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Last updated on April 8th, 2022 at 08:59 pm
A question that always comes up in my community is “Is it normal to clean all day long?” Truthfully, depending on your season of life …specifically when you have little kids, yes. Yes, it is. But keeping your house clean and organized shouldn’t be taking over your life.
If you’re not in a season of having little kids around or you’re looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, today is especially for you.
I’m bringing you 6 practical tips for keeping your house clean and organized daily. And, no, you don’t have to clean all day long.
Tip 01: Choose just one area to focus on keeping tidy.
When I was working for corporate and caring for my toddler full-time, it was incredibly overwhelming to try to keep the entire house clean. Instead of worrying about the entire house, I would only worry about keeping my sink free of dishes. As long as that area was clean, I could handle anything.
For you, the one area to focus on could be the chair where you nurse your baby or your kitchen table. The point is to focus on one area and then expand it as your season of life changes.
Tip 02: Set aside one day to take care of bigger cleaning tasks.
I’ve seen a lot of experts recommend cleaning one area of your home per day and that’s never worked for me. I have too many things to think about so it’s better if I can just batch all the big tasks to a single day so I don’t have to keep task switching. (Let’s be honest, you may be task-switching a lot anyway if you have little kids.) Research has shown that you lose time and effectiveness when you’re constantly switching from one task to another.
Some examples of tasks that I batch aside from my cleaning routine are grocery shopping, meal planning, and even laundry. I’ve developed systems for making each of these tasks easier and on top of that, I only think about these tasks once a week and sometimes once a month.
Tip 03: Take a quick timeout throughout the day to tidy up.
It’s easy to leave all the tidying tasks for the end of the day but it’s not easy to have to clean everything up at the end of the day. It’s like when you were in school and you’d put off doing that essay you knew about all semester long until 2 days before it’s due. You know what I mean?
The point is it’s better to do a little bit of tidying sprinkled throughout the day so you’re not left with a huge, overwhelming mess at the end of the day. I usually take a quick 10-minute break to tidy up while I’m in between tasks. I’ve also found that with many of the tasks I do, like dishes or vacuuming, I’m processing something I’m working on while keeping my hands busy and it’s easier to tackle that mental problem I’m working on.
Tip 04: Get other people to help
In our house, we all help keep it tidy. I spend time teaching my daughter how to tidy and clean because she will need these skills when she grows up so she can function and feel like her home is a refuge. I’m grateful my parents made me learn how to clean and tidy up because my life is easier for it.
So to get others to help you it’s better to make it a team exercise. When you take that 10-minute break to tidy up have everyone else help too. Give people areas of responsibility based on their age and skill level. Taking care of a house is a lot of work and it’s worth a team effort.
Tip 05: Work ahead
As I mentioned early in tip 1, I focus mainly on one area to keep tidy throughout the day —which means I want it primed and ready for the day. How do I do this? By making sure that area’s cleaned up before I go to bed at night.
My area is the kitchen sink. So I make sure all the dishes are washed and put away and the dishwasher is set to run sometime during the night. We’re primed and ready for the next day.
For you, this could mean putting away a basket of laundry that’s in your area or putting away stray items that ended up there. Once again, keep your focus on one area and expand as your season of life allows.
Tip 06: Throw away the trash
I live with a little artist and we go through a lot of paper. And let me tell you, throughout the day we have many papers that pile up with only a select few worth keeping. By recycling the scrap papers, our homeschool table has so much more space and I’m not visually overwhelmed by clutter.
Oftentimes when I organize with clients, many items we go through are very obviously trash. It’s worth getting into the habit of throwing trash away each and every day.
For those items that aren’t as straightforward, I have a blog post with 12 simple questions to make decluttering easy that you can find at roomsneedlove.com/218.
To recap, my 6 tips for keeping your house clean and organized are:
- Choose just one area to focus on keeping tidy.
- Set aside one day to take care of bigger cleaning tasks.
- Take a quick timeout throughout the day to tidy up.
- Get other people (your family) to help
- Work ahead
- Throw away the trash
Use this checklist to help you get started keeping your house clean and organized >>>
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