Get yourself brilliantly organised with housework!

Juggling caring for a baby with housework isn’t easy and if you throw a job into the mix, it is very easy to feel that every leisure moment is being spent doing housework. Over the years a number of suggested cleaning routines have evolved. Many of these involve family or friends whilst mum has a mega blitz on the home. One cleaning regime nick-named TOMM has certainly gained in popularity since it first appeared online three years ago.

TOMM stands for The Organised Mum Method and was devised by mum-of-three Gemma Bray 12 years ago when she had her first child. TOMM is an easy to follow method which involves just 30 minutes of housework on weekdays only. TOMM ensures that you have plenty of time to enjoy your baby/children and as it bans housework at weekends it ensures you have time to get out and about with your partner and as a family.

The TOMM routine ensures that all rooms get a quick clean every week and one room is given a deep clean. You can either work for 30 minutes or divide the time into two 15 minute chunks. As well as this, using the TOMM method, the only extra jobs are a daily clean of the toilet and bathroom plus washing and washing up. Children can be encouraged to have a round up of their toys before bath time and a small coloured plastic basket for each child and the incentive of an extra bedtime story works a treat!

The TOMM cleaning routine should be written boldly on a piece of paper and pinned on your fridge! A different room is focused on each day:

Monday - the living room
Tuesday – the bedrooms
Wednesday – the hall and stairs
Thursday – the kitchen
Friday – deep clean one room in rotation, one room each week!

The TOMM cleaning routine has become really popular following newspaper articles and television appearances for Gemma and one of the reasons why it has been so popular is that it has brought a real community spirit to many, knowing that everywhere there are people just like them cleaning the same room in their home!

If TOMM doesn’t appeal to you, why not devise your own cleaning schedule that suits you better? The main secret to success is to make a plan and then stick to it. There are also some clever tricks to help get the housework done speedily.

Keep all your basic cleaning products with a duster ‘ready for action’ in a bucket that can be quickly grabbed out of the kitchen cupboard as this saves valuable moments! Have a second bucket filled with bathroom/ toilet cleaners plus a couple of spare toilet rolls – more moments saved!

Don’t be over ambitious with your cleaning standards because you will be disappointed when you cannot achieve them in the given time- remember you are not a professional. If you are following TOMM, you will be giving one room a deep clean every Friday.

If you are following TOMM do some washing as many days as you need to – rather than amassing a mountain of dirty clothes

Don’t waste time avoiding a chore you don’t want to do – get on and do it straight away, you will feel good for having sorted it!

Have a really good clear out of all your unwanted and unused items in every room as you will have less to keep clean and tidy and there will be less clutter.

Have a good clear out of your fridge so that it is clean and tidy as it is much easier to keep that way!

Clear kitchen worktops and bathroom shelves as this will make them easier and quicker to clean.

Splash out on underbed storage, numerous food containers and baskets for toys. If everything has a ‘home’ things will remain cleaner and tidier for longer.

If all goes to plan, you will find that you have freed up time to spend with your children so plan a special weekly walk that you can all enjoy….