Pegging

Recently a friend asked me how I keep my house relatively clean and do everything else. I think it might be pegging. Melissa Wiley describes the concept of in this post

Checking my email is pegged to eating breakfast

Doing a quick straighten up of the downstairs and kitchen is pegged to starting school

Unloading the dishwasher is pegged to fixing lunch

Checking email(again)is pegged to our lunch break

Cleaning up the kitchen and downstairs from morning activities is pegged to after lunch

Cleaning up the kitchen and downstairs (again!) is pegged to after dinner.

Cleaning up the girls rooms is pegged to their bedtime routine

The other stuff isn't so much pegged, but scheduled. Right now (and this sometimes changes depending on classes and activities)

I do laundry on Mondays and Thursdays

I do my grocery shopping on Tuesdays while the big girls are at OPTIONS

I have the girls put away their laundry on Tuesday and Friday as part of their morning routine. I try to put dh's and mine away some time on Tues and Friday.

Monday afternoon is house cleaning time. It would probably only take an hour if I did it myself and didn't take breaks. Usually it takes about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. It is pegged to coming home from piano lessons.

Besides the kitchen and putting stuff away, I don't clean except on Tuesdays. If someone gets crumbs all over the floor I vacuum, if the bathroom sink gets messy because the kids have been playing in dirt, I wipe it down, etc, but other than that I let it go. I sweep the kitchen floor everyday after dinner and mop it about once a week when it starts looking really gross. And I do wipe the girls sink as part of the bedtime routine since they tend to get toothpaste everywhere. But, by Monday my mirrors are all fingerprinty and toothpasty, the carpet is a bit crumby, the furniture is dusty, but then it is extra satisfying when it is clean.

When we am not doing school and therefore not on a schedule, the pegs slip and I end up with a very messy house by the end of the day, but for the most part it works and keeps my house in a perpetual state of organized mess.