Take Time to Update Your Maintenance Plan

As we are wrapping up a hot summer with its laid-back schedules and looking forward to a cooler invigorating fall, it’s a good time to revisit your maintenance plan.

Daily

Does your morning routine need changing? Do you need to get up earlier and maybe spend less time on social media? Making your bed and cleaning off kitchen counters and the floor are always important year-round. But with the cooler weather you may be cooking more complicated meals and will need to work more prep and clean-up time for those meals into your daily routine.

Have you let your paperwork and mail pile up over the summer? Now is the time that schools and associations that your family belong to will start sending even more information. While a lot of this may come through emails or text messages, some will either come through snail mail or will be printed off for easy daily reference. Now may be the time to reset your plan for handling paperwork.

Laundry may be daily or weekly depending on your family situation. When I had two boys in school and in sports activities, laundry was daily. Now, living alone I schedule two tubs once a week. But however many tubs you need to do, work it into a schedule so that it does not become overwhelming. Don’t wait for it to just pile up or until you have nothing clean left to wear.

Weekly

Chores like dusting/sweeping, cleaning bathrooms, keeping up with trash/recycling take out, checking refrigerator/pantry before shopping all need to be scheduled.  Don’t wait until it becomes overwhelming. If you do these chores the same time each week, it will be so much less complicated.

Checking bills that need attention should be scheduled weekly or at least every other week.

Either at the end of the week or the very beginning of the new week update calendar for the upcoming week.

Monthly/Yearly/Seasonally

There are some organizing and cleaning tasks that at least once a year need more attention than what is scheduled weekly.

This is where I like to use my Zone Plan approach. I divide my home into 10 zones and do the deep cleaning and reorganizing one zone each month (except for July and December).

While my Zone Plan takes care of the interior of every part of my home there are some extra tasks that need to be scheduled either seasonally or annually.

Schedule time each season to swap out seasonal clothing. When this task is scheduled depends a great deal on where you live and your current lifestyle.

Schedule specific times to have your furnace and air conditioning maintenance done and to change out filters. And if your smoke detector uses batteries, schedule once a year to change them.

At least once or twice a year schedule time to clean your gutters and blow off your roof. While you are out checking those items, do a walk around the outside of your home as well as in the attic or crawlspace and see if any other outside the interior of the home maintenance needs scheduling.

In my case, I am finding it harder and harder to do some of these checks – especially in the crawl space and the back reaches of my attic.  It might be a good idea to schedule a home inspection every so often. You don’t have to move in order to have one done.

If you use recurring services like housecleaning, lawn care, pressure washing, or pest control, check and see if you are up to date with what needs to be done.

Conclusion

Take some time now to put all of these reminders in your calendar. I always have my last year’s calendar in a drawer in my desk so that I can look back and see what I did when last year.

While all this sounds like a lot to take on, it will save you time and money in the long run. You will not have to keep churning in your head if and when you need to do maintenance tasks.

If you are ready to work organizing your calendar or on any other specific organizing project and want some tips, encouragement, or accountability join Diane Quintana and me in our Clear Space For You virtual clutter support group. You could complete a small project or set up an organizing plan during the call. The group will offer ideas, support, and gentle accountability for working on developing plans or projects.

Jonda S. Beattie, Professional Organizer owner of Time Space Organization, and co-owner of Release, Repurpose, Reorganize. She is based in the Metro-Atlanta area. As presenter, award-winning author, as well as a retired special education teacher she uses her listening skills, problem solving skills, knowledge of different learning techniques, ADHD specialty, and paper management skills to help clients.