Introducing Domestic Engineering: A Conceptual and Practical Overview

Domestic Engineering is a much better way to think about housecare and everything that you do that supports you. Let's be serious here. When your kitchen is full of dirty dishes and you can't get water out of the tap, you are not in a happy place. It is a gross unhappy place that lets everything pile up and it's deeply unfortunate and you really don't have to do that. 

Hence the 'Yes You Can' moment. It's just keeping up with the small things and not letting it get out of hand. In technical terms, "code rot" is alive and well in your house and we're going to clean it up, and you do this through continual maintenance and periodic point releases. 

I started this when I was living with a non-techy, semi-geeky roommate who wasn't on the same page as I was (this happens sometimes) and I was slowly losing my mind over a period of months, and I was either going to make a murder or apply some sort of structure to the chaos. 

I started off with a clean install of Remember The Milk. 'Clean' is important in that you get to choose what does / doesn't go in here. It's all very Dave Allen / Getting Things Done / stupid productivity hacking, but bear with me.  You could use NowDoThis, SwissMiss's very cute 'Teux Deux', or even Outlook Calendar or whatever. (Just don't use the work calendar that all of your co-workers see! I wish I didn't ever have to put this caveat here, but some things you just can't unsee and I'd like to save you all from that.)  

I created lists for 'Home | Garden', ' Money | Maintenance' , 'Planning' to be able to separate out what the heck I was doing with what. The approach of 'everything in a bucket' isn't where I was going for. 

In the Money |Maintenance lists, I went directly for Apartment Therapy's daily - weekly - monthly - quarterly task lists, which are in the book but are much longer than the minimalist approach I took. To summarize, in order to keep ahead of the cruft, there are some things that you should do daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly and then there's spring and fall or fritterbug cleaning. 

Daily: 

Daily Expanded: 

Make the bed. No, I'm serious, do this first thing the morning because it jumpstarts 'hey, look, this place isn't a mess.' 

Tend the houseplants. They'll appreciate it. You should at least think about the fact that they're there. This also is a placeholder for 'change the water in the flowers' if you have fresh flowers in the house. It's 50/50 with me, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, but I try. 

Dishes: For god's sake, there will be no dishes in the sink. This is why we have a portable dishwasher (which shall be mentioned in future posts.)

Vacuum: Yeah, the nasty rug in the living room looks a lot better with a daily vacuum. Just a reminder to check it and see if it needs vacuuming.

Cat: You have one. You should make sure he's still here, fed, watered and hasn't done anything toward to the house. Also, he should probably be brushed daily (see the vacuuming note.)

Clothes: No one wants dirty or clean clothes strewn about, so fix that.

Garbage: This actually translates more into 'recycling in the appropriate places.'

Kitchen: Make sure it's usable. 

Weekly:

Weekly Expanded: 

Surfaces: Yes, this means dusting and things. 

Laundry: Most of the time, I strip the bed as soon as I get up and start a load of laundry. Usually it's whites first, but who's keeping score here. 

Dry-cleaning: I usually don't have any to do, but if I do, I'll make a pile to get to the cleaners. 

Recycling: This is where everything goes out to the curb: Trash, glass and recycling. Everything out!

Sheets: Clean sheets on my bed. Guest bed only if someone's been here. 

Ktichen + Bathroom: Spray and wipe down pretty much everything, redo the cat box, the usual. Also, clean towels! 

Vacuum: This is the more serious vacuuming, wherein the hardwood floors get it. 

Monthly:

This is less minimalist, but it all still needs it. 

Quarterly is even easier: 

At the bi-yearly mark, Apartment Therapy advises that you go through their process to make sure that your house is what you want it to be, etc. When I set this up, I was totally gung-ho on it. Have I done it since? Nope. I plan my house release cycle every six months now, but that's another post. 

But, for the sake of argument, the biyearly item:

More to come on all of this, but this is an inital introduction to Domestic Engineering.