How to Make Your House Less Disastrous When You Have No Spoons*

[marydell]

First, establish a target location for each of these things:

1. dirty dishes (kitchen sink is a good target)
2. trash (outdoor trash can is a good target; near the back door is an alternative)
3. dirty laundry (next to the washer is a good target; at the top of the stairs that lead to the washer is an alternative)

You need a total of three ambulatory people. Recruit children for this if possible. Ply them with candy.

Person 1 takes a sturdy box or a small laundry basket and goes into every room in the house collecting dirty dishes. They may need to make multiple trips to avoid spilling tea or whatever. They have to bring all the dishes to location 1.

Person 2 takes a large garbage bag and goes from room to room picking up all the trash from every surface and puts it in the bag AND empties all trash baskets or receptacles into the bag as they go along. Then they bring the bag to location 2.

Person 3 takes a large laundry basket and goes from room to room picking up all the dirty or maybe-dirty clothes from every surface and puts them in the basket. Then they bring it to location 3.

After this is done, the house is less chaotic and it’s possible for a grownup who still has spoons to tidy a room without having to LEAVE the room to put things in the trash, sink, or laundry.

Bribing kids for this works well because they don’t have to have the skills to clean a room; only to identify their particular quest objects, and adults don’t waste energy moving all over the house.

*Google “The Spoon Theory” if this term is new to you

Comments

[readinggeek451]

Reasonable. But the trouble with this procedure is that it assumes that there is more than one of you.

[kalmn]

I think that a person might be able to do it by doing one of those things, then being near dead for a few hours or days, then another.

Not quite as good as having other people around, but it could work.

[sabotabby]

That's exhausting just to read. I take it it worked, though!

[minoanmiss]

Hi! You still use this thing? Yay!

[marydell]

True! If you're doing it all, I'd say maybe do one category per day to get it done?

[marydell]

Yeah—my house has three adults, one child, and two dogs, so everything is always exhausting but splitting up the tasks maong many hands works well.

[marydell]

Hi! I'm tyring to get back to blogging a little.

[minoanmiss]

Yay!

Hug your kiddo for me, and if you want to get back on my card lists drop me a PM with your current address! I've been making Mother's Day cards the last few years.

[bibliofile]

Excellent plan! I like the term "quest item" especially.

(Welcome back.)

[readinggeek451]

That could work!

[abracanabra]

A good approach for getting kids to start helping clean their own rooms/disaster areas too! Might be using this soon.