One of my guilty pleasures is trying various “TikTok lifestyle trends.” Some of them are short-lived, but I have found a couple that actually are helpful. Who knew you could learn so much for a social media app, right?! A challenge that I have recently found — which I absolutely love — is this: the girl in the video said she will set a timer for an hour and get as many cleaning and household tasks done as she can in that hour. Each time, she tries to beat how much she got done the previous time.
Why do I like this challenge?
I am someone who loves to-do lists, check lists, etc. I also have a tendency to have a borderline obsessive personality — I swear I can find myself stressing about anything — so setting aside a designated amount of time for a certain amount during the week seems so much more manageable to me. If I am left to my own devices, I will be stress-cleaning all day and that may or may not result in a bigger mess. I also have always been someone that likes to have a clean house. Everything has its place and should stay there, but having a young child (and husband) means that that doesn’t always go to plan. This is a good compromise between the chaos of mom life and my over-organized brain.
So what do I do?
I am a mom of a special needs kindergartener who has a lot of equipment and toys, so I choose to set aside an hour three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). This works well for me because everything stays manageable as there aren’t too many days in between cleaning for things to get overwhelming. The tasks I choose to do depend on what needs to be done. I vacuum every day, but don’t mop every day. When the dishwasher is full, emptying and reloading is a task I do. Of course, I don’t leave messes when I see them; I still do maintenance clean-up and always try to put toys away when we’re done with them.
Like I said, I am a fan of trying various trends and there are some I have held onto. Here are other social media trends I have implemented:
- Toy rotation: I rotate out my son’s toys. I have four laundry baskets I rotate through. This creates less of a toy mess and my son is always so excited for new toys. I could probably write an entire post about this topic.
- Hang workout clothes: I suppose the logic behind this one is that they aren’t out of sight and out of mind. I don’t know if it necessarily works that way, but I still do it and I guess it is a little motivating.
- Always have a clean counter: A clean counter really does make the rest of your house look cleaner. We try to at least clean off the counter before bed.
- Skylight calendar: This is not a trend, but rather a social media product I highly recommend. The Skylight Calendar is a digital calendar that syncs with my phone’s calendar. It has to-do lists, chores lists, and a food planner. You can use most of the features without paying for the membership. I have paid for the membership and I honestly don’t know if it is worth it.
- Recipes: I have found so many great recipes on social media — it truly has become like a cookbook for me. I am sure I am not the only one, right? Some of the recipes I’ve tried, I have loved, and for some, I haven’t kept the recipe. Again, I could write an entire other post on this.
