The Organized Mum Method (TOMM) – A Review

Ok, so as you may have noticed I write about homemaking a lot here on the blog, both with regards to family activities and housework.

So today I thought I would share with you my honest experience with The Organised Mum Method.

I started the cleaning method back in March 2020, and at first I was excited about cleaning with a timer. I liked the idea of racing against the clock, getting the rooms as clean as possible.

But because my kids were at home due to the covid-19 lockdown, I soon realized that cleaning with the timer on, with the kids around was pretty much impossible.

I guess I was getting too ambitious. Anyway, instead of giving up, I decided to accept that my house is quite big and most days it’ll take longer than 30 minutes to do a group of rooms.

Also, I realized I didn’t have to complete the checklist every week. I could mix and match jobs according to priority.

I could also divide the work into manageable chunks, like doing some of the jobs early in the morning and leaving a couple for just before lunch or the afternoon.

Now in TOMM the rooms for the week are these:

Monday- Living room

Tuesday – Bedrooms

Wednesday – Entrance hall and stairs

Thursday – Kitchen

Friday – Friday focus

Now at first I followed the routine exactly as above, but soon I decided to make some changes to better suit my routines and my house. So this is what I did:

1. Entrance hall + kitchen day

Our entrance hall is small and just off the kitchen, so instead of having a separate day for it, I just tagged it onto kitchen day.

As for the stairs, I divided the cleaning of the stairs by area. So I clean the flights of stairs near the bedrooms on bedroom day and the ones near the basement on basement and garage day.

2. Introducing basement and garage day

As I added the entrance hall to kitchen day, I freed a day for my basement and garage, which are both quite large and need cleaning often.

3. Switch week days

At the moment, I clean the living-room on Fridays. This is simply because I like the living-room to be extra clean for the weekend.

I also find that it takes well over an hour if I clean all the bedrooms on Tuesdays, so I often clean the children’s bedrooms on Tuesdays and then I clean the master bedroom on Wednesday. Note: I do the girls’ sheets on Tuesdays, ours on Fridays, and my son’s on Sundays.

4. Focus cleaning

This is the one part of my routine that is super flexible. Basically, I fit it in on any day of the week where I have more time (for instance, as a freelance teacher sometimes a lesson gets cancelled and I get a free time slot). Some weeks, I do it on Mondays and I don’t spend as long cleaning the garage and basement area. Other weeks, I do the focus clean on a Wednesday or Thursday if I get a free slot in the afternoon, or something like that.

5. Sabbath prep

Fridays are living-room cleaning days but they are also sabbath prep days, and so I often hoover the bedrooms and the hallways too. This works well because it means the house is super clean for the weekend.

Note: bathrooms are cleaned on a rotation basis (one part a day, except Saturdays!)

Summary of how I do my cleaning routine

Monday: Garage, basement, and bottom stairs

Tuesday: Children’s bedrooms and top floor landing

Wednesday: Master bedroom, main stairs

Thursday: Entrance hall and kitchen

Friday: Living room, general house hoover

Focus cleaning: as and when I have a free slot during the week

Do you have a cleaning routine? What works best for you? Let me know in the comments. 🙂

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