Be Intentional Challenge #15 – Bathroom Counter Cleaning and Daily Wipe Down

Our main level bathroom counter scrubbed and ready for daily wipe down.

It is day #15 of our Be Intentional Challenges!

As a reminder, the 30 Be Intentional challenges this month are designed to get you on the right foot, the right track and give you energy, efficiency and organization which will propel you into a life that is able to develop an overall financially smart, happy and frugal home.  We are going to have different themes each month this year (and we have very exciting stuff planned) and this month is your foundation!

We encourage couples and families to do these challenges together so the whole house can function well!

As the 30 days go along, we will be focusing on 5 areas for the Be Intentional Month:

• Self
• Home
• Budget
• Schedule
• Frugality

Here’s the previous 14 challenges in case you missed them and want to get your life on the right track:

1. Set and Be Strict About Bedtime
2. Work Towards Waking Up At The Same Time Everyday
3. Making Your Bed Everyday
4. Get Dressed To Shoes Everyday
5. Hydrate Yourself
6. 5 Minute Stretching and Breathing Exercise
7. Implement a 20 Minute Quick Clean with You and Your Family
8. Menu Planning
9. Dinner by 10
10. Take Your Vitamins
11. Have A Family Meeting To Review, Discuss and Figure Out How To Solve Obstacles Preventing You From Doing Challenges #1-#10. Plus read about the results of our family meeting and our solutions so far HERE.
12. Develop a Nighttime Routine
13. Write Out Daily Schedule
14. Complete the Financial Summary Questionnaire

So we wanted to now add another small step into your daily routine.

Be Intentional Challenge #14:

Kids’ bathroom counter now scrubbed and ready for daily wipe down.

Clean Off and Scrub the Bathroom Counters and Then Do A Daily Wipe Down

This one is a really easy on to incorporate into your day.  The idea between this task and the other home related tasks, like:

• Make Your Bed Everyday
• 20-minute Quick Clean
• Develop Nighttime Tidy Routine (Mine is dishwasher loaded and kitchen counters cleaned off)
• AND then finally the Bathroom Counters

is that if ALL YOU DID were these 4 things and you didn’t have a lick of time for anything else that day, this would keep your home in order nicely.  Now, unless you are a super lucky person, you will probably need to do many other tasks throughout the week to keep things in working order.  But let’s be honest and say that some days are swamped and you can’t do your normal cleaning – but it doesn’t mean that it all has to go down the drain.

Our master bathroom counter scrubbed and ready for daily wipe down.

We want to encourage you to take sometime in the next 24-hours to clean off all of your bathroom counters and scrub them clean.  Then leave a rag out on each bathroom counter and set a house rule that every time someone uses the bathroom, they need to dry wipe the counter before they leave the room.  This will do awesome wonders to a tidy bathroom each day. Be sure to point out that this is a rag for the counter, not for drying hands or washing faces.  Each day, assign someone to replace them in each bathroom.  I got this idea at the same time as the “dress to shoes” idea from the same professional organizer.  Now unlike my skepticism about the dressed to shoes, I did implement this one right away. And sure enough, it was an easy, helpful and great addition to the day!

We are also saying to do this task, even if the rest of your bathroom is a mess! If you have time and opportunity, by all means… clean it all up.  But make a goal to at least have cleared counters daily (with a scrub on your normal routine) and each time someone uses it, there is that designated rag for wiping it all dry – husbands and kids included! It is the cost they pay to use an indoor toilet 😉

This is the last daily home task we are adding to the Be Intentional month – so as we can see with the short list of 4 items, once you make these habit, they are very simple, take very little time and can easily be done each day.

Now what we will be sharing as the month continues are a house map (?? What is that??… You will see :)) and ideas for developing the normal chore system including a super fun way that we do ours.  We also left the task of “write out daily schedule” to allow for you to put any normal daily things in your specific schedule too.

But we hope that you will find this short list of 4 items very simple to maintain at the very least!

One final thing….. we also have a Facebook Group where you can engage in discussions, receive encouragement and talk to others that are participating in the challenges too for more ideas! Head to the Be Intentional with The Thrifty Couple Facebook Page HERE and ask to join us there! You can also invite friends and spouses too!