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How to Clean your House - Simplified!

Updated on August 14, 2012

The volume of housework that parents have can feel overwhelming. At one point after having my third child, I was feeling very overwhelmed by housework and under skilled. I decided to research methods of managing the household demands in a more orderly way. For most of my childhood my Mother used a cleaning woman and I did the same as an adult until I found it wasn’t very helpful for the volume of work children require.

The problem with having someone clean your house once a week when you have kids is that the bulk of the cleaning needs are daily.

To help with this problem I looked for some books on the topic, I found a few tips and over time came up with my own system that incorporates 2 simple ideas, the first one is the “do it now” idea which means you clean up something when you are there and the second is “make a habit out of it.” What I love about these two concepts is that they really require no planning or scheduling, I am not good at either, so I am excited about sharing my system with you! Is it normal to get excited about anything having to do with chores?

A strategically placed basket stocked with cleaning supplies.
A strategically placed basket stocked with cleaning supplies.

The “do it now” method requires having cleaning supplies in each bathroom, floor, location of your home so that when you are there you can quickly and easily take care of whatever mess has built up since you were there last. “Do it now” works in the kitchen while you are cooking dinner for instance just after you finish using a pot, you clean it up and put it away, this leaves minimal after dinner clean up. Who has time to go back to clean the kitchen or any room for that matter?

The “make a habit of it” might make those of you who prefer schedules happier since this method is more organized than the first concept. The best example of the “make a habit of it” method is with laundry. If you make a time each day to do the laundry in small increments rather then waiting for the pile of laundry to inevitably pile up you will be ahead of the game. My habit is to put a load of clothes in the laundry just after I tuck my kids into bed and on every third night I fold and distribute laundry. The need and volume will vary with each family but the secret is finding the average volume for your family and meeting that to avoid the dreaded laundry back up.

Make a habit out of laundry by doing a little bit each day at the same time
Make a habit out of laundry by doing a little bit each day at the same time

Another habit I have is doing pick up in each room of the house only once a day. After dinner, the kitchen and playroom area are cleaned up. Just before bedtime I assist my children in cleaning their respective rooms. This means that there is no question about when these things are done. I like to wake up in the morning to find the house in order to start the day and these methods really work.

Both the “do it now” and the “make a habit of it” make the job of keeping the house in order easier by breaking all the big jobs down into small pieces, no job is too big to just ‘do it now.’ When jobs feel overwhelming we are more likely to try to avoid them and then become stressed. When a job becomes a habit we don’t need to think about it anymore and we can get back to enjoying our kids and our lives rather than being a slave to chores.

© Copyright 2011 Tracy Lynn Conway with all rights reserved.

Caring for our homes is an extension of caring for our children; the home is their environment and when it is being treated with love and care the children absorbs this as well.


Happy Cleaning!

With the house in order you will have more time for your kids and yourself.
With the house in order you will have more time for your kids and yourself. | Source

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