Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Create a Housekeeping Franchise.

Systems. Every successful business uses systems. Some of the most successful francises today sell their operating systems for huge fees all based on a system of proven success. The Francise fee is not for a product, stock or anything other than the system, and usually training in that operating system.

Keeping a household is simply a system, too. Setting up that system takes lots of work, thinking, planning and trial and error. I have been working on systems for many years and just about feel like I have it into a workable routine that is both workable and flexible for the days that I am called out of town. The routine must be easily picked up again without much stress and back tracking. I have started keeping a day of the week clip board on the wall of my pantry with job lists and descriptions for everyone's use and referral. Here it is below. Each day should only be about a half hour or less so it fits in with our morning routine before we go for a walk.

Maintenance Monday,
Laundry-all dark colors
I keep a rotating household maintenance schedule including monthly chores like changing the furnace filter, emptying the vacuum tank or washing the car. Each Monday the next item on the list comes up. Once per month I have added jobs to be done every 6 months instead like washing the windows.

Terrific Tuesday
Laundry-all ironing and leftover folding of darks.
It is so terrific because we get all the garbage out of the house and out to the road. All the recycle has to be separated, etc

Wipedown Wednesday
Laundry-all grey colors
All vertical items such as fridge, dishwasher and doors and switches are to be wiped. On another clipboard I rotate less frequent jobs like wipe down the freezer lid in the garage, top of fridge and the monthly wiping of kitchen cupboards, garbage cans. Each week one of the above chores comes up on the chart along with the usual doors, etc).

Thorough Thursday.
Laundry-mending and folding leftovers of greys
This is the day that all the bathrooms get cleaned (by me) but the boys do a though clean up of anything that gets left out during the week. All dusting of horizontal items such as lamps, table tops, etc.

Fun Friday
Laundry- all white or light colors
A final vacuum of the whole house and the boys wash the kitchen floor. We usually try to do something fun as well like go to the beach, or more often, go shopping. In the summer that means garage sale shopping and that really is fun!

That takes us right through all the household chores for the week and if all goes well the house is clean by Friday afternoon. Saturdays are reserved for anything that may come up be it fun or work, or leftover work if we had to travel or got behind during the week.

This works for me!

Living a Lifestyle of Learning daily

No comments: