Outside of any paid employment or volunteer work we do, our biggest time commitment is probably to the basics of home-keeping.  In home-keeping, I’m including cleaning the house, doing laundry, paying the bills, preparing meals, caring for the yard, and maintenance errands such as taking the car to the garage and shopping for food and other necessities. 

If you let these things go, bad stuff happens.  You find yourself facing no clean underwear (hmmm, maybe that was Britney’s excuse) or  branches that could fall on the house in an ice storm or a car that breaks down or  bills that go into collections or dinner from the little jars in the back of the fridge.  (As a note, cornichons, maraschino cherries, and Worcestershire sauce is NOT a healthy dinner).

I suggest one of two basic strategies for handling the household chores (the ones that you didn’t decide to outsource in Part 3).  One way to deal with these chores is to make a list of everything you have do.  Divide that list into one of four columns:  More than once a week, weekly, biweekly, or occasional.  Cooking dinner is obviously more than weekly.  Grocery shopping may be weekly.  Bill-paying can be biweekly.  Washing windows, cleaning the gutters, doing minor repairs, etc. may be occasional.  Depending on the nature of your household, doing laundry could be anything from more than once a week to biweekly.  I live alone, so I rarely do laundry more than every other week since I have more than enough sheets and towels and underwear.  If you have three kids, one still potty training, laundry may be a daily event.

Using that list, assign each chore a specific day in a two week calendar.  Ideally, all the chores — apart from meal preparation — for any given day should take no more than one hour, though thirty minutes is preferable.  Keep in mind, that’s 30-60 minutes per person.  If several people live in your house, each person should do his or her share.  Even young children can learn to do simple chores such as putting their toys away, making their beds, putting dirty clothes in the laundry hamper, putting clean clothes on hangers, and dusting.  As a child ages, he or she can do more.  A kid old enough to drive a car or build a facebook page can certainly master the complexity of a washing machine, a dishwasher, a vacuum, and a toilet brush. 

Using ths strategy means that you do some housecleaning every day, but it’s rarely overwhelming — sort of like eating an elephant one bite at a time.

The second strategy is more like a cleaning surge with quickie maintenance.  In this strategy, you need to start with a clean house, so you might want to do a deep clean some weekend day.  Then, you spend 5-15 minutes each day (depending on the size of your house) dealing with clutter.  One the daily sweep, things out of place return to their appropriate location: trash goes outside, dishes go in the sink, clothes go in closets and drawers, etc.  Then, once a week, you do a cleaning surge:  mopping, dusting, vacuuming, etc.  (You will need to use the occasional larger bloc of time for big projects.)

Depending on the size of your home and the number of people helping, this can go pretty quickly.  I live in a small house (about 900 square feet) and I can do the basic cleaning in under 2 hours.  My best luck has been with making Friday night "Cleaning Night."  When I get home after a week of work, my brain is fried.  A little physical labor where you can see the results is actually refreshing.  I put on some nice loud music (Christina Aguilera’s "Stripped" is GREAT cleaning music) and go from room to room, finishing each room before I start the next.  Once I’m done, I reward myself for calling out for a pizza.  While I await delivery, I hop in my nice clean shower and then into some comfy lounging clothes.  By the time the pizza gets there, I’m ready for a glass of wine and a favorite movie in the DVD player — and my house is ready for a restful and productive weekend.