In our house we have a saying. A necessary saying because in our house, as is normal for most homes I’m sure, items seem to magically wander from their normal “place of residence” to another area of the house.
What makes me happy though is that I only have to shout two words to my kids and those items go right back to where they belong. Those words are “Walk-About”. When the kids hear this they know its time to take a “Walk-About” the house and specifically pick up any stray items that are “out of place”. It could be a stray sock (these we find all over, drives me insane), books, toys, hair elastics, paper, anything. It doesn’t mean clean your room or put all the toys away or any other huge undertaking, it simply means that items are collected from one room and put back into their proper home in another room.
Because we have a designated space for everything, the process is quick and painless and only takes a couple of minutes but the results are huge. If you have smaller children setting a timer works well for this too. Saves me from having to constantly pick up after the kids and from always nagging at them too! Eventually, of course, the goal is to get them to just do it on their own (sigh), but for now this is what works for us.
Is it time for your family to take a Walk-About?
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Oh, I hate those socks laying all over too!
Love the idea – thanks for sharing!
I like this idea alot! I hope to be back for MPM next week! We will see!
Haley
This is a great idea! I’ll have to start introducing the idea to our 2 year old. So far the only things he gets excited about putting away are his socks and his bath toys but it’s a start! :)
Since I have started becoming organized I love your idea of designated space for everything. It really does help the “walk-about” & clean up so much easier.
Thanks for sharing!
~Betty~
What an awesome idea! I’m going to have to start using it. I hate waking up to a messy house!
Now this for some reason is taking me back to Jane Austen. Let’s take a walk about the room, shall we?
I love this idea!
Great idea……..my kids are one and two but it’s never to young to start!!…..I am definately going to try this……keep up sharing the great ideas
Oooo…I like that phrase. It’s a lot catchier than “go find stuff that’s out of place and put it up”, which is what I usually say!
I usually say, “Go see if there’s anything of yours in the living room,” but your “walk about” is much easier. I love the idea of adding the really small things like ponytail holders, etc.
This is going in my repertoire today!
Great idea! Definitely going to implement!
I really like this idea. Im going to have to give this one a try. Thanks for sharing it.
We do something similar, but we call it a “blitz”. I set the timer for 15 or 20 minutes and we all run around and work as fast as we can to clean up the house. I do NOT, however, have a place for everything. Not yet. I’m working on it.
Hmmm…I like that name, Blitz. That’s exactly what it is!
Laura
This is a really good idea! I’m going to try this with my 4 yr old…he has a problem with picking up anything. A problem he inherits from his Dad. If I do this when they’re both home and make a game out of it, I could really cut down on a lot of frustration! Thanks for the tip. :)
I feel so good reading blogs today – seems that everyone is cleaning up and cleaning out! Very motivating!
I’ve been trying to instill the motto “take it with you” to my kids – before you leave a room, find a “wandering item” and put it away as you go somewhere else in the house. Too complicate – I like your idea MUCH better!
Super idea! Once our daughter starts crawling, she’s going to do a “crawl about.”
(smirk)
We do this, too, and I call it “a sweep” — as in “let’s do a sweep”.
And, yes, what is it about unruly socks that have a life of their own? And Why does that drive me nuts?
FlyLady calls this a 5 Minute Room Rescue. :-)
I do this all the time actually every night but never had a word for it. I’m going to bring this up to my kids tonight. We now use big baskets and I try to play I-Spy with them to make it fun or lets see how can pick up the fastest. My goal is to just get it off the floor and into the basket so it looks neater. I did buy a new timer today so maybe we’ll use that tonight.