Cleaning by Flip Cards

When my house began to look like the aftermath of the Mount St. Helens eruption, I knew it was time to plan a course of action.

First, I listed every conceivable household duty (the list was two pages long!) and jotted down whether it should be done on a daily, weekly, monthly, or less frequent basis. Then on each of twenty-eight spiral-bound three-by-five-inch cards I wrote the days of the week (four weeks of Sunday through Saturday). Daily duties such as make the beds, wash dishes, and PSEJ (prayer, scripture, exercise, journal) were written on each card, while weekly duties were divided fairly equally between Monday through Friday. (Saturday and Sunday were free from chores.) Monthly duties were scattered throughout the cards, as were bimonthly and less frequent tasks, which were also identified by listing the month in which they should be accomplished.

Instead of spending five hours on “cleaning day” trying to get the house presentable, I refer to my flipcards and clean only an hour or so each morning, giving me all day to do what I really want to do. Having this regimen in writing has given discipline and order to my homemaking. Christine M. Frisch, Manchester, Missouri