A New Habit for July

Dear FlyLady,

Just a short testimonial.

I was so glad the other day to have implemented my habit of swish and swipe and regularly mopping the bathroom floor.

We were invited to dinner by our neighbors (on the same floor as we are, in the same house). We had a great time and dinner was very nice. Then they suggested playing a board game, but since their table was so small they asked if we could just do it in our flat.

I was happy to say yes, even if the floor in the living room could use a vacuuming. It wasn’t p******, but we had a great time playing their game.

I was worried about the bathroom for a moment until I remembered that I had swished the toilet that morning and mopped two days ago. What a relief!

Thanks for all you do! Without my routines I wouldn’t have felt comfortable with that spontaneous visit!

Love,
a flybaby from Germany

FlyLady here: As part of my morning routine I clean my bathroom.

This is a daily maintenance that keeps it company ready all the time! I know many of you don’t think that this needs to be done but I assure you that you deserve to clean and fresh smelling bathroom all the time too. It doesn’t take much time to do this either. This is why I called it a swish and a swipe.
Swish and Swipe Package
We now have the Swish and Swipe package. These tools make it fun to get the job done!!

The Rubba Swisha is 17 inches long and has a round head for washing the bowl and a special side brush to get up and around the rim of the bowl.

Also, no more paper towels filling up the land fills, the purple Rags in a Bag are washable and reusable – fun for you and less waste for the planet! This is a set of three deluxe purple microfiber cloths, that each measure 15×15 inches and comes with its very own zippered mesh bag for the washing machine. You use them to wipe down the counters, the mirrors and even the shower or tub.

Dear Friends,

It is the first of the month it is time to pick another new habit to practice for July. I have chosen Swish and Swipe in our bathrooms. Now we get this question every single day. What is a Swish and Swipe? Is it anything like a lick and promise?

Our bathrooms are the most neglected rooms in our homes. In fact we neglect them so much that they get so bad that we can’t stand them any longer and then we spend hours in there cleaning in our perfectionistic way. We have all done it; scrubbing tile grout with a toothbrush to get it clean or worse yet we use those harsh bathroom cleaners that take our breath away. Then we would step back and say just look what I did! By this time you are exhausted and don’t ever care if you see or clean another bathroom again for 6 months. We have done it again. That crash and burn mentality is what keeps our bathrooms and our homes in a mess. If you will do a little every day; you will never have to hyper focus on this room again.

We think that because no one goes in there but us that they don’t have to be kept clean. Here is the falsehood behind this way of thinking. We deserve to have a clean bathroom too and not just when company is coming. We should treat ourselves like company all the time and with our little Swish and Swipe method; your bathroom will always be clean and inviting. After all nothing says I love you like a sparkling bathroom. I want you to FLY! Finally Loving Yourself is saying that you deserve to have a clean bathroom.

So back to Swish and Swipe and why we call it that; this is just what we do when we bless our bathroom every day; we swish the toilet with a toilet bowl brush and we wipe(swipe) the counter top and the with a towel. Let me tell you how I accomplish this while I am getting dressed. Do not allow your perfectionism to kick in here!

My day usually starts by jumping into the shower. While I am in the shower I take a little mesh shower ball and put some of the same soap I use on my body to clean the shower/tub. A little every day keeps the tub sparkling clean. Now here is the most important part of taking a shower and it will save you a lot of cleaning time if you will just do this. Open the door or pull back the curtain and allow your shower/tub to dry. If you will do this you will put a stop to mold growing. Just this alone will make your shower smell much better.

Now if you have a plastic shower curtain, after a while you will need to stretch the curtain back across the tub to allow it to dry too. I have a very thin fabric curtain that dries very quickly and accomplishes the same thing; to keep water from slashing onto the floor. It never hurts to keep the fan running while you are taking a shower too. This helps to pull the moisture out of the air and keep the air moving. If you had a little fan that could circulate air in your bathroom; this will also help to keep mold from growing. Mold grows on damp surfaces where the air is not circulating. I know this may seem like a lot of words but I promise it does not take a lot of time to accomplish this; 30 seconds to wipe down a portion of your tub while you are in it and 2 seconds to pull back the shower curtain.

When I get out of the shower and begin to get dressed this is when I begin the Swipe portion of this new habit. After I have moisturized my face, fixed my hair and put on what makeup I wear; then I put away all the stuff I got out. Now I don’t want to hear that you have no place to put this stuff. It is because you have too much stuff under your bathroom sink, in the drawers or the closet. Michele uses a basket that she places under her bathroom sink. When she finishes; everything goes back into her basket and she puts it back where it belongs.

The only cleaning stuff I have under my sink is a purple rag and a bottle of Windex. I keep this under every sink in my house. It is readily available for my daily swipe of my bathroom. Now here is how fast this happens. I start with my bathroom mirror. I spray just a bit of Windex on the mirror to clean any dirty spot. Notice I didn’t say I clean the whole mirror. When you do it every day; you just have to spot clean. Then I take the same purple rag and wipe down the counter and then the sink. Grap a wad of toilet paper. You can use it to wipe down the toilet after you Swish the bowl. If you have little boys you may have to use some Windex to clean the floor too.

Now for the most dreaded job in your home. No one likes to do this but when you do it every day you can keep stuff from growing in the toilet: Swish. You don’t even need to use a harsh cleaner. I have just used the brush and nothing else. I keep my toilet bowl brush sitting in a crock. This is similar to the kitchen utensils holders we have gotten rid of in our kitchens. Now you can’t do this if you have children or pets. I fill my crock with old shampoo (I didn’t like) or slivers of old soap bars and water. Soap is soap in my book and anything will clean a toilet if you do it every day. All you have to do is pick up your toilet bowl brush (I have a Rubba Swisha in every bathroom in our home) and scrub the inside of your toilet. After you do this put it back into its holder and wipe down the back, seat, and sides of the toilet with that wad of toilet paper This all takes a grand total of 45 seconds to do this; from the mirror to the floor with a Swish and a Swipe and you are done! Do you see how simple this really is? In a minute you have cleaned your bathroom.

Now if you have piles of dirty clothes in your bathroom; those need to taken with you when you leave the bathroom to finish getting dressed to shoes. Put them in your laundry room or in your closet in a basket. This is where I keep my dirty clothes baskets. I sort them as I put them into the baskets; a dark basket for dark colors and a white basket for light colors.

Establishing this simple new habit is going to change your life forever and get rid of that guilt you have if anyone ever asks to use your bathroom.

Are you ready to FLY into a new habit for July!

FlyLady

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