Cleaning Poll – Room vs. Task
It’s our very first poll here on Me, Myself and Mommy, and I want to know how you clean. Are you a clean by room or a clean by task kind of girl? And why are you the kind of girl you are?
The cold damp winter and the joys of the first trimester put a hold on my domestic efforts, and the house quickly spun out of control. It was bad. Parts of the house are still bad. I’m lucky the dust bunnies didn’t kick me out of their house. However, winter is over and my house survived. Spring is in full sprung here in Atlanta, and I’ve caught the spring cleaning bug, along with other less desirable spring bugs. As I start to regain control of this house, I’m wondering if my cleaning approach is the most efficient.
My entire life, I have been a clean by the room kind of girl. I will clean an entire room start to finish before moving onto the next room. I will pick up the clutter and put it away, dust everything, clean mirrors and other surfaces, sweep/vacuum, mop and give it a squirt of something that smells pretty. Once that room is shining and smelling nice, I’ll move onto the next. I have no clue why I clean this way. I don’t remember being “taught” to clean. I think my domestic training was more of a shadowing apprenticeship than a formal education. I can’t even remember how my Mom or any other woman (or man) cleans, so I don’t think it’s something that has been inadvertently passed onto me. From what I can tell, this cleaning by room method that I use is something that I took up on my very own. I do like seeing the room transform as I make progress, but other than that I have no logical explanation for my cleaning madness.
Now that I’ve started my daily and weekly domestic activities up again, I find myself examining my cleaning method. Don’t get me wrong, I can scrub the dickens out of a house, it just takes me forever. I can get pretty OCD once I get down into it. If allow myself, I can spend an entire day cleaning one room, and I promise you with all of my heart that my house has never ever been so dirty that it should take me an entire day to clean one room. It shouldn’t take me an entire day to clean my entire house. It’s never that dirty and it ain’t that big.
I’ve never questioned my cleaning by room method until now. Now, I’m wondering if cleaning by room is really the way to go. I know that there are other clean by room types out there, but I also know that there are clean by task folks in this world too. Instead of cleaning an entire room before moving onto the next, they clean one task at a time. They will pick up the clutter in the entire house, then they will dust the entire house, then they will clean all of the mirrors and so on. I’m beginning to wonder if this is a more efficient approach to cleaning. I can see that it could be quicker to pick up the dust spray and cloth and pop in and out of rooms dusting everything down, and then moving onto something else. You aren’t switching back and forth between cleaning tools and products, so it would make sense that it would be quicker. But is it?
If I switch to task cleaning, is going to help with my OCD marathon cleaning habits that leave me burnt out? Or am I doomed to spend my entire day cleaning regardless? Will I get the same gratification of watching the house transform as I do when I shut the door on one sparkling room and start on the next? Maybe the gratification is on a much bigger scale because when I start the whole house is a mess and by the time I am done, the whole house sparkles?
Clearly I’ve spent a lot of time (maybe way too much time) pondering this dilemma of room versus task over the past few weeks, and I can’t decide which method is better. So, my friend, I am turning to you. I need you to impart your domestic wisdom onto me, the not so educated and less experienced domestic greenhorn. Do you clean by room or by task? And why do you clean the way you do?
Please take a few seconds to vote on the “I clean by…” poll below, and then take another few seconds to tell my why you voted the way you did.
Room by room! Happy Spring cleaning! I need to do major decluttering!
It seems like we’re always decluttering… If we could just find a way to keep the stuff from coming in the house in the first place!
I’m a task kinda gal myself. I think it started because the chore lists we had as kids were task oriented. I know I usually can’t get everything done in the same day (probably could if I devoted more time to cleaning) so instead I’ll clean the clutter everywhere. If thats all I get done, it’s livable still and there isn’t any one room that makes me cringe. I like to do the floors all at once so then dirt/dust doesn’t get tracked from a dirty room to a clean one. Dusting? I don’t get around to that as often as I used to, and I’m letting myself be ok with that.
The clutter is the worst part! If that can stay controlled then it’s easier to handle the other chores. Even though I usually room clean, I do like to do all of the mopping at once. It’s such a pain when the floor is wet and everyone is trapped, so I like to get it over with. I get Moanna a snack, make her go potty, put on a movie and tell her to park it until the movie is over.
I honestly deep clean by reorganizing… everything. My husband hates it.
Haha! Do you give your husband orientation after each reorganizing so he knows where to find everything? I always seem to make a bigger mess when I throw reorganizing fits.
Definitely room by room. There is a method to my madness. Simply put; if I get tired or distracted by something , I know one room is clean so when I have time, I just move on to the next room. The clutter is another story. If you keep your clutter picked up, you would be amazed how much cleaner your house appears.
Clutter is the enemy!
I use a combination of methods depending on my mood and the condition of the rooms. Every night I take 15 or 20 minutes to pick up clutter, shoes and coats, and get the kitchen cleaned up. I cannot relax and enjoy my morning coffee with dirty dishes and messes staring at me. I have lots of time on my hands so I rarely have to clean the whole house at once since I can keep up with it on a daily basis. Laundry….that’s another thing entirely!
I try to take time after Mo goes down to pick up the messes and deal with the kitchen. Some nights when she goes down though I can’t bring myself to do anything else except collapse on the couch. Laundry is a relentless nightmare.
I really couldn’t say. When it comes to getting things cleaned up, I usually go for the big ticket tasks first — laundry, dishes, and garbage. From there, I suppose I do gravitate towards the room by room method. Hmm. Couldn’t say. But oh mylanta, that laundry monster is absolutely my enemy! Just when I think I’ve caught up, another load’s already piled up.
When I’m rich, I will pay someone else to do my laundry and dishes… Everything else I can handle (and often enjoy) but the laundry and dishes make me crazy