Treating my Castle with the respect it deserves

I love my house. I really do. I've always been very proud of it- it may not be perfect or lavish, but it's pretty and well presented and reflect who I am as a person.

But lately, I haven't been so proud of my house.

Lately, I've been struggling just to keep on top of the cleaning. And a house is only "pretty" when it is clean.

I've learned to mellow out on this front a bit. Having kids inevitably conquers one's tendencies towards OCD...but lately I've been wondering if I haven't strayed too far away from my original standards.

I've never been a "neat freak" by any means- but presenting a tidy, clean and pretty living space to my friends and family was something I took great pride in (just don't look in my bedroom...that's been my mess-haven since I was a kid!).

Now, I find that I can never quite get the house to a point where I am proud to have people over. And that needs to change.

My castle is a reflection of me. It's time to find my pride of ownership again.

As such- I've started a goal for baby steps to get us into the habit of daily cleaning.  Every day, Jason and I will each do a nightly "chore"- each chore should take about 15 minutes or so (20 on the weekends).  I've set this schedule into our phones so that we get reminders of what our chore of the day is.

On top of that, we have 3 things that must get done every night before bed:

1- At least one load of laundry (which is determined by the day of the week)
2- Clean the kitchen, including cleaning off the table
3- Tidy up the small living room and the sitting room before bed.

In total, we should never have to spend more than 30 minute/day each doing actual housework if we stay on top of our plan. (Though it may take a little while to get us there since the house is already pretty behind on the cleaning and will require some extra catch up)

We're putting it in effect starting tomorrow- wish us luck! I'll be here to update next week.