April 17, 2020

The Magic of Catch-All Day

My secret to a clean house most of the time? I always incorporate and plan for a day to catch up every single week. I believe that this simple mind-shift is one of the secrets to a clean home and that is where the magic of Catch-All Day comes in.

Here’s that shift: Build in a day that accounts for life’s surprises, because you know they’re going to happen. Someone will get sick, you’ll be needed somewhere else, or maybe you just won’t feel like cleaning bathrooms or vacuuming. It’s absolutely necessary to give yourself grace and plan for that list to have more on it than you can accomplish. If you didn’t complete everything this week or left something out, go back and finish it up.

What is Catch-All Day?

Catch-All Day is a day to catch up, get ahead, plan for the week ahead, relax, it’s what you need on any given Friday. Catch-All Day is how I integrate grace into the Clean Mama Routine. When you don’t get the bathrooms clean on Monday you KNOW that you have time on Friday to clean those bathrooms OR you can save them until the next week.

One of my favorite little routines is that I empty and wipe out the refrigerator every Friday before grocery shopping. I might not completely clear everything out like this every week but I do clear and wipe off the shelves every single week. What’s the point of this? Isn’t this extra work?  Nope. This makes meal planning and prep easier, it keeps your refrigerator clean, and you know exactly how much food you have, and what you need to shop for.

Right now we’re doing grocery delivery every 10 days – 2 weeks with the goal being delivery on Friday so the routine stays the same.

DIY REFRIGERATOR CLEANING SOLUTION:

  • Mix up 1 teaspoon of dish soap, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and about 4-6 cups of warm water.
  • Wipe down the shelves with a well rung out BAR MOP TOWEL. Repeat until all shelves and drawers have been wiped clean. Dry if necessary.

Depending on the day and week, I use Fridays to get caught up on uncompleted tasks from the week. I also use Fridays to menu plan and grocery shop. I like going into the weekend with a clean house and a stocked fridge so I can soak up all the family time possible. When I was working outside the home I stopped at the grocery store on my way home, grabbed a rotisserie chicken or store-made pizza for an easy dinner and did my weekly grocery shopping. Now in the days of call-ahead and delivery groceries, that would be a little easier if that’s something you can utilize and/or have available.

I find that just this process of taking a visual inventory and clean out really helps me start my shopping list and menu plan for the week ahead – I keep it handy with my Homekeeping Planner and write down what I need as I’m quickly wiping down the fridge.

See my favorite weekly planning tools here.

What happens if you don’t get to your tasks on Friday? 

Save it for the next week! Everything will still be waiting for you – think of every day as a fresh start and every week is one too.

I love Fridays for a lot of reasons but one is that I treat it as a day to get things done – I catch up on any Weekly Tasks, prep for the weekend and the week ahead, and I also tackle a Rotating Task or two.

Once you have the Daily Tasks and the Weekly Tasks down in your home and it’s running smoothly, it’s time to add in the Rotating Tasks. (If you are just starting the Clean Mama Routine, file this away, get the routine down first!) The Rotating Tasks are those deep cleaning tasks in your home – I have them scheduled throughout every month and they change monthly. You can find them in the free Monthly calendar (on the free printable page), in the Homekeeping Society subscription, and in the Guide to a Clean Home printable kit.

Most of the time I’ll just ‘attach’ a Rotating Task to a Weekly Task – for instance, vacuum baseboards is done with Wednesday, Vacuuming Day or polish wood furniture would just be adding a little more to my dusting routine on Tuesday, Dusting Day. I find that it’s nice to have a day that I can do those extra cleaning tasks – a great one for Friday is wipe down appliances. This fits with wiping down the refrigerator and is accomplished pretty quickly.

 

This post is part of Cleaning Class – I’ll be on Instagram quite a bit this week in Stories and going live – make sure you’re following along over there too.

I’m linking up the days as we go this week – click below on any day to catch up!

Cleaning Class Introduction Post
NEW here? Start with this post —-> It’s Cleaning Class Week – DAILY TASKS
Monday – BATHROOMS + daily tasks
Tuesday – DUSTING + daily tasks
Wednesday – VACUUMING + daily tasks
Thursday – FLOOR WASHING + daily tasks
Friday – CATCH-ALL DAY + daily tasks
Saturday – SHEETS + TOWELS + daily tasks

Posted Under:

Cleaning, Cleaning Class