Congratulations to you and your husband! I hope that his new job is everything he hopes for.
Well, it can’t possibly be much worse! His current boss is–quite seriously–borderline. I got him a library book about working with difficult people and when we got to the description that fit his boss, the advice was “circulate your resume.” The company is probably going to die, solely because of this guy.
And he has a friend at the new place who says it’s a very good working environment, so we’re quite optimistic.
I am planning on creating a personalized spreadsheet for home cleaning and maintenance. I came across the following information during my research and thought that it would be helpful to share with you. I can share my finalized/personalized version as well when I create it.
http://www.cmhc.ca/en/co/maho/gemare/gemare_003.cfm
http://www.hometime.com/About/chores.htm
http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/42198
http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/42472
http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/42032
http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/21715
Hey StinkyBurrito, your username always cracks me up in regards to this thread. I always picture a stinky burrito lying somewhere in the living room needing to be picked up.
Your spreadsheet sounds wonderful. I think that flylady and side-tracked home executives (SHE) might have some of those as well. But it looks like you have a pretty good collection there.
Yes, please share your finalized version and your success with it. Although I do incorporate those lists into my planning system (I use index cards), I feel pretty intimidated by those massive to do lists. So please let us know how it works out for you. Maybe there’s some trick to it that I need to learn.
Best cleaning news from my end: I FINALLY CAUGHT THE SECOND MOUSE! Unfortunately, I didn’t notice for a week and it stank up the cage trap. Pretend there’s a wrinkled nose smiley here.
I had some major relationship shakeups this weekend, so I’m battling depression first, cleaning second. But fortunately the house is clean enough that I can let it slide a bit.
There’s about a 50 - 50 shot of finding an actual burrito laying around under the couch. 
What is the index card method? Can you share your trusty method with me? Or point me to where you have in the past in case I missed it?
You know, when we first started this I very industriously made a SHE box.
Haven’t opened it since.
What’s a “SHE box”?
The Sidetracked Home Executive “plan” has you make a box of index cards with your tasks on them. They’re color coded and such. I spent hours on 'em.
Oh.
That totally sounds like something I would do. I guess that’s why we’re in this club, eh?
I cleaned up my office and most of my bedroom desk area over the weekend!
Nothing today; I worked today, and now I’m beat. I’ll go do the dishes, though–and I cooked a proper dinner that will make leftovers tomorrow, yay! (I have no idea how two-income families manage; I think I would drop dead of exhaustion.)
This morning I was getting everybody ready, and feeling good about being well on time–and my daughter says “Mom, I cut myself.” I thought she meant a paper cut. But no, she was bleeding all over the place; she had stabbed her finger with her scissors while trying to make something. It wasn’t that bad, but it took about 15 minutes to really stop the bleeding. My husband wound up staying home with her while I went off to work, and he just dropped her off at her friend’s place after she was all fixed up. Mommy guilt!
It was supposed to be my husband’s turn to host the (semi) regular hearts game this coming weekend, so I had incentive. I decided that this time I wasn’t going to straighten and get the surfaces, that I’d do it right. So I started with the utility room. It’s the first room you walk into, since everybody uses our back door, so I figured I’d start there and work my way in. That would at least get the public rooms done, and then I could keep going on the bedrooms. Well, the card game has been seriously postponed, but the utility room is nearly clean. And I mean clean. I’ve washed and sorted and actually thrown things out. The garbage can yesterday contained a basket and a pot, neither of them really good enough for the resale shop and I don’t need them. And I’ve been throwing things away as I go, not quite ruthlessly, but sort of looking in that direction, at least. And I didn’t quit when the game got changed. I’m still going. It’s about a lot more than daily stuff, like laundry and dishes. It’s about getting to the point where we can actually live in this house in comfort. And then I can do the daily stuff and keep up. I’m feeling good about what I’ve done, and I’m feeling determined to do this right. I’m sick of living like this. And I’m sick of feeling like I do when I let it stay this way.
Today, I will make the kitchen really really clean. That’s the objective. The sink will be shiny!
I did go through my tops again, and found a few more to throw out, and a few to cut up and recombine. I’ll go through my skirt and dresses today.
The kitchen is also my job for the day. And lo, it shall be shiny and clean! I think I shall also clean up this here office room; there are dress-up clothes all over the lfoor.
Can I just say that the weather is being really weird lately? It can’t make up its mind what to do, which is unusual here. I’m not complaining, since I dislike the hot weather that has usually set in by this time–I’m just saying.
Objectives for today:
- look at apartment in the French part of town. Done. Sent in the majority of the documents they need in order to consider me for the rental.
- look at coworker’s soon-to-be-ex apartment in the Swiss part of town.
- take that plastic box I bought to replace the ones broken in the trip up from under the bed and pack it up with Winter Stuff.
I’m feeling productive already.
The bathroom is clean. Now on to the kitchen! After surfing the Dope a little more!..
My kitchen is clean, and I read the new Diana Wynne Jones novella. Yay! Now I’m off to the gym and the kid’s karate class.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you on this. It must be the curse of the thread-starter of the slob reform thread that it’s hard to get motivated for focusing on cleaning during that month.
As for the index card method, I tried to do a quick overview in my OP.
So basically, each task goes on an index card. And the smaller the tasks the better for me at least. If I can break down a task to either the smallest amount of time or the smallest amount of determination required, that helps. So for instance, I don’t have index cards called “Clean bathroom”. I have index cards called “Clean toilet”, “Clean sink”, and “Clean bathtub” because those are doable in small increments of time and you have to finish from beginning to end in one sitting. Or for instance, if I have to call someone about some project, the cards don’t say, “Call X and schedule Y”, they say “Look up phone number of X”, “Call and ask about Y”, then “Schedule Y” and those are all separate cards.
The SHE system is explained more fully in the book. I don’t know if they’ve updated the book, but I have a really old version, and it’s really kinda 50’s mindset. If you can get past that, the concepts are pretty good.
And then I have my own system (apart from SHE) where I write down all of my tasks into a calendar. For me, the downfall of the SHE system is that because recurring tasks just get rescheduled, there’s no sense of achievement of how much was done during a given day or week. So I use a blank calendar to list all of the tasks that I accomplished off the cards. Otherwise, it’s too easy for me to feel that I haven’t accomplished anything when all the cards are done.
I hope this helps.
Hmm. When I have a bigger place, I might try that system. Until then, it’s 'This is my list of chores for the week. Let’s see how many I can finish day by day".