4 Ways To Caretake Your Home on Weekends

Maeve shares favorite weekend routines that help her to caretake her home.

I’m often asked about weekend routines. What does an organizer do on these holy days? And do we have the secret to perfect weekend success? Taste of Home featured one of my favorite weekend habits in their article Reset Your Clean Routine with Tips from Professional Organizers. Here’s a deeper dive on the tip I shared, plus a few more:

I Water My Plants

My favorite weekend routine is to water my houseplants. Houseplants are my friends. They greet me warmly year-round as I enter my home. And they actually help to purify my air.

It’s true that a hearty houseplant can go a few weeks without water. But a dried-up houseplant is a sorry sight to see. So I make sure to water my houseplants weekly, to keep us both happy. Succulents and cactus plants need water far less often, but they do shed leaves and require attention. So every plant I own gets a once over on my weekends (and a deep dive once a year, check out my video). And yes, sometimes we do have a chat.

I Surface Clean

No one wants to do it, but if we don’t surface clean our homes regularly things get grungy fast. I surface clean weekly, as dirt and dust builds up every day.

I admit, my windows are open as much as I can get away with year-round. So a lot of what flies into my home is urban dust. But we all also drop crumbs on the floor, dirt comes in on our shoes, and if we have pets or kids, they leave a trail of dirt and grime as well.

I have a quick clean routine that works well for me. I run one Swiffer pad over the shelves nearby my windows. Then I sweep the floor and call it a day. And every few weeks I take things a step further, I run a cloth along tinier home surfaces, like the edges of my picture frames. All this takes no more than a half hour, and it allows me to breathe.

I Put Things In Their Homes

Maeve’s Method clients learn five core concepts, and one of them is Everything Has a Home. Simply put, to get organized in life we must give everything of value in our lives a home, or a place to live. Doing so goes a long way towards keeping a tidy home.

But the reality is, during busy weeks, some things don’t make it back to home base. In my life, culprits include my work clothes, my gym clothes, and any craft projects I may have jumped into mid-week.

So on weekends when time slows down, I take a few moments to restore order. I put on a little music and just start picking things up, then dropping them back in their homes. It’s easy to clean house when you know where things lives.

I Fix Things

Finally, my weekends are for projects. Each week things go on in a home that require attention, from a blown bulb to a plumbing repair. Our homes are living, breathing things, and we need to keep an eye on what comes up. Some repairs are for the pros. But there are many we can DIY, and I do. Sometimes it takes me weeks to catch up to a home repair, but when I have a moment to breathe, in I go.

Recently I fixed a broken lamp and tackled a bum bathtub drain. I did a some online research, ran to Home Depot for parts, then came home and got things done. Care-taking my home makes me feel good. And when a project is complete, it feels as if my home and I are moving forward together.

From plants, to cleaning, to putting things away, caretaking my home on weekends takes no more than an hour. It’s an hour well spent, as my home is my haven, and every moment I spend making sure it is happy comes back to me, in more ways than one.

Do you caretake your home on weekends? Share in the comments below!