Admittedly, I get a twitch in my eyes when I hear “well, I’m at home and he’s working, so I can’t ask him to help with the household” from mothers with rings under their eyes to their chins on the playground. Uhm, yes, yes. I only accept the argument when he says: “well, she’s at home with the children all week, so I can’t ask her to take care of them on weekends”.

I represent the simple rule: whoever lives there cleans with me. Rubbing a cloth over a toilet or a washbasin for five minutes is a job you can do even after 9 hours of maximum stress. I promise: you don’t have to use your brain at all. Simply scrubbing stupidly. There are voices that claim that this can sometimes even have a meditative effect. It.is.definitely.reasonable.

So if we start from the optimal case that everyone in the house helps out a little and daily routine things like dishwasher clearing out, toothpaste sticks and beard stubbles and removing them around the sink take place, then there is enough time to clean a room more thoroughly per day and to do this without running the risk of getting bogged down for 3 hours and not doing anything else the whole day. My goal is a maximum of 30 minutes per room and, depending on the time and desire, another 10-15 minutes for an extra task such as wiping out cupboards or cleaning the extractor hood, things you don’t do weekly, but which should also be done at certain intervals so that they don’t mutate into a Herculean task once a year. I think I’ll write a separate article about this, because I use an app to remind me of such exotic things.

Everyone has to decide when which room is to be used, or plan according to the floor plan of his house. With us, for example, it makes no sense to separate the dining room from the living room, as the room is open anyway and I don’t stop in the middle of the room to do the rest the next day. So the living/dining room is together, I also combine kitchen and hallway. But in the end everyone has to implement this according to their own circumstances, so that they don’t have to work twice.

For me, for example, the baths are on Mondays, because if there was a visit at the WE, it makes sense for me to clean them after the WE. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I don’t have any childcare, so I do the whole ground floor because the dwarf can help the best. Thursdays bedroom and children’s room, because it goes fast and I also have no child care, but then on Fridays study and stairs, because this is the day where the best man in the world often comes home earlier and also 2 hours of child care are externally secured, As much as I love the child, but when wiping stairs a two-year-old between the legs is rather suboptimal.

Anyone who has read this far might think “oh girl, just get yourself a cleaning lady”, and yes, I admit that would be tempting. But on the one hand this is an issue that I want to save myself and on the other hand I find it difficult with children to give them an understanding of order and cleanliness or self-discipline when once a week Mrs Elli comes for 4 hours and while we are on the playground, at home as if by magic everything is suddenly pretty again without even having to bend a finger for it.

I had my “aha” experience in this respect at university in a philosophy seminar when two freshmen next to me bit an apple, threw it on the floor in the room and dismissed my request to please dispose of their garbage sensibly with the words “gives but cleaning ladies here”. I still find it a great pity that I couldn’t see the reaction of one of them when half a bitten banana appeared in his pocket at home. But that it just falls into a bag like that…tztz…

I don’t want my son to get so presumptuous one day. I want him to develop an awareness that his filth doesn’t vanish into thin air on its own, but that you have to do something about it. So we clean ourselves. Together. As a complete family. That helps to stay on the ground of the facts and also saves your wallet. And who says that Quality Time with the children cannot also take place while cleaning…you can make any game or race out of everything. And in the end, the sooner it is done, the sooner you have time for more beautiful things…

Read more about ad hoc cleaning services in Singapore for professional and experienced cleaning services for your home.