Some people really like cleaning, they find it theraputic.  I am not one of these people. I dispise hate loath don’t like it. I do it because I don’t want to live in a pigstye.

It took some time, but I finally figured out my “groove” and there were a few little things that I could do to make my home seem to run a little more smoothly and seem so much cleaner.  Here are my top tricks to make your home seem cleaner (and it actually stays cleaner this way too).  They are super simple.

1. Make your Bed Every Morning

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One of the first things I do in the morning is make my bed.  Somehow it just seems to be the right way to start the day.  It took me a little while to figure this little phenomenon out, but really, if I don’t make my bed, the rest of my life  house seems disheveled.  I have not gone a day in over two years without making my bed.  Try this one if you don’t already make your bed.  Try it for a couple of weeks and see if your house seems to find a little more order.  It worked for me.

2.  Leave the sink clean before bed

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Every night after dinner is finished and my boys are in bed I clean my kitchen.  It doesn’t take much time and it makes my mornings much nicer.  I dispise waking up to a sinkful of dirty dishes, and a mess from dinner on the stove and counters. I cringe and begin my day very grumpily with the daunting task of dealing with dishes right away.  I mean, I need my coffee first people! Coming out to a clean kitchen first thing in the morning makes me feel more motivated to tackle other things in the day.  Seriously, dirty dishes in the morning suck all the oomph out of my day.  Waking up to a sparkly kitchen seems to make it easier to tackle the rest of the house.

3.  Do one load of laundry every day.

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This one took me awhile to figure out.  How does one keep the constantly growing piles of laundry at bay?  I make sure I do one load of laundry every day from start to finish… this means stain treating them, washing them, drying them getting them folded and put away in drawers and hung in closets.  None of this piling it on an armchair in our bedroom or leaving it in a laundry basket until you need it thing that we all have a tendancy to do.  Wash it, dry it, put it away.  One load.  It isn’t that much and it never gets overwhelming if you never have a ton of it.   It takes about 30 minutes of your day is all.  If I get behind, the laundry piles up people run out of socks and it seems like all I do for days is wash and fold.  I don’t mind one load a day, three ick.  If I make sure I do one every day, I can always count on the fact that I never have to do more than that which makes me very happy.

4.  Organize in spurts

 If you go on an organizing bender, you end up with a huge pile in your living room, or on your kitchen counter that you don’t know what to do with and it becomes overwhelming. Then it sits there for two days because you don’t know exactly what to do with all of it.  In fact, it can be really overwhelming thinking of organzing your entire house.  So, have a little mental list, or if you are like me and need a visual make yourself an actual list and post it where you can see it.  Tackle one organizing are at a time.  Like under your bathroom sink one week, another tackle your pantry and so on.  If you have it in your head that you must get it all done at once, you will become paralyzed.

5.  Let go of perfection

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As the author of The Happiness Project would remind us, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” You may not have time to perfectly fold your childs clothes, but fold them anyway.  You may not have time to make the perfect cake, but if you want to make one for your child do you think that they will care if the buttercream rose isn’t magazine photo shoot worthy.  Do it, and do it good enough.  Don’t let the fear of it not being perfect hold you back, or you will never get anything done.

6.  Tackle one icky thing a day.  

This may not work for everyone, but it certainly helps me.  There are certain tasks that I despise.  Cleaning the toilet being one of them. Or cleaning up the dog poopy.  Another is moving the couch and sweeping under it.  We all have our certain chores that we hate to do.  Do one icky thing everyday and then give yourself permission to let the other icky things go until tomorrow.

I have found living with kids and attempting to have a clean house is ALL about giving yourself permission to let some stuff go.  Do the best that you can and then let the rest go and have a big glass of wine!

 Give it a shot.

xoxo,leah