One of the things I want to do is start to purge my house of harsh cleaning chemicals. I’ve created a list of recipes from floor cleaner to glass cleaner so I thought I’d share!
Floor cleaner:
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon dish soap
1 gallon water
We have tile floors at home so this is great for tile or laminate flooring.
Glass cleaner:
1/4 white vinegar
1/4 cup rubbing alcohol
2 cups water
1 tbs corn starch
We also have granite countertops in our kitchen so I use a few drops of dish soap and water on a microfiber towel. This is gentle and won’t eat away at the stone.
For stainless steel appliances it’s a 2-step process.
Step1 – Stainless Steel Cleaner:
1 part white vinegar
1 part water
Step 2 – Once your surface is clean and dry polish with olive oil.
As part of my theme for March my goal is to “Restart” and get back on track after work took over my life for a little while there. Part of that is to get my house in order which hasn’t been fully cleaned in months (so embarrassing to admit this). But, the bright light in this dark tunnel is that this month spring is upon us! I like to do a Spring Cleaning and Fall Cleaning session at my house to keep it in shape, but my mistake the previous years have been trying to do a full clean in 1 day. This time, I’m going to plan it out and do it in sessions over the month of March and see how this pans out for me.
I try to maintain my house so that it’s less to clean in times like these. I have daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly things I have on a checklist in my planner to help me remember what gets done and when. But the keyword is *try*. While my hurricane of work at Ninong’s happened I barely cleaned at all. Just the bare minimum. Then Charlie and I went on a quick Hawaii getaway with his family for a few days which was amazing but also kept me from cleaning.
My cleaning checklist in my planner
The first Monday I was back from all that mess I was so motivated to get cleaning! I don’t know about you but when I clean I feel like I have a clear mind and it dawned on me that I should start thinking about my spring cleaning plan. I started making a list in my head as I was mopping and wrote down all the things that I wanted to do.
The main focus when I do spring cleaning is to clean things that don’t get cleaned often since I should be doing all the other things on a regular basis anyway. Things like cleaning base boards, clean the top of the refrigerator, clean the window sills, etc.
Once I wrote that down, I organized it into Evernote and categorized it by room. For me personally, cleaning room by room is like zone defense in basketball. If it tackle 1 or 2 rooms each cleaning session it’s more manageable for me and I’ll be more thorough.
My plan is to do a deep clean every Monday in March and April (since Mondays are my days off). If I had 2 days off I would be able to finish everything in a month, but I think that’s the important thing here. It’s better to be realistic and know what you can and can’t do. I originally thought that I’d be able to do all the spring cleaning by the end of March until I sat down with my cleaning list and my calendar and realized that if I’m only dedicating 1 day a week to it then it’s going to take me longer than I thought. But that’s ok! You know that saying, “Done is better than perfect.”
So let’s get to it people! What do you have on your spring cleaning list?
I tried so hard to be ready for 2018. I wanted to be organized, I was setting goals, I was getting everything in order.
Wellllll, it didn’t happen the way I planned.
All of my time, literally, all of my time revolved around Ninong’s since November. I was working an average of 14 hours a day, sometimes 18 hours a day. I barely had time to eat, let alone drink water! So bad, not something I’m proud of. I’m sharing to show how bad my work-a-holic “ism” was. I know for a fact that if I made time to prioritize and organize my days things would have gone a lot better. But I didn’t. I couldn’t get myself to look at work when I got home. I was already thinking about it so why apply myself to write things down? Stupid me.
So November passed, December did too, there went January, finally here comes February and I was able to get myself together. I’m able to walk away from this month with my feet planted on the ground. I’m finally starting to feel like my old self again!
This upcoming month is exciting for me! With all the ch-ch-ch-changes I’ve been going through personally and professionally I’ve learned so much about myself, what I can endure, and what I can become if I apply myself. So March’s theme is “Restart.” If I want my 2018 Word of the Year is “build” then I have to get back to the point where I feel like I have something to build upon.
That being said, March is when I’m going to start fresh! I may be late to start my goals by 2 months but at least I’m starting. Like Lara Casey (author, successful business woman, mom, and beautiful soul) says, “There’s nothing special about January.”
Original Artwork by Lara Casey
And for me, this couldn’t be more true. I’m not going to beat myself up about what I haven’t done. I’m going to celebrate what I have done and try to grow from here.
First thing is get organized. I need to get myself to where I was at the end of 2017 with my productivity. The best way to do that is to just jump back into my productivity tools – Todoist, Evernote, and my planner. I want to start the small little habits that made a big difference with my organization.
Open Todoist, Evernote, and my planner 1st thing in the morning.
Have a notepad or my cell phone nearby so I can jot down random thoughts.
Update Todoist, Evernote during in the middle of the day and at the end of the day.
You won’t believe the difference these 3 steps have made in my productivity.
Next on the list is to prioritize. When you have a long list of things to do it’s easy to get cross eyed or stressed about it. When this happens to me personally I don’t get motivated to work because I’m overwhelmed before I even began! What I do to help with prioritizing different aspects of my life is to set things for certain days. For example, when it comes to cleaning I prefer to do it on my day off since it takes a good amount of time. That means priority for Mondays is cleaning. Another example is weekends are very busy for Ninong’s so my priority, naturally, is the restaurant on Saturdays and Sundays. This means, I’m going to schedule most of my cleaning tasks on Mondays as well as the bulk of my Ninong’s tasks only when I’m there.
Last thing for this month is to find balance. If you know me you know I’m everywhere. I guess it’s because I have so much going on that I become really scatterbrained. If you also know me then you know not only am I scatterbrained but I also am a major work-a-holic. I live and breathe business, I love everything about it so I have a habit of taking my work home. But this has to stop! When I say I’m done for the day then I really want to be done. That way I have time to give to my husband, family, friends, and to myself without feeling guilty.
Cheers to a productive, blessed, and successful month!
