My Mornings

At a recent playdate I was asked to describe what my mornings are like.  I went through my routine and, after hearing it, one of the girls asked me, "How long are you upstairs in the morning?"  I said, "About an hour" and we moved on with conversation.  While thinking about that exchange over the next couple of days, I realized that doing an hour of cleaning before coffee probably sounds ridiculous and overwhelming to people.  Then I realized that, in actuality, the hour  I spend upstairs only has about 15 minutes of cleaning or straightening up in it.  The rest is stuff I have to do anyway: dressing myself, dressing the kids, nursing the baby...and it is all done while watching the news or checking Facebook on my phone which probably adds about 10 minutes to everything I do. So here is my morning routine:

WHILE UPSTAIRS:
-Get dressed and put on sneakers - If I don't put shoes on, nothing seems to get done.  So even if I am staying in my jammies for the day, the sneakers get put on till my basic stuff is finished.
-"Make" my bed - I use the term "make" loosely because all I do is pull up the covers and comforter.
-Gather laundry - This takes 2 seconds because we only have 2 hampers upstairs.  1 is for the baby and the other is for everything else.  And since I don't wash her clothes with ours and since my son will put his Pj's in the hamper himself after I dress him, "gather" literally means drag the laundry hamper (which is a plastic structured bag with handles) to the top of the steps to remind me to take it downstairs.
-Dust Master Bedroom - I keep a feather duster in a decorative container in my room.  It's made of ostrich plumes that are black and purple so it blends in.  I take 30 seconds to run it over my furniture and lamps. I don't move any items on my dressers.  I just dust surface around everything.
-Wipe Down Bathroom - I have timed this whole process and it takes about 5 minutes to do. The point is to make it look presentable in case someone stops over, not to scrub it sterile.  With a dry paper towel I QUICKLY wipe across the ledge of the tile, the tops of he pictures and the top of the toilet.  Next, I spray window cleaner on the mirror, sink and toilet and quickly wipe them down. Then, I use window cleaner and a paper towel to wipe the floor around the area rugs.  Sometimes if the rugs look dirty I will shake them out first then wipe down the whole floor before replacing the rugs.  I then tie up the trash bag, replace it with a clean one and chuck the full one in the laundry basket to be brought downstairs.  What makes this part easier is the fact that I have window cleaner and paper towels upstairs so I don't have to go and get them from another part of the house.
-Straighten Kids' Rooms- Right before we go downstairs I help my son put away the few toys he took out while waiting for me to get my stuff done.  Because he has toy bins, and not a lot of toys with numerous little pieces upstairs, this takes only a minute or two.  We quickly chuck everything in one of the bins, he puts his paci and blanket under his pillow and I pull the covers up on his bed.

WHEN I GO DOWNSTAIRS:
-Put in the Laundry
-Make Breakfast while Unloading Dishwasher
-Eat Breakfast and Check Email
-Reload Laundry - I try to do one load completely per day.  At some point during the day the load will get folded and put away.

I have these routines posted where i can glance at them just in case.

This is the upstairs part, posted inside my bedroom closet on the door...

and this is the downstairs part, posted inside my kitchen cabinet door that is next to the sink.

My evening routine is on this one too.