Homemaking Series-Clean Home

Welcome to the most toughest part of the homemaking series. We all go through a phase where we come home from a hard day's work only to see a messy living room or a kitchen full of unwashed dishes or bedroom which reminds us of a museum with all our things displayed on bed. It doesn't matter whether you are a stay at home wife or a working woman. What matters is whether or not you have a pleasant and welcoming home at the end of the day. Just like a famous saying"face is the index of mind", our home reflects our state of mind. 
Even before getting into the solution I want to agree that we do face challenges like living in a joint family where cooperation of every member becomes impossible or guests/relatives drop in frequently or children do not help in  domestic chores or husband being very busy with career. But let me tell you, inspite of all these challenges it is still possible for us to have a clean and well maintained home. Remember this is a process which demands time and patience. Let's get started...

• De clutter: the crucial step to a clean home is decluttering. Go through each and every room in your house to find out the areas where most clutter gets accumulated. Raid your kitchen to see if you have any expired groceries and throw them away. Check your closet to discard any torn or faded pieces of clothing, go through your living room to see if you can get rid of piled newspapers and magazines. These are just a few examples and clutter may be in any form. So go to every nook and corner of your house and see that it is clutter free.
• Organize: however small or big your house is, you find a lot of space to utilize once all the clutter is thrown away. Now comes the time to use your creativity to organize things so that it becomes easy to maintain a clean house. Everything should have a place. If you remember and follow this strictly there will not be any scope for your house getting messy all the time. My next post will focus more on this topic so stay tuned.
• Assign: many of us try to become a superwoman by doing every task on our own. It leads to more stress and thus reduces productivity. So let us try to become a smart woman by learning to assign tasks to people around us. Unlike the Western countries we are lucky to have a domestic maid who helps us in washing dishes, mopping the floor etc,. You can pay a little more and ask her to help you in other chores. If you have kids, get them involved in keeping their books and clothes in place. Make it a point to see that they also help you in running small errands. Also you can take your husband's help in the areas where you feel he can do better. Thus assigning tasks help in maintaining a clean home without getting stressed out.
• Routine: just like we have a routine to eat and sleep, our home should also have a routine. I just cannot stress enough on this and once you create a cleaning schedule, it becomes a child's play to have a clean home. I have read many blogs and watched videos on YouTube regarding this and even took printouts on what to do on which day of the week. But I utterly failed in keeping up with the schedule because it was not practical and was not working for me. For example if I think every Monday will be for kitchen cleaning, Tuesday for laundry, Wednesday for washrooms and so on, then what if I fall sick for a week, what if I go on a vacation, so there are chances that we may not follow a schedule if it is too rigid. Hence it is much better if we do certain things almost everyday leaving weekends for family. Now I have a routine where on a daily basis I do clean kitchen, do a load of laundry, see that my washrooms does not stink, find and put away things in their respective places, etc,. I do not say that you should follow the same way but think of a routine which is practical and follow it religiously.

So friends I hope this post helps you and any queries or suggestions are welcome.