When your house is a mess and you're feeling the stress, what
you need is a friend in your. Ear start the.
Job and you'll see it through with Ronnie talking to you.
Make. The chaos disappear.
Clean with Me podcast is here. Thanks for joining me.
In today's episode, I'm going to talk you through a home morning
routine which I like to compare to the opening shift in the
workplace. In case you're new to the show,
Clean With Me is the podcast where I talk you through
cleaning your house step by step Today as I guide you through
each task of the opening shift in your home, I'll also be
discussing the importance of the closing shift and introducing
you to something called the 30 * 3 method.
Let's get right into the episode.
If you're still sitting on the couch or lying in bed, it's time
to get up and moving and get dressed and looking presentable.
Because when you look good, you feel good.
So start with that step if you aren't ready for the day yet.
For the rest of you, you might want to quickly clean up a
problem area in your home or start a load of laundry.
A lot of times there's some glaring problem that you're not
going to be able to relax until you've dealt with it.
OK, maybe you need to wash a load of towels or strip your bed
and start washing your sheets and pillowcases or your
comforter. If you tend to forget to switch
your laundry from the washer to the dryer, set a timer on your
phone after loading that washer as a reminder to do that laundry
switch later on. I don't know about you, but I
use alarms on my phone for a lot of different things.
I even have alarms for reminding my kids to do their homework
before it gets too late. Another way to kick off your
morning routine is to open up your curtains or blinds and let
some natural light in. OK, if the weather's nice, you
might want to open your windows and air out your house.
But if you're listening to this episode in the dead of winter
when I'm recording it, you could light a candle or put some fresh
wax in your wax warmer. I have a friend who has a really
nice essential oil diffuser that sprays out a lot of mist and it
was just a nice vibe and it made me want to get one, but the one
I have isn't that potent so I ended up just putting it in my
room to use with lavender oil on those nights when I'm just
having trouble getting to sleep. Just do whatever you need to do
to achieve a fresh cozy atmosphere in your home smell
wise. And don't forget to take out the
kitchen trash and reline it. OK, that'll solve a lot of
problems right there. For that matter, you might want
to run the garbage disposal. By the way, on those two days a
week when I work outside the home at the school, I like to
pack my tote bag in the morning and put everything I'm bringing
to work on the piano bench, which is my launchpad by the
front door. You might have a different piece
of furniture for that, but I like to pack that bag and put it
by the door before I complete any household tasks.
That way I can relax knowing I'm ready to walk out the door.
So that might be a good idea for those of you who get stressed
out looking for misplaced keys and other items in the morning.
Hopefully by now you've done whatever you needed to do to
gear up for our cleaning session.
If not, pause the episode and make sure you are ready.
The next step is going to be a quick kitchen reset.
The first thing I want you to do is clear off your kitchen
countertops. Maybe you washed the dishes last
night to get your kitchen sanitary before bed, but you
left the countertops a little cluttered with other stuff, like
seasonings and other items that accumulated on the countertop
throughout the day. That's OK.
Or maybe you just tend to plot things on the kitchen island
when you get home and you've got like a week's build up a random
clutter, and then whoever does the dishes is just kind of
wiping down, you know, the cooking areas.
Or maybe the end of one of your counters has a lot of paper
clutter and you need to put those items away.
Let's quickly get your countertop cleared off.
By the way, for those of you who are home all day with two or
more young children, you'll probably need to have a morning,
afternoon, and evening routine. OK, this episode is about the
opening shift, but that's not going to be enough.
I recently read about the 33 rule for housework.
It was created by Riley Jasmine, who's a homeschooling mom of
five. I don't know anything about her,
but I can attest to the fact that it takes a lot of housework
to keep up when you have kids who are home all day, especially
if some of them are still little and not contributing much as far
as chores. That having been said, many of
you have jobs or have another routine that requires you to
skip the afternoon reset and do a whole house deep clean on the
weekend. But if you can do only one
routine on a daily basis, I think the evening one makes the
biggest impact. Just for the record, again, this
episode is a morning routine. But for those who choose to do
all three, the afternoon session is often the perfect time to
tackle a deep cleaning task like mopping the floors or cleaning a
bathroom. And the 30-3 method doesn't have
to be 3030 thirty. I mean, your morning routine is
probably going to be shorter than your afternoon routine, in
my opinion anyway. Once you have the countertops
cleared, it's time for the next step.
Unload the dishwasher or drying rack, or both if you're like us,
and quickly manage any remaining morning dishes to get down to
dish 0 so you can start the day with a clean slate.
Ideally, though, you shouldn't have more than just the
breakfast dishes to wash and maybe a peanut butter knife or
mayonnaise knife you used making sandwiches if you made school or
work lunches this morning. Let's quickly wash those few
items and place them into the drying rack if that's your
system, or load them into the dishwasher once you get it
emptied. At our house, we tend to hand
wash when there are only a few dirty items, especially because
my husband doesn't like emptying the dishwasher and oftentimes
it's full of clean dishes. So we're more likely to use the
dishwasher when we're facing what I like to call a dish.
Astor, one of my dear listeners coined that phrase.
By the way, no judgement here. If you dropped the ball last
night and you're feeling a little guilty because you left
some dirty dishes soaking in the sink, don't feel bad about that.
That just means you might need to listen to another episode
after this to get your kitchen fully clean.
Hopefully by now you've put away the clean dishes, maybe washed a
few dirty ones, and you're spraying down your countertops
and other surfaces and just wiping everything down.
But you don't have to be cleaning exactly along with the
show, so if your situation's different and you're overwhelmed
with a big mess, that's OK. Just keep moving.
You're making progress, and that's what matters.
Or if you gave the countertop, stovetop, and tabletop A swipe
last night sometime after dinner and there's no new mess, you
could use this segment to sweep or vacuum the kitchen floor in
case that never got done yesterday or this week,
depending how often that needs to be done.
Because we're all in different seasons of life.
If you've ever worked at a fast food place or you've ever worked
the opening shift at a restaurant or retail store,
you've probably heard people ask who closed last night such and
such wasn't done. Like they didn't do any of the
stuff. You know, I worked at Taco Bell
when I was in high school and sometimes I opened on Saturdays,
so I remember hearing that complaint often.
And of course, whatever the closing crew didn't do, the
openers had to go ahead and do it anyway.
It's the same at your house. Sometimes the kitchen isn't
properly closed, so the opening shift takes longer.
My husband is retired and I'm working, so he typically handles
the closing shift and then I do the opening shift the next
morning. And that works well for us
because he doesn't like the sometimes tedious job of putting
away a mountain of clean dishes. Usually he washes the dishes
after dinner. He's real good about cleaning as
he goes and doing all the things.
But then I put away the dishes the next morning, meaning
emptying the drying rack and dishwasher on the days that I
don't start work super early. Because at my work from home
job, sometimes I like opening shift because it's slow in the
mornings and then I get paid to just sit here.
But that's a whole nother subject.
But if you're in a season of life where you're both the
closer and opener, hopefully you closed last night because going
to bed with a clean kitchen is the ideal.
But if not, you might just need to Scroll down, listen to
another episode after this, and wash those dishes.
For now, just leave any remaining dishes to soak because
we're about to move on to making the beds.
This is just a quick morning routine, folks.
But before you leave the kitchen, take a moment to think
about what you're making for dinner tonight, in case you need
to start a crock pot or thaw something out for later.
Or maybe it's too early to set it out and you want to set a
timer on your phone to set it out at noon.
OK, just make those plans. Unless someone is sleeping in
your bed or you're washing the bedding and you don't have a
second set, it's time to make your bed and whichever other
beds you're responsible for. Maybe you have toddlers who are
too young to make their own beds.
By the way, special thanks to my financial supporters who have
unlocked the bonus episodes, which are often longer.
You too can unlock those episodes for a small monthly fee
or special arrangement with me. And if you're listening to Clean
with Me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, the paid subscription
is probably already being advertised to you, and
subscribing on one of those platforms will give you a
seamless listening experience. That said, another option is
joining my Patreon page, which gives you an option to support
the show at different levels. So some people who support me on
Apple or Spotify are also supporting on Patreon just to
help me. It's so sweet.
Or they're on Patreon for the bonus episodes, but they're
supporting me at a higher level. But I appreciate every little
bit. And even just listening to these
free episodes helps me to be honest.
And a way that you can support the show without spending any
money is by clicking on the plus sign or follow button in
whichever podcast app you listen on, and then also clicking on
that fifth star to give me an excellent rating.
I'd appreciate that so much. And if you happen to be
listening on Spotify, you might notice there's a video.
Please let the video portion play.
Keep it in video mode because that helps as well.
If your house is super messy right now, just pick a high
priority area like your front entrance or your family room and
start picking up there. Just spend these last few
minutes straightening up, whether it's your entire house
or just a priority area, or if your floor is already generally
picked up and your house is tidy, run a vacuum for a couple
minutes or start your robot vacuum.
I realize you're in all different life stages and
situations. And for those of you who work
outside the home or takes kids to school in the morning,
remember that a successful morning begins the night before.
OK, so if you're struggling, maybe you should have laid out
clothes or took inventory to make sure you had everything you
needed for your coffee or other favorite morning beverage.
Breakfast on the go, Any lunches you'll need to pack.
But don't worry, I'm planning to talk about all that in an
upcoming closing shift episode. So make sure you're following
this show again, click plus or subscribe or follow.
Anyway, for the next few minutes, I want you to just be
picking up your house or a problem area of your house.
I realize, you know, you might need a little bit more time to
get caught up on your housework. Maybe you're new to the show and
it's going to take you a while to get caught up.
I always think of one of my listeners who wrote in that she
took some time off from work and just binged my content and got
her house under control after she had experienced a horrible
personal tragedy and had been struggling with depression,
Understandably. OK, Sometimes, you know, when
we're in a rut with housework, it can take a while.
It took a while for your house to get in that condition.
It's going to take a while to get it under control.
I get that. But these daily routines are a
big part of at least not adding to the mess and maybe gradually
chipping away over time. By the way, a lot of the bonus
episodes are whole house episodes.
And I'm going to start doing some afternoon routine episodes
that focus on some deep cleaning tasks.
OK. So I hope you got a lot done
during this episode. Again, thank you so much for
your support if you're going that extra mile to support the
show, but I appreciate each and everyone of you.
And as always, happy cleaning. I'll talk to you in the next
episode.