How I Created a Routine

Over the years I have found myself getting overwhelmed more and more with everyday things. It's actually why I sought out my psychiatrist a few years ago because I wasn't sure if it was perimenopause or if I needed meds or both. What happens with me is that I hyper focus on something and I cannot do anything else until that task is complete. I mean no eating or going to the bathroom or anything. That's something that has been very hard to break. I would see a sink full of dishes and think about how I need to empty the dish washer so I can load the dishwasher but I need to go through all the dishes and set aside the ones that are hand wash only. Next thing I know I'm sitting on the could, watching Netflix, crocheting and avoiding everything. Same goes for the mountains of laundry. Doesn't matter if it's a clean laundry mountain or if everyone is down to their last pair of socks and underwear. I'll tell myself I have to do it all that day and nothing else and after 1 or 2 loads I'm out.

Now in the last couple of years I have entered perimenopause and y'all...my energy level was something I was already struggling with and then my hormones are all out of whack making my energy non-existent most days. I knew something needed to change. I couldn't just sit around all day. I needed to move. I tried to create a routine by breaking the house into 6 different areas to cover Monday - Saturday and give myself 1 day off every week where I wasn't scrubbing anything. I needed a list. I'm a list girl. I need to check boxes or cross items off.

Looking back, my lists would be deep cleans. I don't need to wipe down my upper and lower cabinets every week but my brain told me I needed to. My brain also told me in the kitchen I needed to dust the top of my upper cabinets near the ceiling every week (newsflash...no I don't). My brain told me that cleaning the bathroom every week was a top to bottom scrub. I don't need to spend 5 hours in our powder room making sure I've dusted behind the mirror because the builders put some funky mirror in there that tilts instead of being mounted on the wall. I also don't need to clean out under the bathroom sink every week...maybe once a month depending on if it's the powder room, my bathroom, or my kid's bathroom.

Again I was getting overwhelmed and shutting down. I was reading a lot instead of keeping my house clean, grocery shopping, and all the things that I want to do as a stay at home mom. I started following content creators on Tiktok that clean. I have a couple of Canva documents that I've saved from those creators to try and follow their routine or customize their routines to fit my house. I got as far as organizing the lists to fit my schedule (mostly anything that has to do with fridge and pantry clean out needs to happen Wednesday because trash day is Thursday) and never used them. I actually don't even know if I still have them.

Then Tiktok kept showing me this ADHD cleaning planner. I can't link it because I don't know who actually makes it to make sure I'm linking the right one and not a copy cat one. Not only does it break down the spaces by day of the week Monday - Sunday, but then tells you what to do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually! Finally. Something that I can actually follow along with. Oh but wait...yes...I got overwhelmed. Why? Because I didn't have a good baseline in my opinion. Let's start with Monday. Monday is Kitchen clean up. I have customized my schedule to have things broken up into morning, afternoon, and evening chores. For the kitchen specifically, I clean the microwave, stove top, fridge, kitchen table, and breakfast bar in the morning. In the afternoon, I clean the coffee maker (unless I'm using the Nespresso then that's once every 3 months), dust, clean the windows, and wash the dogs bowls. In the evening, I empty the trash, wipe down the counter tops, wipe down the front of the appliances, and sweep and mop.

I think the way I have it broken up on Mondays is perfect until I see that the kitchen table and breakfast bar have become dumping grounds for my husband and child. Today I opted to just take care of the kitchen table. Maybe I'll get the breakfast bar done tomorrow or maybe it'll happen next week. When I cleaned the fridge I decided to just to the shelves in the fridge doors today. I washed them and threw out anything that was stored that was either out of date or I knew wasn't being used and put them back.

I did debate taking a picture of the whole inside of my fridge but y'all I'm not ready to share that much with you. I have left overs that should have been tossed a couple weeks ago, a half cleaned cooked chicken that I used to make homemade chicken soup a week or two ago. To top it all off, my husband just throws things into the fridge without putting them where they should go.

I want to circle back to where I said that I like to make lists because I like to check things off or cross things out...remember that? My husband got me a Skylight calendar for our anniversary in November and one of the things I can do is create a routine. For my husband he is supposed to lock the chickens up every night, on Wednesdays he has to take the trash cans to the top of the driveway, and on Thursdays put the trash cans back. Our daughter has to make her bed every morning, in the afternoon she is supposed to put away her backpack and lunch box, show me her daily agenda, do a homework activity, and on Wednesdays she takes out the trash from the bathrooms and her room. Her evenings are the same. Read her bible, wipe the table down after dinner, pick up room, put dirty clothes in laundry. I have my daily chores too. Make my bed, let the chickens out, do 1 load of laundry every day, sort the mail, check for eggs, run the dishwasher, pick up the living room before bed, and clean up the kitchen after dinner. Here's how I have the rest of my routine broken down.

• Monday - Kitchen

• Tuesday - Living room and Dining room

• Wednesday - Fridge/Pantry clean out, meal plan

• Thursday - Bathrooms, make grocery list

• Friday - my office and gym area, order groceries

• Saturday - bedrooms

• Sunday - Vacuum stairs, dust common areas not already hit, clean laundry room

I no longer put pressure on myself to make sure I get everything done. Is it cool to celebrate when I get it all done in the day? Hell yeah it is! Am I going to beat myself up for not getting everything done? Not anymore. Added bonus is that my energy levels are getting a little better now that I'm using a testosterone cream. We just increased the level of testosterone so hopefully it will help even more!