Most evenings I’m exhausted. By the time supper is over and baby in bed I don’t want to do anything but veg on the couch, or better yet, just go to bed. But if I do that, I have to deal with a messy house in the morning before I can even officially start a new day.
I wake up to a clean house every morning with these three little tricks. No, I don’t have a cleaning fairy, or friendly little house trolls who help me out, but just an hour of work can make a huge difference to my house.
How I Wake up to a Clean House Every Morning
First of all, let’s clarify. By clean, I mean clean-looking.
If you were to run your finger along any flat surface in my house you will likely find dust. And if you look in the corners of my ceiling, you will find cobwebs. If you sit on my couches, you will likely have a few cat hair stuck to you.
However, I can walk through my house in the dark without stepping on toys or tripping over clothes, and I can walk into my kitchen and begin making breakfast without first needing to wash dishes.
If you come to my front door, you will think my house is clean. Just go right on thinking that!
Clean often has more to do with perspective than an actual absence of dirt. 🙂
Clean House tip #1
The kitchen is often the central area of a home and ours is no different. If nothing else happens, having my kitchen clean before going to bed is very important.
There’s a couple of reasons my kitchen gets top priority. I cook from scratch which means many dirty pots and pans, however I have few pots and pans due to a small home and those pans need to be clean before the next meal.
The dishwasher needs washed every evening or we will run out of lunch containers. Jason and I both pack lunches and those containers need to be clean.
And finally, due to the small size of our kitchen, dirty dishes mean full counters and we need the counter space to pack our lunches in the morning.
After dinner, I load the dishwasher and get it running, then I wash the rest of my dishes, leaving them to dry on the counter. Putting them away in the morning takes very little time. I wash the table and counter tops and the kitchen is done. Even on the worst nights I’m typically done in the kitchen within 30 minutes.
Clean House Tip #2
Pick up those Toys. We typically have Kolton help pick up his toys, but some nights it gets late and he’s a mess so I do it after he’s in bed. Just having the toys confined to a certain area helps tremendously.
From the time your child is very small, have them help or watch you pick up toys. By age 2 they can be largely responsible for picking up their toys each night. (1 of my little brothers was 1 1/5, the other 1 was a good 2. Kolton is still too easily distracted to do any of it alone.)
If any of the children have dirty clothes or shoes in the main area, assist them in putting them away. We typically have to round-up shoes as well.
Total time to clean up toys and clothes/shoes: 10 min on average.
Clean House Tip #3
Honestly, if the kitchen is cleaned and the toys and dirty laundry is picked up, your house already looks 10x better. But I have just one more thing I do, and it’s a bit of an ocd thing, but it works.
Eliminate Piles. Piles of papers, piles of clothing, piles of stuff. I’m not saying everything has to be put away. To be honest, there are times when putting stuff away is impractically because I will be getting it right back out the next day. And sometimes that laundry is just too much to do that night.
This is why I like stacks.
Stacks look organized and when I have books or papers that I’m keeping out for certain purposes, I stack them up. Clean laundry stays in laundry baskets and I line the baskets up or stack them if I’m not concerned about wrinkles.
It’s nothing huge and it’s all done within an hour. This typically leaves me time to blog or just relax and do something for myself. Okay, who am I kidding? I blog lol.
Since I have to leave for work early in the morning, I don’t have time to do any housework before I walk out the door. Having a decently clean-looking house when I come home is very nice. And on the random days I’m off work, I don’t need to play catch-up before I can get started on the day’s list of chores!
Just like creating a welcoming home, creating a clean house to wake up in, takes very little time if you make a daily habit of it. Just a few simple habits can make a huge difference!
I always make my bed in the morning as well! I love getting into a made bed. Also, I try to do one load of laundry every week day so weekends won’t be filled with so much laundry. I also rotate doing bed linens so I don’t have to do all of them the same week. Thanks for your tips! I also like a clean kitchen in the mornings. I just read an interesting article about handling papers only once: bills go to a specific place, file important papers, scan anything you may need later, recycle junk mail immediately, and go through sale papers with your phone, making a list, then recycle the paper. This has made such a difference in my piles!
We passively-aggressively make the bed 😉 We both pull our sides of the sheets up and over the pillows, but that’s about it. It looks nice, but certainly not showroom 🙂
That’s a very good idea with papers as well. I’ve considered sharing my system, but it’s a rather complex one since I keep all of my receipts and itemize them in my Quicken program. I toss junk mail before I walk inside and other papers get stacked on my desk. I enjoy bookwork though and typically do it 2-3x a month. Many of my bills are on auto-pay or I pay online which really simplifies things.
My biggest issue is figuring out what to do with hubby’s magazines 🙂
I completely agree with these! I do not have kids, so I don’t have toys to clean up but I try to make sure there is nothing laying on the floor in my bathroom before I go to bed. I have medical issues and have to go to the bathroom several times in the night, so I need to make sure my pathway is clear so I don’t trip on anything when I’m basically sleep walking. I also wipe down all counters, tables and most surfaces. Even if i have to remove piles of things to do it, it then makes me stack up those piles of papers or whatever in a more clean way. I also recommend getting one box that you allow yourself for papers that are in process. Then everything else must either be shredded, thrown away, or filed in a file box/cabinet. Each night, you can put everything loose into that box that is paper. Then go through it at least once a week and sort it out. You can always have a separate file for coupons so you’ll find those as you go through the box and can file those separately. That way you never miss out on savings. I also file receipts by month. That way if I need to return something, I can go back through the recent month or so to find the receipt. And bills always end up in this box and if I force myself to go through it once a week, I’m never missing paying a bill by accident either.
My bookwork system is a bit interesting, I track everything in my desktop Quicken program and match receipts to bank and cc statements. I do it once a week on average and pay most things online. We don’t coupon since most coupons are for stuff that we don’t buy. But your system sounds like it would certainly work!
What is really funny is that I used to use your system. My life is much more simple than it used to be though so I don’t have many bills. I moved to an efficiency apartment where I only have rent and electric, I bought my car with cash, and I only use store credit cards or debit cards so I have one credit card bill and it is usually paid off in full. I do have doctor’s bills occasionally, So the things that are in my box are usually information from doctor’s about appointments or blood tests I have coming up that I want to keep readily available versus filed. I do use coupons, but typically not for grocery items. Usually for cleaning products. I could probably make some cleaning products myself, but I have brand loyalty to certain things and want to get them at a discount. I regularly shop at Target since I’m also in Pharmacy rewards (5% off after 5 prescriptions) and have the debit card (5% off everytime) and so I save coupons that can only be used at Target to make those savings even more powerful. I also seem to acquire a lot of gift cards for some reason. People give them to me or I get them because of things related to my blog and they end up in that box.
The gist of my system is that I never, ever, have random papers laying around my apartment. ALL things that are paper go in that box at all times. If the box gets full, I’m forced to deal with whatever is in it. But it recognizes that realistically, I’m never going to be perfect enough to deal with it right then and there.
And I got a really nice looking box! It is from a Martha Stewart collection that was at Staples. So it doesn’t look bad at all and in fact is a nice edition to everything.
I’ve considered getting back into putting everything online because I’ve been disorganized with my tax information for my blog. I use Freshbooks and Outright, but then Outright was sold to GoDaddy and I haven’t used it since. So things have been kind of a mess electronically. My paper records are what I needed to rely on this past year and will have to for 2015 as well. Maybe for 2016 I’ll try a combination of your system and mine!
Thank you for sharing this! Now can you write easy steps for cooking from scratch for working moms?? I’m work full time, sometimes very long days and would love to be able to do that too along with the clean house!
Oh my… I worked full time for years too and that was my biggest challenge. What helped me the most was creating an easy menu of foods we liked and haven it rotate. I don’t do so well with the menu now that I’m home. I need to get back on it.
Hello there,
Thanks for your Artical on house cleaning. I get a bit too lazy at times to clean my home.
I get tgo the stage where the mess gets to big that I don’t want to clean it up.
Now that I have read yo9ur Artical I will stay on top of the mess by doing what you do.
Putting things away when you’re done with them definitely helps with clean house. Thanks for sharing your tips on Merry Monday. Pinned.