight away, so there's less clutter to clear up.
As Brit said, muti-tasking also saves a lot of time.
Cooking and freezing things in advance is also a life saver, paticularly for times when I get home from work after 9. I spend 3 or 4 hours about once a month cookinf and feezing food.
Have a functional room in your house. A place where you can come and crash after work, a place where pillows can be thrown on the floor, empty cups can be left for a day or so, opened bag of chips dont need to be stowed away and all that. Spaces like such would help you to keep the rest of the house clean and untouched. For many people, it could be basement with couple of comfy couches and TV, or part of your family room (if big enough, it could be your bedroom)
Spend 5 min every night to quick clean your kitchen and 5 min for each bathroom. That will save you lot of work (and stamina) on the weekend or whenever you clean your house.
While keeping house clean and presentable is good but it has to be functional before anything else. For example if some piece of furniture (such as storage cabinet) does not look good in living room but it will help you a lot, bring it to living room.
Plan not to do laundry for more than once a week. Laundry is something that most of the men can take care of easily, so let him do the laundry.
Whenever you get meat, wash it and portion ready-for-cooking so if you have to cook in weekdays, you dont have to defrost it and wash it before you start cooking. Men can do this easily too so …
Instead of cooking everday, cook for couple of days. For example if you are having curry-rice tonight, you can have same curry and roti next day with the change of salad etc.
sigh I do everything on the weekend and the flat is pretty disgusting during the week. It doesn't bother hubby but it bothers me. The main reason is that most nights I go straight from work to my parents house (so does hubby) for dinner. By the time they let us go, it's time to get to bed anyway. The days I am at home, I actually get some stuff done while the dinner is on because I can't leave it be. You get very little time for relaxing then, though.
If it's just the two of you, it shouldn't be too bad. Make an extra 5-10 minutes in the mornings to maintain the bathroom cleaning. Kitchen, you can clean whilst doing the dinner or you can relax and watch some tv while making the dinner and clean up after when you do the dishes. You should be okay doing the laundry once a week on the weekends? Just make sure you get through everything so you don't have stuff hanging around. I wash all the clothes and bedding and anything else like bathmats all on the weekend.
I do a proper clean most weekends, thorough bathroom clean, all the vacuumming, dusting, fridge and oven cleaning if they need it, filing away post etc, so it lasts during the week (with exception of kitchen and bathroom).
Anyway, I'm just repeating what others have said. The main thing I wanted to say that if you're gripe is the laundry, then maybe this will help. So I do all the laundry on the weekend and I let it air dry to minimise creases. Then, with the exception of a few of hubby's shirts, which I iron and hang to save time during the week, I fold and put the rest away. We always iron the clothes when we need them, so I always iron my clothes in the morning, it only takes a few mins.
I have 5 siblings, so there were 8 of us in the house growing up. This is how my mum did things coz God knows she had enough on her plate without ironing. The laundry would get done (either her or me would do it) and then just put away. And then everyone ironed their own clothes on a daily basis. I have 4 brothers and from quite a young age they were taught to be responsible for their own clothes looking presentable. Every evening, one of my siblings (or me, when they were little) had the chore of ironing a shirt for my dad for the next day.
have a maid come in twice a week and train urself and ur hubby to keep things tidy. make sure he does his share of chores. he can't be the Prince Charming while you be his Cinderella. set aside saturdays for doing laundry and do groceries and Friday & Saturday evenings for socializing and Sunday for relaxing :)
Hello Gupshup folks :)
I got married a few months ago and it's been a bit of a difficult adjustment to being pampered by my mum to having to run my own house! I work full time and I really think my house suffers- there's always so much washing and ironing to do, not to mention cleaning and cooking. I'm struggling to get it all done and as a result I feel like a bit of a rubbish wife sometimes. So I thought I'd ask everyone for any time saving tips, how do you share the chores in your house and any ideas on how you make effective use of your time.
Thanks!
I think its largely about prioritising .... followed by multitasking ...
My advise is to sit down calmly for 10 -15 minutes once a week and focus on the tasks that need doing in order of importance .. and then plan a schedule and stick to it ... it helps so much ... thats how i managed through my very busy work/ home life ...
for example, If i need to get grocery , cook , do the laundry , clean the home and do the gardening in this week ... Then I plan it so that one day returning from work i will stop over and get the grocery sorted ... next day , I will cook and while doing that i will do the laundry as well ... third day i will clean the key areas in the home leaving the rest for another day or the weekend ... and finally 20 minutes of gardening ...
Once your planning is in place , it gets much easier to get the work done ...
