weekly reset | how one routine can transform your home

As a professional organizer, I'm often asked what is the one thing I do to keep my home organized and tidy. My answer is usually the same - The Weekly Reset. I have written about The Weekly Reset previously, but it has been awhile. The Weekly Reset is a wonderful tool in assisting you in taming the inevitable clutter that creeps in on a weekly basis. This is especially true at the time of this writing with people across the globe working, living and schooling children from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The main focus of our weekly reset is to set aside time as a family every single week to put everything back in its "home"

The Weekly Reset can be extremely helpful because it happens on a consistent basis. For my family, we do our weekly reset on Sundays. This means that everyone participates together for 30-60 minutes to prepare for the week ahead.

Just like you, we have busy lives and our home is not picture perfect every minute of each day. What makes it easy for us to reset our home is that we have organizing systems in place and everything in our house has a home.

Taking time to plan out your week helps to prepare your mind for the week ahead.

We also use the weekly reset as an opportunity to take a look at our weekly schedules + activities

In addition to putting everything back in its home, which gets the house tidy quite quickly, we use our weekly reset as an opportunity to plan the week ahead.

My husband and I sit down together and look at our weekly work schedules and our kids' activities to make sure we're on the same page about who is doing what and when. To plan the week ahead, I use this weekly planner I created for Neat Little Nest to log activities. It also includes meal plan sections for the week.

We do meal planning as part of our weekly reset and use the opportunity to take inventory of what we have on hand as well as use the time to restock our kitchen. This means we fill low areas in the pantry from our back stock in the basement first and then for items we are still in need of, we make a list for grocery shopping. During our weekly reset, we also have our children prep snacks and get cereal containers filled and ready for the week.

Our children take on the task of decanting cereal each week to ensure smooth breakfasts each morning.

If we see an area that needs cleaning when we're doing the weekly reset, we clean it.

Many people have asked me what my cleaning schedule is and are surprised when I say that I don't have a strict schedule.

When you keep your cleaning supplies simple, you can fit them all in an easy-to-carry bucket.

For us, we have a lot of routines in place including doing Focused15's that help us keep high-traffic areas like the kitchen and bathrooms clean throughout the week.

If we see an area that needs cleaning attention when we are doing The Weekly Reset we just quickly do it. We also have invested in a person who cleans our floors and tackles other deep cleaning needs twice per month.

One thing that has simplified my cleaning significantly is reducing the number of products I have on hand. The less is more approach works very well for cleaning most areas and saves you time looking around for specialty cleaners. You can find Neat Little Nest's favorite cleaning products here, which are primarily non-toxic.

Getting started and finding a routine that works best for your family will lead to your success

As I mentioned, our family chose Sundays for our weekly reset as we have found it helps gives us a relaxing Sunday evening, which helps us start the week off on a good foot. If there is a better day that works best for your family, give it a try.

Click image to get your FREE Weekly Reset Checklist printable!

The first few times you may want to walk through each room together as displaced items find their appropriate homes so that everyone (including children) are on the same page and can more independently help out in the future. I have found the "trust, but verify" solution works well for children once they know the routine. Give them the freedom to do it their own way, but a check from mom or dad will always ensure a best effort.

Be mindful of the time you have set aside and include only those tasks that will fit comfortably into a 30-60 minute window of time. Decluttering, mapping out a weekly activity and meal calendar and light cleaning are common tasks that can be completed in that time frame.

Give it a few weeks of trial and error to figure out your home's primary weekly reset needs. The more often you incorporate The Weekly Reset into your home's tidying routine, the easier it will become just like it does with any new experience or skill. Be patient with yourself and your family as you practice this new routine and let me know your experience as I love hearing from you!

Photo credit: Jes Lahay Photography

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