As a busy working mom with young children, it can often feel like you’re playing catch-up with all of the housework and cleaning that seems never-ending. And it’s not fair to you, or your family, to have to spend endless hours and weekends to tackle that long cleaning list you might have.
If you keep asking yourself, ” How can I keep my house clean with my busy schedule?” You are not the first or last person to ask that question. Keeping a tiny apartment clean when the most to worry about was balancing work with a social life, was an easier task to manage. Now with a busier schedule, more people to care for and more responsibilities, and possibly a larger home, trying to keep up with cleaning seems like more of a challenge.
Keep reading below for practical tips and ways to create daily cleaning habits.
How Do I Keep My House Spotless?
Unless you are single, have no toddlers or pets and live in a relatively small apartment or home, the likeliness of keeping a spotless home is very slim. But with some intentionality, timers and a schedule, you can maintain a nice and clean home. Keep in mind that perfect is an unattainable goal, so try to create goals that are in line with your lifestyle and living situation.
What Is A Good Schedule for House Cleaning?
The best schedule for keeping a clean house, is one that fits your needs and doesn’t add stress! Creating a schedule to suite your needs may take some time and experimenting; the first step to take is to write down your daily and weekly tasks and create a rough outline of a schedule based around your other responsibilities.
How Can I Occupy My Toddler While Cleaning?
In my opinion, there are three good options for keeping your toddler busy while you clean: put on an engaging tv show for your toddler, set up a busy box or activity for them, or have them help you clean.
If you opt for the tv show, try to limit their screen time to less than hour or two while you set a timer and get as much done as you can.
If you opt for the busy box, be sure it’s one filled with toys and activities that will keep your curious toddler interested. A busy box is meant for independent play, so do your best to make it enjoyable for your toddler. Here are over a dozen activities and busy box ideas for your toddler:
Big Collection of Sensory Table Activities For The Entire Year
25 Busy Boxes For Toddlers to Preschoolers
If you’d rather get them to join in on the fun of cleaning, find more on that below.
Tips To Keep Your House Clean & Clutter Free
1. Create a cleaning schedule.
When you first become a mom, you start to realize how important maintaining a schedule or routine truly is. Routines help, especially busy mothers, to reduce the amount of brain-power and effort needed in our day-to-day which helps our mental health. Keeping a routine is also beneficial, especially when you have young children, because it helps us to optimize our day-to-day.
Implementing a cleaning routine for weekly, monthly and even quarterly tasks will help you to maintain a clean home. Here is a sample cleaning schedule:
Monday: clean the floors, run a load of laundry
Tuesday: dust surfaces and wipe baseboards
Wednesday: clean the bathroom (tub, toilet, sink), gather all the trash in the house
Thursday: run a load of laundry, clean out the fridge
Friday: big project day (getting to the thing that you’ve been putting off)
Saturday: tidy the kitchen pantry and junk drawers
Sunday: toy and book rotation
Tailor the cleaning schedule to fit your needs, cleaning tasks and time.
2. Build habits for easier maintenance.
Building habits for easier cleaning maintenance goes hand in hand with having a cleaning schedule and habit stacking. A good way to implement a new habit for easier cleaning is to pair a cleaning task with something that you already do. An example could be when you go to make your first cup of coffee for the day, to wipe down and tidy up that area. Another example: while you brush your teeth, wipe down and tidy up the vanity and sink. When you start to build in habits that can be done on a daily or weekly basis, the amount of time and places to clean will be greatly reduced!
3. Close the kitchen.
I first heard of closing the kitchen from Milena Ciciotti. When you “close the kitchen” you are cleaning the kitchen, typically after dinner, and shutting it down for the night. That means that you are not dirtying any more dishes or getting any more food or snacks. If anyone decides to get a cup of water or a snack, they are responsible for cleaning up after themselves and leaving the kitchen as clean as they found it.
When you close the kitchen at night, you’re setting yourself up for success in the morning. There is nothing better than walking into a clean kitchen and being able to grab a clean plate, to eat fresh food.
4. Set a timer.
Sometimes there truly is not enough time in the day! When my to-do list is so long that I start to feel overwhelmed, I simply set a timer for twenty to thirty minutes and tackle the one task that is taking up the most mental space and making me the most overwhelmed. The goal here is to get as much as you can done. You do not have to go all out and spend over an hour cleaning one thing or trying to complete multiple tasks. Do what you can with the time that you have. It truly doesn’t have to be all or nothing in regards to cleaning.
5. Enlist your kids for help with cleaning.
Your kids, especially toddlers, most likely want to help! As busy moms we often want to clean as fast as we can without interruption, but that doesn’t always happen. Our toddlers are curious and want to explore the world they live in; which means that they are most likely trying to hold onto the handle of the vacuum, as we try to clean the floors. I often find that when I include my toddler in cleaning and cooking, the amount of tears and frustration is reduced.
Now, that doesn’t mean you need to have them hold onto every vacuum, mop or cleaning tool that you’re using in the moment, but do your best and find a way to let them help. We have a Melissa & Doug Pretend Play Cleaning Set for our toddler. When mom or dad are cleaning, we say something along the lines of, “It’s time to clean up! Can you help mommy [insert task]? If they say yes, we have them grab a tool from the cleaning set and start sweeping/mopping/dusting.
We are also big believers in teaching our children to clean up after themselves. If they spill some milk, we’ll hand them a paper towel and say “Oh no, the milk spilled. It’s okay, let’s clean it up.”
6. Habit stack.
In Atomic Habits written by James Clear, we are introduced to habit stacking through this formula:
After/Before/During [habit you currently have], I will [habit you want to implement]
For example, washing dishes by hand is not my favorite thing to do. Mainly because of all the time it takes and how this one task is truly never-ending. But, I love to listen to music and audiobooks. So, I find a window of time in my day and set a timer for twenty to thirty minutes. Then I pick a playlist or podcast I really want to listen to and start washing the pile of dirty dishes. Doing this has made washing dishes by hand an enjoyable task and helps make the time go by while doing so.
Note: the timer isn’t always needed, especially if you have plenty of time.
7. Simplify.
The less you have, the easier cleaning and tidying up will be. Simplifying, or reducing, the amount of items and clothing you have will make for a quicker and easier cleaning schedule. Now, you don’t have to throw away everything that takes up space in your home, but going through each room and area to intentionally ponder whether something is being used or not is a good practice to start.
For instance, if you have children and two or three areas in the house where they have a play space, it might be a good idea to sit down in that area and sift through the toys that are out. Ask yourself, has my child shown interest in this toy or book in the past week or two? Does this toy entertain or educate my child? Could this toy or book be moved to storage? If you find yourself hesitant to discard any items, move it to an area of your home that is easily accessible to your family. If a month has gone by and you haven’t reached for it or even thought about it, it’s time to give it away or throw it out.
For other areas of the home, ask yourself these questions when trying to determine whether to keep, give away or put it in the trash:
- Have I used this in the last month?
- Do I enjoy using/wearing this? (Kitchen Appliances/Clothing/Hair or Skin Products)
- Do I like the way this looks? (Decor/Clothing)
- Is this a seasonal item that can be re-used this year or next year?
8. Tidy up before bed.
I find that after dinner and some family time, tidying up before bed helps to set me up for a smooth morning the next day. The best thing you can do for yourself and your mental health is to tidy up the biggest stress areas. For example, at the end of the day my living room is cluttered with my toddler’s toys and my kitchen sink is filled with dirty dishes. If I wake up to see that these two areas are the same way, full of clutter and mess, I get overwhelmed because that adds to my long to-do list for the day.
Now, I’ve created a rhythm to tackle these two stress areas to wake up to a cleaner and tidier home. You can set yourself up for a smooth morning by setting a timer for twenty to thirty minutes and tidying up your stress areas. The goal is not to get everything spotless and perfectly clean, rather the goal is to get as much done as you can. Little by little you’ll chip away at the mess and eventually be able to tackle more within the same time frame.
9. Organize & Categorize.
The saying goes, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” This is a great mindset to have when you have a large space to maintain, especially with children running around. When you have an area for shoes and coats, you reduce the clutter of items around your living room and kitchen areas. When you have a place for toys and books, you find that it’s easier to clean up (and your children know where things go!).
Choose a designated spot for categories, of items, to go (toys, books, electronics, bags and purses, etc.). You absolutely do not need to buy more storage if you can find enough space for each category or item. It’s as simple as utilizing what you have and organizing them in a way that makes sense for your home and family.
10. Be Realistic.
Rome was not built in a day and neither was your home. All of the things that you have most likely were not accumulated in one day either. When you realize that not everything needs to be done in one day or one hour, you will feel much more relief and less pressure. One way to create a simple cleaning schedule or routine, is to pick one to three tasks to do each day. For examples, refer to #1 on this list (create a cleaning schedule).
To read more about motherhood, see here.
For more on homemaking, read here.
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