The friendly Hutterite ladies were happy to show my out of town relatives and me around their homes. Even the closets weren’t off limits as we toured their colony houses and buildings.
As I looked at the closets of the children with their perfectly spaced hangers and neat-as-a-pin floors, I wondered how on earth they trained their children to keep things this well-organized. My own closet was far from tidy, and I couldn’t imagine my children keeping things this clean for five minutes.
I was visiting a Hutterite colony. Hutterites are Anabaptists who believe in simplicity and communal living. The groups of families are called colonies and revolve around a farming and ranching lifestyle. There are several Hutterite colonies in our area of Montana, and years after my first encounter with their homes and lifestyle, I have dear friends in the Hutterite community.
I teach in a multi-level classroom on a Hutterite colony. My job is challenging with all of the grade levels, but fulfilling and fun. However, it leaves me with limited energy when I get home. I called on some of my Hutterite friends to get some cleaning tips to help me get better organized.
1: Keep up on things daily.
My friend, Jolene, has a child lightly clean her bathroom every day. She made sure that when she went to bed everything was swept and the dishes were cleaned. On rare occasions when she just can’t do her dishes, because of harvest time in the garden or another big job, she puts dishes in a tub under the sink in the cupboard until morning. They do tidying of everything and don’t leave any messes lying around.
2: Diligently train children to put things where they go.
My friend Barbara did not allow her children to throw clothes around. Putting clothes on hooks or hangers, or throwing them in the hamper when they take them off was a carefully trained behavior.
3: Have a schedule for tasks.
All of my contacts did their main cleaning on Friday. This varied based on children and their ages. A mother with young children washed all the walls and went through the closets, deep cleaning every week. A mom with older children did not have to be quite as thorough with her weekly cleaning, but her house does get this deep cleaning treatment every few months. Other chores are scheduled for other days of the week. Laundry is done three times a week in a communal laundry room with multiple washers. The laundry is diligently managed with no baskets of unfolded laundry lying around. Scheduling is a natural part of their somewhat regimented lives.
4: Everything has a place
This is to make it easier for family members and children to keep things tidy. Placing hooks low for children’s coats and hats allows children to take care of things when they first come in the door. Everything has a place, and it is easy to know where to put things. Toys have their place, and there is no questioning where things belong.
5: Prevent messes in the first place.
These ladies have slippers that are similar to the kind doctors wear in an operating room. If family members are coming in the house from bad weather for a few minutes, they can slip on their slippers, so that they don’t get water or mud on the floor. This lifestyle of preventing messes makes upkeep a manageable thing.
6: Work together on big jobs.
In the same spirit as the Amish barn raising, where families get together to help one another and complete big tasks, Hutterites often help each other with big jobs. When families need help repainting, they will call on other colonies to send helpers to complete the task. Groups of men or women often travel to another colony and stay there for a few days helping to clean, repair, or build. They make this a social time, as well, and enjoy the company of their friends.
Bonus:
The main reason for their success, I think, is they have a lot of peer pressure that keeps them accountable. Neighbors pop in unannounced daily. They see clean homes modeled for them by all of their neighbors. The culture is unified in their efforts to keep everything clean and tidy. My friend, Tim, couldn’t think of anyone who was messy in any colony. His room was kept so clean when he was a child, that he naturally learned to put things where they belonged. Since everyone around him was behaving this way, it was normal for him to follow in their footsteps.
Hutterites have wonderfully clean homes. In some ways, their lifestyle of community makes cleanliness easy for them. Their example is wonderful and motivating.
