Everyday Habits To Keep An Orderly Home

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As a stay at home mom, it can be hard to keep an orderly home all of the time. I think my biggest struggle with keeping my home organized is staying on task the whole day long. I easily get distracted. My sons have off days just like everyone else. Certain days are spent running errands and going to practices, not allowing for time to focus on cleaning or organizing. And lastly, the small black box otherwise known as a cellular device is a terrible interference.

Basically, life gets in the way. Recently I’ve really tried to focus on keeping my house tidy. It doesn’t have to be spotless. It will never be spotless. But I want it to look decent and in order. After coming up with a to-do list and tweaking it over the spring, I’m now including habits I try to do every day in order to keep my house clean.

Why Does It Matter

Before I dive into my list, I want to first discuss my why behind it. It’s important to ask yourself “Why?” from time to time to remind yourself of “why” you started in the first place. A lot of my “why” has to do with dear Bert (not my husband’s real name, it’s just a nickname I call him).

I’ve noticed Bert is seriously in a better mood when he comes home and the house isn’t a total wreck. On the days when he comes home and it is a straight up mess, if he comes into our bedroom and it’s completely neat and tidy, he’s also in a better mood.

This isn’t to say when he comes home and our dwelling place is in shambles, he is automatically angry or upset. On the contrary, he’s a very patient, understanding sort of fellow. Rather, when he has already had a rough day and comes home to a decent house, it’s almost as if he breathes a sigh of relief.

I want that for him. I hope our bedroom is a spot where he can “escape” from his work life. Our kitchen should be an inviting room that greets him at ungodly wake up times before he starts another “livin’ the dream” workday. On a side note, in our relationship, a clean bedroom makes or breaks a steamy evening after the mini me’s are dozing off.

Does This Really Work?

Usually to-do lists are so unhelpful for me. At the end of the day it turns into a “what I didn’t get done today” list. I’m not going to lie to you. There are evenings where I’m incredibly frustrated and discouraged by what wasn’t accomplished all because of my “to-didn’t happen” list. This is a learning curve. You certainly are going to want to tweak it to what’s possible for you in your own routines.

Lastly, give yourself grace. Realize that you’re not going to get everything done every day, and that’s okay. Focus on what it was that you did do each day. This list is complied in order of importance to me. If at the end of the day I only accomplish the first thing on my list, it was the most important. That’s a big deal to me too.

Thus, without further ado, here are the tasks I try to accomplish every day.

Clean Your Kitchen Every Night

If I do nothing else, my number one goal each and every day is to wake up to a clean, spotless kitchen. My kitchen is where I spend most of my time. It is so much easier to get out of bed each day knowing I can get breakfast ready in a fresh kitchen. It’s nice knowing when I go to bed each night that at least I got the kitchen cleaned. Does it happen every day? Of course not. Is it something I strive to get done every night? Absolutely.

Make Your Bed

You may have seen a motivational speaker talk about making your bed. I’ll be honest, I didn’t care about making my bed until after I was married. Funnily, it was Bert who would make the bed every night right before getting into it (yes, you read that right) because he hated crawling into a messy bed.

I figured eventually he would get over his obsession, but he hasn’t. Rather, I’m the one who’s conformed to his ways. Especially during his busy flying season (March-September) I try to have the bed made before he gets home from work. It’s not top on my priority list, but it’s something I for sure want to have done for him. If a clean kitchen sets the tone for the day, let’s just say a made bed sets the tone for the evening.

Do the Laundry

There will always be laundry to do. Typically, I spend one or two days doing laundry to get caught up. The bad thing about this is the day leading up to doing laundry it seems like no one has any clothes to wear. Inevitably, it’s the socks. We’re trying to go somewhere and I am desperately searching for socks for the three progeny.

I wanted a change so now I do what my mother in law does: before I even start cooking breakfast, I throw a load of laundry in the wash. After the morning dishes are cleaned up, I fold and put away the clothes in the clean hamper from the day before. I then move the clothes from the dryer to the clean hamper so that there’s space for the wet clothes to now dry.

That’s the extent of it. The whole process takes me possibly an hour. I still tend to spend one day focusing on getting caught up with the laundry. Usually I’m washing towels and rugs and sheets on that day as well. I rarely get to a place where there’s no more dirty clothes in the hamper. However, we rarely run out of socks or underwear now and it honestly works quite well for me.

Tidy Up These Small Items

You would be amazed by how big of a difference taking 3 extra minutes to pick up and put away all of the shoes makes. It usually doesn’t take any longer than that. The two items I try to pick up every night is shoes and dirty laundry.

Hi, I have three boys. They are messy! It’s a constant battle of trying to get them to take off their shoes at the door and put them on the shoe rack. Inevitably by the end of the day, the shoe rack is a hot mess. The clothing situation isn’t much better. In the summer as the day gets warmer, more clothes come off. In the winter, it’s jackets and hats and gloves everywhere.

Simply gathering up the dirty clothes and tossing them in the laundry and then reorganizing the shoe space makes the house look neater. Seriously, it does.

Deep Clean One Area

I’ve seen the weekly and monthly cleaning lists or calendars. At one point I spent over an hour writing out a calendar for the whole year for just cleaning: what to do every day, each week, every month, and at different points during the year. Hi, it didn’t work for me. I think I looked at it maybe once.

Trying to deep clean one different area, on the other hand, has helped me immensely. I get the bathrooms cleaned every week now. I get the fridge deep cleaned practically weekly too. Sometimes I’m outside cleaning out our vehicle. Other days, I spend two or three days during my “deep clean” time of the day attacking a larger problem area, like my guest bedroom closet.

For sure, this doesn’t happen every day. But it probably happens three to four days a week, which means three or four deep cleaned areas that get taken care of each week. That never happened before I started doing this.

Don’t Neglect Mothering

I’m including this because an orderly home doesn’t just have to do with tasks to complete. Making a priority for your children gives them a routine they can count on too. Ultimately, these ideas will help you enjoy your children during the mundane day to day life you live.

For instance, my sons know that every day after naptime, I spend 30 minutes to an hour with them coloring, doing puzzles, or some sort of cheap craft that doesn’t take a whole lot of extra effort. It’s a nice little break from the tasks to complete and allows for some bonding.

After Dad gets home and supper has been consumed, we have a basic night routine that we follow fairly regularly. Dad and the boys clean up toys and vacuum while I start on the kitchen clean up. Thirty minutes before bedtime we’re playing uno or bingo or another child focused game at the kitchen table. It literally takes ten minutes.

Do the Same For Bedtime Routine

Before I started doing this, bedtime was met with quite a bit of drama. I’ve found that having a specific routine that we go through each night really helps avoid the fuss and tears. Once everyone is tucked in, we read a story, sing songs, memorize a verse together and end in prayer that everyone gets to participate in. Dad tells a famous made up story before shutting off the lights.

I promise you, it makes bedtime so much more peaceful. Get in the habit of having some routine and order with your child’s schedule as well as your own. You won’t regret it.

To Conclude:

Obviously, if you’ve read this blog post it’s because you’re actively looking for a change for your home. It’s easy to feel like the status quo is never going to change. It’s definitely going to be hard, that’s for sure. It always is when you’re trying to break a habit or start new ones.

I would encourage you to not give up. Even if you implement one or two of these ideas, you might be surprised by how much nicer your home looks and how the attitudes of your family changes with it.