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For you really busy people out there - how do you keep up on household tasks?

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Ns1 said:
isn't this hella expensive? I just can't imagine paying a per pound rate for someone to wash my socks/undershirts. even heavy jeans and towels...
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It is about $60 per week. Depends if you have the money or not. We do and we are enjoying the hell out of it.

We are a little smart about it though. Towels and sweats we wash on our own. The kids do their own laundry also.
 
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Stopsignhank said:
It is about $60 per week. Depends if you have the money or not. We do and we are enjoying the hell out of it.

We are a little smart about it though. Towels and sweats we wash on our own. The kids do their own laundry also.
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Home grown residential servants. Gotta train 'em up right.


I failed at it though.🙁
 
I failed too.

The trick if you are going to do laundry service is to have them pick it up and deliver. It is a little bit more per pound, but who the hell wants to drive somewhere with their old stinky clothes and then have to drive back to pick them up.
 
Our boys have indoor allergies. Constant runny nose in the house because of dust we presume. Flonase helps, but we don't want to depend on it. I run the iRobot once a week. Does hiring a cleaning service actually keep the dust down? Or are they just sweeping/dusting it all back into the air anyway? What about chemical smells with all the cleaners they use?

child of wonder said:
Trying to convince my wife that we should do cleaning service and laundry services. They're a time sync, we both hate doing them
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Laundry - why is it a time sync? We have 4 in the house (lots of sports means sometimes twice a week we run it). All we have to do is throw it in the wash, come back an hour later and throw it in the dryer. An hour later we pick it back up and spend 30 minutes folding and putting it in place. Recently we got the kids doing that as their first chore. It takes up less than an hour of actual effort. So easy too.
 
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If you want to do the laundry quickly start with the load that will get out of the dryer quickest and finish with the load that will take the longest to dry. Or go to a laundromat where you can do all of the loads simultaneously.
 
A rule I've tried to stick to over the years is to do half an hour of chores each day at least. (Married, no children, two cats) - that's excluding kitty duties, those don't wait for anything, except maybe the complete clean-out and scrub down of a litter box from time to time.

If we left our floors uncleaned for a whole month the dust bunnies would likely have formed communities and gone to war over each others' turf. I try to make sure each floor has been cleaned every 2 weeks at least.

We have laminate flooring throughout and it does make floor cleaning less tedious: Maybe ten minutes per floor, and 15 minutes for the bathroom/kitchen floors for hygiene's sake.

My computer room really needs doing, it gets done the least and right now I have a few customers' PCs in so bits are all over the shop.

Our ginormous garden (relative to previous garden sizes) is what gets left by the wayside. I had a crack at it yesterday, plan to do more today.
 
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Carson Dyle said:
I've never had an issue with household tasks.

The choirs, on the other hand, take far too much of my time. I'm just beginning to accept the fact that having a full-time choir may be more than I can handle.
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The bill for dry cleaning the robes must be astronomical.
 
Stopsignhank said:
It is about $60 per week. Depends if you have the money or not. We do and we are enjoying the hell out of it.

We are a little smart about it though. Towels and sweats we wash on our own. The kids do their own laundry also.
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I think it is double that here in Atlanta, for the middle-income neighborhoods.
 
rh71 said:
Our boys have indoor allergies. Constant runny nose in the house because of dust we presume. Flonase helps, but we don't want to depend on it. I run the iRobot once a week. Does hiring a cleaning service actually keep the dust down? Or are they just sweeping/dusting it all back into the air anyway? What about chemical smells with all the cleaners they use?



Laundry - why is it a time sync? We have 4 in the house (lots of sports means sometimes twice a week we run it). All we have to do is throw it in the wash, come back an hour later and throw it in the dryer. An hour later we pick it back up and spend 30 minutes folding and putting it in place. Recently we got the kids doing that as their first chore. It takes up less than an hour of actual effort. So easy too.
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Lol I do six loads of laundry a week.
 
I have a service that does my lawn, weed management, brush clean up, leaf clean up, etc it's just way more work than I have time to do (certainly other priorities as well). I'm trying to convince my wife to get a cleaning lady, too, but haven't gotten there yet.
 
I have cleaners come once a month, and they clean the kitchen, bathrooms, and floors throughout. Totally worth it to me, my floors are this wood grain tile with a rough texture I had no idea about when I got them, they are a pain to clean and scuff easy. Plus I rent out a room, so keeping the kitchen and bathrooms clean is great. I pay them $75. My place isn't large though, 2bed, 2bath 1075 square feet.
 
Being a single person in a house it's not bad - it sort of evens out. I'm a clean person without any pets so I only have to vacuum/sweep the floors once a month, if that. I do laundry once a week. I can get overwhelmed at times, but that's my own fault - I procrastinate way too much and I start projects without finishing the last one(s).
 
Life is way to short to be cleaning all the time. I do like cleaning though.

For me, it's kinda relaxing. Then again, I live by my lonesome, so I don't have a lot to clean.
 
Cleaning is boring because it only has to be done over again. But I do sometimes enjoy doing a "cleanup" as in, clearing clutter, reorganizing things etc. At first I never know where to start but if I just dive in and once I get a momentum going it's great to see the result after. The result lasts for as long as I keep putting things back in their place after.

I need to do my shed, garage and basement actually. They kinda all go hand in hand since lot of stuff that is in the garage and shed needs to go to the basement and vice versa.
 
Exterous said:
So my new job has been keeping me really busy and I have 2-3 more trips in the next month and a half. Our side business has also been picking up so, even between the two of us, household tasks and choirs are starting to pile up.

Anyone else in a similar situation or has been in a similar situation? Do you just start hiring out more work like lawn care, food prep or even get a maid service?
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I work in freelance IT & do an average of 70 hours a week, plus I have a family, and then any time leftover is for hobbies & whatnot (cooking, VR, etc.), so my schedule is fairly defined & packed. My outlet is basically cruising forums online while waiting for computer jobs to finish, lol.

So the first question is, do you want to do the tasks yourself, or do you want to hire them out? Hiring them out can be surprisingly affordable, if your budget allows for it. Plus you not only get your free time back, but you get the mental load of having to handle everything removed - you define the results you want, you hire the appropriate person or company to manage it for you, and as long as you pay your bills & babysit their results to make sure they're doing what you want, then everything is taken care of for you, which is really nice.

For me, however, I'm particular about my stuff & my personal space. I'm not a control freak by any means, but I do like getting the results done my way, because I get irritated when things aren't done the way I want them done. Not to the point of OCD, but like, it took me a really long time to figure out how to combine "I want to do it all myself, my way" with "I have a huge amount of stuff to do, so how do I manage it all, based on my limited schedule & even more limited mental energy to deal with things?". The good news is that I did finally crack the code, and it is extremely easy to manage. I can go into more detail if you want, but I don't want to type it all out if you don't plan on doing it yourself & want to hire it out instead, lol.
 
I *constantly* struggle with self-imposed / inflicted "chaos".

I get deliveries of PC parts and some housewares lately, I throw the boxes in a pile. Drink some water bottles with powdered drink mix, toss them in a pile. I guess my organization is "cave piles". It's ... pretty bad. Well, not really "bad", just really dis-organized.

Been thinking of getting a house cleaner, but I've been told I need to organize better before I hire one, lest they fall or trip or injure themselves.

Basically, I have hoarding tendencies. Not horribly bad, but I continue to "acquire", Ferengi-like, without getting rid of other stuff first. It build up, trust me.
 
"toss them in a pile" Huh?

That's not hoarding. That's just ... sad. That's the guy they have to extract from his home by taking out a wall and condemn the house because fifteen years worth of trash piled up in the rooms threatens to collapse the structure. Hazmat team to do a cleanup to where they can safely bring in bulldozers.
 
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Oddly, getting a house cleaner actually helps discipline me from leaving clutter around. I want to make sure that when the person comes, the house is organized and all they have to worry about is do the actual cleaning. So I make sure the garbage is emptied, the dishwasher is emptied, the counters are clear, paper mail is sorted out/shredded/recycled as needed, etc.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Oddly, getting a house cleaner actually helps discipline me from leaving clutter around. I want to make sure that when the person comes, the house is organized and all they have to worry about is do the actual cleaning. So I make sure the garbage is emptied, the dishwasher is emptied, the counters are clear, paper mail is sorted out/shredded/recycled as needed, etc.
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I'm as lazy as anyone, but I keep the place livable. I've often wished it was cleaner and thought that, if I could afford it, the ideal would be to have someone come in to _assist_ me with the house cleaning. Like: "You run the vacuum, I'll gather up all the laundry. After that, we'll tackle the windows and then you can help me dust. You clean the downstairs bathroom, I'll get the one upstairs."

Hmmm.... I just thought of a great new business idea: Like a personal trainer for house cleaning.

"Ok, Mary, now we're going to scrub that bathtub. Go at it hard, don't leave a ring. Really make it shine."

"That's awesome, you're doing great. Really makes a difference, doesn't it?"
 
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Carson Dyle said:
"toss them in a pile" Huh?

That's not hoarding. That's just ... sad. That's the guy they have to extract from his home by taking out a wall and condemn the house because fifteen years worth of trash piled up in the rooms threatens to collapse the structure. Hazmat team to do a cleanup to where they can safely bring in bulldozers.
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It's not that bad, not quite, at least. I don't leave them for "fifteen years". Maybe 3-4 days at most.
 
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