22 living on my own. How often should I do certain chores?

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I'm having a really hard time due to a lot of things like severe trauma, bad health and bad routines. My house is SO dusty. I don't know how to stop it. Iv'e had a brutal sinus infection that won't go away.

How often should I dust, and do cleaning?
How often should I eat? What sorts of things are easy for single guys to make to eat? I just eat cereal all day it sucks!

I'm really tired/sick I can't articulate anything very well right now.

Here is my schedule, so maybe this will help you;

Every day;

Straighten up
Wash and put away dishes
Take out garbage if it's full
Wipe off kitchen counters and table
Make bed
Sweep uncarpeted floors
Damp mop kitchen floor
Do laundry as needed

Monday - Sweep and mop entire house, vacume carpets
Tuesday - Dust
Wednesday - Clean windows and glass
Thursday - Clean bathrooms (tub, sink, toilet, etc)
Friday - Change bed linens

As for food, you can get cheap and easy stuff to make like frozen foods or hamburger helper or those Banquet box dinners. Sandwiches are easy. Mac and cheese is easy. Canned stuff is easy.

You should eat every day of course, but depending on how hungry you are you may need to eat only twice a day or you may need the traditional three meals a day. Go by' how hungry you are, but make sure you eat at least once a day.

Also, it goes without saying but I'm going to say it anyway. Brush your teeth twice a day, morning and night. Shower once a day, skipping a day only when you absolutely have to. Wash your hair at least twice a week. Change into clean clothes every day. Use deoderant.

that list... That's an awesome mom schedule, not a 22yo guy schedule.

22yo guy schedule is more like this:
mon: ...
tue: ...
wed: ...
thu: ...
fri: ...
sat: [sigh] ok maybe I'll clean up a bit.

Those are all things you'll need to do at some point though. (Except making your bed doesn't matter unless you have company.) If your house is very dusty right now, go ahead and vacuum, and wipe off tables/counters. But I doubt the dust is what's making you sick. Eating nothing but cereal all day is probably much worse. I hate to sound like a mom here but... you need to get some fruits and vegetables! And some protein! And a whole bunch of stuff that ends in "-um." (Yeah I'm no nutritionist just a guy who lived on his own for 6 years.)

I think one of the best and easiest things to learn to make is spaghetti. Fill the pot w/water, heat it until it starts bubbling, put in the spaghetti for about 10 minutes, then turn it off. Pour the water *carefully* into the sink. Mix in some fresh veggies and some pre-cooked meats, and you have a meal. (Later on, when you're more comfortable cooking, you can try chicken or shrimp... Remember: Google is your friend. Lots of great beginner cooking help on the net.)

Oh, and this I completely agree with:

OliveOilMom, wanna come crash at my place for a while? There'd be more cleaning in a week than I do in a year. I vacuum once every two months at best, and don't think I've ever cleaned my windows. The only time I make my bed is right after I wash my sheets. As for sweeping, does pushing everything into one corner with my socked feet count? And mop? Are you serious? I've never even owned a mop.

I just listed the bare minimum. You can actually get all that done in under 30 minutes, so I don't see why it's too much for a guy who lives alone. Once you get into a routine, it's simple and becomes second nature. I didn't list any of the other important stuff like vacuming under couch cushions, using the broom to get cobwebs down from the corners, cleaning the blinds or washing curtains......

You and I have very different definitions of "bare minimum." I feel a sense of accomplishment when I remember to shove the candy bar wrapper into the couch cushions rather than leave it on the floor.

LOL! Well, I am a housewife so cleaning is what I do for a living. However, that bare minimum will give you a nice clean looking and feeling home. Girls you bring over will also appreciate that.

My husband was 21 when we started dating and he lived alone. The first time I went over to his apartment I was floored! It was horrible! The first night I spent the night I insisted on changing the sheets first.

I had a friend back then who was a single guy living alone and I used to help him clean his place all the time. Actually, I did most of the cleaning while he went to pick up supper. We used to throw parties together and as I lived at home, we threw them at his place. He was messier than my husband.

Girls really do appreciate a clean place, but if it's way too clean it's wierd. You don't want it to look like you are OCD over it, but you also don't want it to look like you were raised in a pig stye. I have a son that age, so I completely understand the fact that boys that age just don't get it, and don't really "see" the dirt.

and a better one than most, apparently.



Nah, I just went and found one who's an even worse slob than me.

About what she said.

Being a single guy, not a mom of a bunch of kids (I think we both have four), you can probably skip the daily damp-mopping and the weekly windows. They're just not that important.

Personally, I dust about once a season...

...but none of us have serious upper respiratory issues. When I was keeping house for a sick asthmatic friend, I dusted about twice a week. Keep things neat, and keep knick-knacks to a bare minimum-- the less you have, the faster dusting goes. Run a damp cloth over horizontal surfaces a couple times a month. Make it the last thing you do, and work from high to low.

Make sure you eat some fruits and vegetables.

I've worked as a cleaner and I like my house very clean but if I am a bit depressed or overwhelmed I can struggle to keep it the standard that I like.

What really helps me is using wipes instead of products and cloths because I am a bit funny with cloths. So I have bathroom wipes for the bathroom (bath, sink, shower etc - I use bleach for the toilet), polish wipes for the surfaces in the living room and antibacterial wipes for the kitchen surfaces. It is not the most economical or environmentally friendly method to be sure, but it works for me (and I make savings and greener choices elsewhere). I do have a floor mop and a hoover. Luckily our flat is very small, so I can do everything in an hour or so. I try and do 10 minutes a day as a minimum and set aside a morning once a week to do the hoovering, changing the bed etc.

When I was first in charge of a flat (when I was 16) it was a disaster - the place was a mess and I regularly ate ice cream for tea because I wasn't organized enough to make anything proper. It just takes practise. Once you get into a routine you will be fine.

w/ the sinus infection, try vacuming again on thrs. fri.
if you can get ahold of a hepa air filter that will help 2

Further thought: If you're living on cereal, malnutrition might be as much of the reason you're sick as dust and such. Cereal doesn't have everything you need, even if you eat good cereal.

FIX THE NUTRITION FIRST. I was lucky-- Daddy was a single parent and a nutrition nut, so he HAD to teach me to cook and just happened to teach me to cook healthy.

Canned soup, Hamburger Helper, mac'n'cheese in a box-- she's right. Toss in some precooked meat and frozen veggies, and you're in good shape. You're getting too much sodium and too many preservatives, but-- you're in much better shape than subsisting on cereal. One step at a time. All you have to be able to do is read. The directions are on the box/can.

I won't raise the possibility of ramen noodles. You're better off eating cereal.

Fruit-- fresh or canned-- is really the ultimate convenience snack. No cooking, and no dishes other than the fork you used or the knife you cut it up with (if you cut it up). Apples, bananas, oranges and all related fruits, and strawberries are basically dish-free foods. And apples are cheap.

Corn on the cob-- microwave it for three minutes in the husk. Pull the husk off. Butter and eat. Wash the knife and throw the cob away.

Potatoes-- poke some holes in them and microwave them until they're not hard any more. Cut open. Butter and eat.

Instant rice-- Boil two cups of water-- stay in the kitchen, 'cause it doesn't take very long. Turn the heat off. Move the pot off the burner if you have an electric stove. Dump in a cup of rice. Cover with a properly-fitting lid. Stir. Come back in 20 minutes. Measure out half a cup. Butter and eat. Put the rest in a covered bowl in the fridge-- you'll have rice for three more meals.

Meat-- when I moved out, I lived on Sizzlean (now known as turkey bacon-- heat it in the microwave), sausage links (heat them in the microwave), Treet (slice it and heat it up in the microwave), and chicken drumsticks (put them in a container, put some water in it, put some Saran wrap over it, and microwave on HIGH until all the pink is gone-- cut it to the bone with a knife to check).

Hamburger patties if you want to get fancy and use an actual pan on an actual stove. As much as you can make into a ball and cover in your two hands is about 1/4 pound, flatten it and cook it over high heat in a skillet until all the pink is gone from the middle-- cut it open with a knife to see-- you CAN'T walk away from it while it's frying. Or just fry the hamburger loose-- keep poking it with a wooden or plastic spoon to break it up, fry it until all the pink is gone, mix some in your mac and cheese or pasta or rice or whatever.

Works with loose sausage, too.

Lunch meat is expensive and not good for you-- but it doesn't get a whole lot easier. Spend the extra dollar a pound for the reduced-sodium stuff-- hypertension by the age of 30, you don't need. Buy some along with a loaf of bread and ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise-- whatever you like on a sandwich. Put the stuff on the bread. Wash the knife. Eat. This is also a good place to put lettuce or a sliced tomato.

There's also peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and bananas, peanut butter and brown sugar, peanut butter and honey... Peanut butter and a lot of things. Just please don't make a practice of "peanut butter and marshmallow creme." You don't need hyperglycemia by the age of 30, either.

Whole wheat bread will serve you better than white. But-- like I said, one step at a time. If you don't like it, you won't eat it. If you don't eat it, it won't help you. Get what you like.

When you've mastered that (not immediately, but sooner than you think), we'll move on to The Incredible Edible Egg. Boiled, scrambled, fried-- easily fixed, and almost a meal unto itself. Opener of a whole raft of new possibilities.

Book to read: Teaching Life Skills to Kids With Autism or Asperger's, by Jennifer McIlwe Myers. She's an Aspie, so she knows what she's talking about.

I'll try to think of a good, basic cookbook.

Oh-- speaking of wipes, they make wipes for personal hygiene, too. They're expensive, and scented, but they work if you have not the motivation to take a shower (or the time management skills to get one in without running late-- I didn't have either one when I moved out). They'll leave your skin feeling greasy, but diaper wipes (sold right next to the diapers) are cheaper and they work.

Last edited by BuyerBeware on 11 May 2012, 8:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

This might get things back on track ... sometimes just need a reminder and a program to follow. Printed (with a few edits ... some of it is a bit excessive ... you wash the windows every week???). Thanks.

"How To Cook Everything - The Basics" by Mark Bittman

You're welcomme. And yes,' I do the windows every week but it's easy. I only do the inside and I just spray them with Windex and wipe them off with a paper towel. I also do glass top tables, the glass over pictures hanging on the walls, mirrors, tv screens, computer monitors, etc. It takes less than a minute to wipe off the inside of one window. Also, if you smoke you really need to do the windows on the inside once a week. It gets gunky if you don't.

With one person there instead of six or more, you may not have to do as much, but it's always good to at least go over those things and make sure they don't need to be done.

When you dust, get a feather duster and spray it with Pledge or whatever you use and then dust the area. I've found that works better and it's quicker than using a cloth. If you had rather use a cloth, spray the cloth and not the furniture.

The reason I have damp mopping the kitchen every day is because of spills etc. You don't have to use Pine Sol or anything except once a week, just a wet mop will do it.

For cleaning the tub and bathroom sink and counters, I like using SOS soap pads. I just wet them, wipe the area off and then wipe the soap off with a damp cloth.

Good luck!

When it comes to household chores/management, Flylady is my lifeline:

http://flylady.net/