How to Keep a House Clean, Without Becoming OCD

Successfully managing a house, in addition to having a job, taking care of your kids, cooking and also taking care of yourself, at least couple minutes the day, is a stressful and almost impossoble mission. The easiest answer is to hire a cleaning lady or a house assistant which will do most of the job instead of you. This is also a solution. However, I think that before you are using external help, you need to know first how everything is going on and know for sure what to request and expect from the people working for you.

My problem was that actually, almost all my life I used to have people doing things for me, starting with my nanny and ending up with the people that used to take care of my house when I was too busy working and building a career. From many points of view, it was a good feeling to be back home and relax, play with the big kid and just enjoy my life. I was sure I wasn't missing that much from life by not being aware of what actually does it mean to properly take care of a house. 

A couple of years ago though, I decided that I need to know more directly about real life house management. I was so frustrated for not being able to deal with daily home chores properly that I was even ready to try getting a temporary job doing what other people used to do for me for years hoping to learn more on the job. Fortunately, I've decided instead to face my own limitations and move forward creating my own experiences. It was the hard way and it took me around 3 years to fully get into the mindset of a woman able to be in charge with her own home. Things went so fast that the last year I was able to successfully accomplish my first house renovation project, with all the painting and fixing stuff. 

After so many lows and few highs, I am finally able to share a couple of tips for a successful management of a clean house. I am aware that for many of my readers, my 'inspiration' is more than basic knowledge, but for someone who started a life project different of the one she grew up with, it is a great accomplishment and I hope at least to be able to inspire other women to test their limits, at least for a while. 

Clean House Management for Very Beginners

1. Plan!

Like in the case of everything you want to succeed in life, make a plan. For instance, at the beginning of every month - or week, for a busy full house - make a schedule of your cleaning plans. Start with the easiest one, which can be achieved very fast and end up with the complicated tasks, that may require a lot of time and dedication. I personally start the week on a Sunday and focus most of the complicated chores in this day. I do have one day the week for vacuuming - usually Friday morning, serious bathroom cleaning on Thursday evening, laundry on Sunday, kitchen fixing and pantry checking every two weeks.

2. Fix it on the spot!

I never been that kind of person obsessed with cleanliness but in some cases, you need to fix a problem when it occurs, unless it will be too late and more effort and energy will be requested. Did some hot wax from the candles at your party fell on the floor? Don't wait until tomorrow or the week after tomorrow when the spot will be hard as a stone to remove it. Do it when it happen, and in less than 5 minutes it will be completely clean out. 

3. Spare Your Energies!

I know how tempted you might be to clean the dishes every five minutes, before the mountain created by them is about to overflow all over the kitchen. But there will be more and more to come after you finish your meal therefore, what about taking your time, enjoying the food and freshly refuelled with energy, starting the terrific task of washing them? 

4. Delegate!

Doing all the house chores all by yourself it is a tremendous task, and sooner or later it will worn out. What about delegating some of the tasks? For instance, the big girl is in charge with taking the garbage out, someone is only washing the dishes, the other one is watering the flowers...It not only saves time but can also be an enjoyable family fun plan.

5. Keep the order!

The best happens when things do have a certain routine and order. It saves time and energy to have some specific benchmarks in your life and house too. Create specific places for things and request everyone to respect them. For instance, the shelf for baby t-shirts will always stay this way, and so it will be with the toys' corner. Upon arrival in the house, everyone is taking the shoes out and carrying them in the shoe rack. The computer is always in the same place and so are the chargers for my tablet and phone. As long as most things are in their place all the time, I avoid the situations when minutes or even hours are lost while looking for one thing or another. 

As my deep knowledge and insights about house management are advancing, I will keep sharing my impressions and experiences. Hopefully, it will help many other people like I used to be only less than 3 years ago. Let 2018 be a year of successes and better house management skills for everyone!

Do you have some smart house management skills to share? Can't wait to hear from you!

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3 Tips to Waste Less Food in 2018

I bet I am not the only one that at least once every couple of weeks, should have a look in both the pantry and fridge and stuck afterwards the garbage with items that are far beyond the expiration date. It happens once, it happens twice it can happens every day, especially if you don't keep a track of your edible stuff in your house. Don't hurry up to judge...sometimes you just have only a limited amout of time to do the proper shopping and you can buy 4 boxes of rice in four different food shopping sprees because you are too stressed out to take the right decision with a clean mind. Or you simply forgot that you did it before. 

If you look at least at the level of the whole Europe, you are not the only one. According to the European Commission, 89 million tonnes of food are wasted every year only on the territory of the Union. This huge amount is the equivalent of 143 billion euro. You can spend an entire creative afternoon thinking about what can be done with this money. 

As a start, you can focus on the household level and start with a short and medium-term plan to improve your household foods management and reduce the amount of unopen or half-opened food landing in the garbage every day. On the medium and long term, it will also help you save money that you can spend on other pleasant delights or to a meal to a fancy restaurant or maybe some new make-up too.

Here are my top 3 tips to keep your waste levels low:

1. Plan your weekly meals

If you are into healthy meals and/or you have a big family and you are busy with work and life for the rest of the day, planning your weekly meals will also help you to have in the house the amount of foods you need only for a 7-day menu. At the beginning of each week, set up a list of the planned meals around the day. Once you have in mind a clear picture of what and how much you need, you can easily create healthy combinations with amounts that eventually can be easily used, long before they cannot be used.

2. Organise your pantry according to the expiration date

It sounds a bit OCD, I know, but especially if you are living in a big house, you may simply forget about what you have and for how long you can avoid using it. A couple of months ago, I bought a couple of Indian ready made powders for preparing traditional foods, but as I put them on the bottom of the pantry, I was only reminded about them when I accidentally stumbled upon them. It was too late to prepare my fast Indian meal, obviously. 

3. Think twice before you buy

As in the case of any other purchases, I keep asking myself: do I really need to buy this? Do you really need this truffle butter that you are the only one in the house who fancies it, instead of the normal butter for the sandwiches of the whole family? Obviously it will take more time to finish it and it is quite hard to match with every single kind of food, therefore, you may need long enough time to finish the jar, far beyond the expiration date. 

What about you? How do you plan to reduce the level of food waste this year? Any useful tips to share?

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