#30days Home Organisation Challenge
DAY 23: This one is for the parents or those that love board games! You know the drill, you say something to your family like, "Hey, could you please help clean up the living room?" Nothing happens. You ask again. Still nothing. Sooner or later, guess who ends up cleaning the living room… and the whole house? You. No more. Instead of begging your family for help, try a few of these cleaning games that everyone will love.
JOURNAL:
Write down a few little memories from the weekend that made you smile that you would have otherwise forgotten.
TASK:
Tidy Up Your Games Area
If You Have Preschoolers…
The Strategy:
Engage them in an activity so that they don't even know they're cleaning.
Ideas:
Bin It Set up colored bins in children's rooms, one for each category: dolls, books, Legos, etc. Then sit with them and see if they know which bin each toy goes into. Clap when they do it correctly. They'll think it's fun, and the new system will be easy for them to manage on their own.
Alphabet Have kids spot things that need to be put away, in alphabetical order: Animals! Board games! Chairs! Dolls!
I Spy "I spy something blue that's not in its home!" Enough said.
If You Have Grade-Schoolers and Tweens…
The Strategy:
Get siblings competing against each other so they'll think of it as a fun contest, not cleaning.
Ideas:
Race Against the Clock Set a timer, and bet the kids they can't clean up an area in under 10 minutes. For each minute they finish under 10 minutes, they get a treat.
Mailman Let everyone know that from now on, you'll be putting their homeless items (toys, papers, clothes) in a basket. Each night one child plays Mailman and delivers items to each member of the house.
Laundry Basketball Install a hoop over the laundry bin, set up 1-, 2- and 3-point lines, and challenge the kids to a shoot-off with their dirty clothes. Have them go by color (whites, then darks, then colors), so the sorting's done for you. The loser does the laundry.
Toy Purge Place a basket in each child's room, and whoever fills his basket with items to be donated first wins a treat. This gets competitive—your jaw will drop when they ask to fill more baskets. Just make sure they don't donate anything important.
Incentivize Got a kid who responds to rewards? Tell her that for the next week, she'll earn 1 point for every night she goes to bed with her stuff put away. Reach 5 points, and she gets a prize.
If You Need Solo Motivation…
The Strategy:
Playing little games in your head can make an activity lots more fun.
Ideas:
Delusional Cleaning Lady Trick yourself into pretending you're a visiting cleaning lady with a new customer, and you've just entered her home and are tackling the games cupboard. Study the are objectively, turn on a timer and tidy for 10 minutes.
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”