Fluff the Nest Friday: Company’s Coming!

Around here, Friday is the day to “fluff the nest”, which is just a much cuter way of saying “clean the house”. Am I right? So my Friday posts are all about tidying up and getting the house fresh and in order for the weekend. Some weeks my nest-fluffing comes more easily than others. I need motivation each Friday.

I’m really excited today because this week I did the bulk of my Friday cleaning on Wednesday afternoon, so today’s cleaning will just be a lighter fluffing! It’s pretty easy to get motivated for the Friday fluff knowing it’s not the big one for the week!

We’re hosting our Bible study group for the month of October, which meets weekly on Wednesday evenings. It’s been a crazy week with something big happening each day. This meant that by Wednesday I hadn’t done a lick of cleaning for our company that night! As soon as we finished school for the day, I had just a few hours to accomplish a week’s worth of cleaning. Yikes!

This is certainly not the first time this has happened, and, when it does, I have discovered a way to get a LOT of cleaning tackled in a short amount of time! It’s a 2-hour cleaning plan that I found on Money Saving Mom’s blog, and it works!

Whether you get an unexpected call that company’s coming in a couple of hours, or you just haven’t had time to get to your cleaning done that week and it’s piled up, the idea is to focus on one task at a time, giving it all your attention for the specified amount of time. Basically, it’s a beat-the-clock game. My attention tends to be ALL over the map when I’m cleaning, so it’s easy for me to get distracted and pulled away to other things. But this plan keeps me focused on one area at the time.

I simply print Money Saving Mom’s cleaning checklist each time (I keep it in a file on my phone), and follow along until everything is done. I do change a couple of things on the plan to customize it. In the photo above (my son asked me to add the heart rock to the photo 😊), you’ll see circles for checking off each chore. I tackle mine in a little bit different order than she has hers listed here, so I use those circles to number the order in which I need to complete them. I might mark a line through something that doesn’t apply, or add an extra task like mopping. Money Saving Mom’s list doesn’t include mopping, because the idea is a quick clean, but if I need to add that then I allow myself an extra 30 minutes to my cleaning time. Also, she finishes with lighting a candle, but I prefer to begin with lighting a candle because the aroma helps motivate me even more! 

I will tell you younger mamas that when I started using this a few years ago, my youngest was still a little guy and needier and therefore I had many more interruptions that I had to tend to, so don’t stress if this is your case. Now that he’s older, if he needs me, all I have to say is, “Mom is being timed! Want to help me beat the clock?”, and he will either jump in and help, or wait until I’m done. There’s no way that could have worked with my little ones unless they were napping!

When I started the list this past Wednesday, I thought I would take photos before and after completing each task. I like to show the *real* side of things here when I’m talking cleaning. But y’all, there was no time! I was trying to beat the clock after all! So I snapped a few the next morning and, YIPPEE, it was still clean!

I’ve put out a few things inside for fall, but just haven’t felt like doing anything to the outside with the heat we’ve had. Our temps are supposed to drop next week which will inspire me to purchase a pumpkin and a mum or two. So next week I’ll get in some porch fluffing and maybe I’ll report back here.

Happy fall y’all!! (Even if it doesn’t feel like it!)