No amount of ‘tricks of the trade’ will avoid the need to set some sort of priority when allocating one’s time.
John Harvey-Jones (1924 – )
British business executive and author, “Making It Happen: Reflections on Leadership”

One of the things that I still have to learn to follow by heart is not to be to harsh on myself. Sometimes, I get too strained because I wanted things in order around the house– at all times. But having children– all below 8 years old, makes keeping in order a tall order. My eldest daugther likes order. An attitude she has learned to love since I have always preached that physical order reflects alot on our mental order. I think I was too harsh on her growing up, but how else can you try to keep order in a househelp where household help was always around? My husband used to get angry with me when I tell the children to keep their rooms in order especially their beds and their study table. His reasoning was that getting things in order in the house was the job of the maids, and my take on that is that the children are old enough to take small tasks like cleaning their beds. When are we going to teach them how to straighten their rooms? When they are out in the dormitories in college? Too late…
Now that I do not have extra help here in the house, I expect the children to pull some cleaning and tidying around. Our small house has three bedrooms. First room– we made into our sleeping area. Second room– our dressing area. Third room– the play room. I had also included a spare bed on the third room so the children can play on it since it does not have any other furniture except for a closet where all the toys are supposed to go when not in used.
Having limited time to clean every room everyday frustrates me sometimes. I get antsy when I see clutter and I have to literally count to ten to keep myself from shrieking. Crazy, I know, but I like everything in order. It took awhile for me to forgive myself for not having a very clean house. I think our culture has alot to vouch for that attitude as most Filipinos would expect a home to be in order or they’d say “she must be one lazy woman…” or “house so filthy then, she must fail to take showers everyday…” But how can we say that to single parents like me? Or to people who dies not have extra money to pay for maids? Or for people who have so many children? I think we need to be more considerate of others especially to single parents around us.
After all the hassle of everyday living, and making ends meet, I think we should be more concerned about the quality time we have spend with our children– that can be spent eating together, watching a movie together– or cleaning the house together…

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