Ask people how they feel about house cleaning, and you’ll get a wide variety of responses! Some people find it relaxing while others would rather do just about anything else.
No matter how we feel about house cleaning, keeping up with chores is a very important part of being able to stay organized to reach our goals. Whether it’s staying on top of the homeschool week or accomplishing any of the other tasks on our lists, a chaotic home will derail us every time.
Now that my five kids are adults and I’m far from the “littles” phase, it is much easier than ever to whip the house into shape. But house cleaning hasn’t always been that way.
Here are some home organization tips I’ve learned from years with and without helpful kids!
House Cleaning Tips for When Mama’s Cleaning Alone
At one point, I was pregnant with my fifth child and had four kids under the age of five!
Although I trained my children to help with chores even when they were littles, the truth is that the house cleaning burden still rested on mama when there were that many and they were that little!
So, I had to come up with ways to stay on top of the chaos while still maintaining at least some of my sanity. Here are a few tips I discovered to help make house cleaning enjoyable, not to mention actually doable:
- I focused on cleaning in spurts throughout the day. It is a rare opportunity to have several uninterrupted hours to focus on a project, so I chose several ten- to fifteen-minute sessions to do quick pickups.
- I left the heavy duty cleaning until I had a little help. My husband had the weekends off, and I would often scrub the bathrooms, clean out the fridge, or organize a closet when he could play with the little ones or watch them for about an hour.
- Use naptime wisely. Don’t burn out thinking that every sleeping moment of a baby’s or toddler’s life has to be spent “catching up” on house cleaning. Spend a little time cleaning and a little time for yourself!
Tips for Tackling House Cleaning with the Kids
As children get older, the time comes to pull them into the house cleaning process. It’s a rare sight to see children enjoy clean-up time. But whether it’s cleaning the bathrooms or straightening up after school, here are three things that can make it enjoyable:
Enable Togetherness
Children would much rather clean and tidy with parents than on their own. When it’s time to tackle house cleaning, do it together!
Not only does this allow for you to watch over the process, keeping it within a reasonable time frame, but it allows for meaningful conversations to occur during the process.
Whistle While You Work
Nothing motivates moving around like music!
When it was time to scrub floors in our home, I put on some music with a beat, and we would sing together while we cleaned. It not only made the time go by faster, but it built lasting memories when Mom hit the wrong note!
Set a Timer
House cleaning is more enjoyable when it is not a process that takes up an entire day.
Set a reasonable goal for what you would like to accomplish and communicate it clearly with your children. If they know the end goal, they have something to work toward.
What organization or house cleaning tips have you discovered? Do the different personalities in your family handle cleaning differently? Take our Planner Personality Quiz to learn more about your planner personality type and find tips for organizing your home and life well.
