It is incredible to me how quickly my house can go from clean to absolute disaster. I can spend hours on a Sunday cleaning, catching up on laundry and feeling pretty good about kicking off the week; to very shortly being overwhelmed by the piles of laundry and dirty countertops.
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother considering how quickly the mess seems to happen. But I also know that when my house is messy, it ends up weighing heavy on my mind and the only thing to help clear it is, you guessed it, to clean up a bit.
Mom, if you are like me and can’t help but allow the weight of a messy kitchen to take up real estate in your already overloaded brain, I have some tips. There are a few things I try to do most days to help my household feel less chaotic. Not all days. Most days. It helps keep my house somewhat orderly. There are still days that I get home from work after being gone for 10+ hours and it would appear that perhaps I have never lifted a finger in attempting to clean the house. Those days are unavoidable.
Here are six things I aim to do most days to keep my house a little less chaotic.
Do laundry most days. I strive to keep up on my laundry by completing a load most days. The weeks when I wait until the weekend are the weeks that one kid will run out of socks. What’s weird about that is that they have more than seven pairs of socks. Yet, somehow in a matter of days, all the socks will end up dirty.
Pro tip- I love the delay feature of my washing machine. I will put a load in ready to roll at night and have it actually start in the morning so it finishes right when I get home from the gym. That way I can easily pop it in the dryer before my workday even starts. Sure, it often sits in the dryer but at least it’s clean.
Make my bed. My husband or I make our bed 7 days a week almost without fail. We wash our sheets every Sunday. For us, it makes the room and therefore our household feel just a little more put together by having a made bed.
Run the dishwasher each evening. My husband goes to bed sometimes a couple of hours after me each night. He either empties the dishwasher at night or one of us will super early in the morning. I will will gladly wake up five minutes earlier to complete this chore because I love starting the day with an empty dishwasher rather than a sink full of dishes.
Rarely go to bed with dishes in the sink. I don’t let myself stress if I sometimes go to bed with some dishes in the sink, but I do strive for most days to go to bed with an empty sink. I hate waking up to a pile of dishes staring me down, so I am usually able to motivate myself to take care of it in the evenings. My husband also takes on this chore often.
Wipe counters. We have two dogs, so I happily wipe my counters and let any crumbs land on the floor without worrying about it. I don’t do a thorough wipe down, but a quick wipe of the counters is always something I love waking up to.
Make lunches the night or even a few nights before. I am not great at prepping complex meals ahead of time. But on most Sundays, I will make a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to have on hand for my kids’ lunches. They actually freeze super well and can be taken out the morning of and thaw by lunchtime. This saves time and a messy kitchen every single morning.
I think it’s important to also come clean (no pun intended) with the things I am terrible about keeping up as well.
Cleaning our floors. While I am great at wiping down counter tops, I tend to slack on giving the same love to my floors. I am ok with vacuuming but not necessarily mopping. My dogs eat all the crumbs and while I know that doesn’t mean my floors are actually clean, it doesn’t weigh on me for some reason.
Poop scoop. I have a friend who picks up after their dog every time they poop in their back yard. Every single time. This is something my family really slacks on. About once a week I will get fed up and send my teenage son out there to take care of business.
Dusting. Another one that doesn’t seem to weigh on me until I start seeing dust actually collecting in a corner causing me to then go into a cleaning frenzy.
It’s a balance like so many things. I have learned to stay somewhat on top on the things I know will help ease my mind and my stress while not letting everything take up real estate in my already overloaded brain.
Are there things you do on a daily or most days basis that help your household run smoothly?
We’d love to hear!
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Read more of Stephanie’s contributions to AllMomDoes here.
