My husband and I are fans of Hyperbole and a Half. Don’t click that link unless you want to spend several hours down Allie Brosh’s crazy laughing out loud, spitting your milk, tears rolling down your face, falling out of your chair laughing rabbit hole. Especially don’t click here. Or here.

The point is, Flylady has people do what she calls the “Weekly Home Blessing Hour” which is basically the genesis of my own cleaning routine. I never liked the name. Never. Corny, saccharine, yuck. I guess it works for some people, whatevs.

I CLEAN ALL THE THINGS! (Thanks, Allie.)

Here’s what this is supposed to look like. Over the course of the week, you do “missions” based on “zones” in the Flylady system. Eh. I tried to get behind this, but it got old really fast. We have a small place and it just doesn’t need that much cleaning. Sometimes I’ll get in a groove and wipe off baseboards or clean cobwebs out of corners or wipe down the kitchen cabinets when they need to be done. That’s enough for me. Then one day a week, you do the “home blessing hour” (yuck) and tackle the things that need to be done more frequently, spending no more than 10 minutes on each item so you don’t get hung up on doing it perfectly.

Anything to curb my perfectionist tendencies is good so I like her theories even if some of the practcie doesn’t work for me. The other aspects of the Flylady system that have stuck with me are doing specific things on specific days (like library day). I also do baking day (Tuesday), ironing day (Tuesday) and errand day (Friday). Thursday is CLEAN ALL THE THINGS day.

Here’s what clean all the things looks like at my house:

1. Dust – Especially when the windows have been open. I don’t move knickknacks or dust behind books or anything crazy. Just run a cloth over the obvious surfaces and sometimes over the obvious clutter. Hey, if it’s dusty, I’m gonna dust it. Sometimes I’m inspired to put stuff away, sometimes not.
2. Vacuum – Chester doesn’t shed much, but he’s still a dog so I actually do this fairly carefully. I don’t move furniture except the dining room chairs, but I do try to get up most of the hair.
3. Mop – The bathroom and kitchen are moppable so I use a Swiffer dry cloth and then a Swiffer wet cloth and mop them. Both together takes about five minutes. Not as eco-friendly as a real mop, but so much more convenient that I won’t change this.
4. Clean mirrors – We have three and they get kind of grungy so a quick swipe of a Windex sprayed cloth does the trick.
5. Clean bathroom – Spray the shower with mildew remover (not great ventilation), wipe down the sink and the shelf above the sink, clean the toilet.
6. Water plants – I would never remember to do this if it wasn’t on this list. Also keeps me from overwatering.
7. Change bed sheets and towels – I don’t like to spray mildew remover in the bathroom when there are towels in there because it has bleach in it. And the sheets just need to be washed every week, especially Chester’s.

The whole thing takes a little less than an hour.

In the Flylady system, she has you do this on Mondays, but that always seemed strange to me. Our regular social engagement occurs every other week on Saturdays. We have four other people over to play Dungeons and Dragons and while they’re not the pickiest crowd, I do like the house to be at its tidiest when we have company.

All of this actually keeps the house pretty neat, along with staying on top of dishes, laundry and clutter that piles up on the dining room table and coffee table, which takes maybe half an hour each day. SO the rest of the time I am free to take the dog to the park, do my workouts and run my business. Yay!