I feel like ALL I DO at home is clean. As soon as the kitchen is clean it’s probably time to use it. Laundry is never fully done and I can never get it all put up. The only place that seems to stay in some amount of order is the bathroom. I clean it but it’s just wiping surfaces and cleaning the shower. Dont even get me started on the living room.
I do have three little kids and dogs and I work but still. I’m over cleaning. I spend so much time cleaning. I do have a husband who helps as well but on the days he works he doesn’t get a ton done (works 3pm-3am). I’m over it. It makes my life miserable becuse it is never fully clean.
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Try cleaning as you go through your daily life, if you see something out while passing the kitchen, put it away, don’t say “I’ll do it after I watch an episode of my show”, mentally force yourself to do it
> I do have three little kids and dogs
Have you tried sending the kids to work in a coal mine?
Seriously, you’ve got kids. Your house is going to be a mess because kids are messy if you’re not chasing them around all day cleaning.
If they are old enough start teaching them to clean up after themselves and put things away when they’re done using them. That will help.
Depending on your location you can probably also hire someone to come by and clean once a week for a reasonable price.
I clean by doing a dramatic 2-hour panic purge every time someone texts “on my way.”
Also making a challenge/game for your kids to clean up and help you while gamifying a process might help you!
My wife and I constantly patrol the house in circles cleaning up after the kids and dogs. It’s perpetual. I work 24 hours shifts but have quite a bit of time off as well so I’d say the workload is pretty even. She’s more particular about things being cluttered so she will do a purge clean if she’s feel the ick about it. Give yourself some grace.. it does get marginally easier as the kids get older
I live alone with a single, short-haired dog, and I still feel like there’s always something to clean. I can’t imagine doing it with 3 little kids a husband doing shift work.
Five humans and a dog in one living space all you will do is clean.
It is time to get the kids involved
I made some personal finance decisions just a couple months ago to free up some $$ enabling me to hire a cleaning lady because I was unable to keep my house clean with my schedule. I didn’t want to spend all my free time cleaning but I still wanted a clean house.
I’m a single Dad (3 kids shared with ex) and a very active 8 month old puppy and I work full time. So I am there with you on the laundry. I’ve basically given up on pretending it will EVER be “done” and as for putting it away…I’m over it. If they want to organize and put their shit away they are welcome to it. I’ll get it clean/washed/dried but it’s up to them if it ever gets up to their rooms. I’ll do it for the youngest of the 3 (she’s only 8) but the older 2 (16 & 20) can put up their own clothes.
I canceled a couple of unused TV subscriptions, stopped drinking so much (that saved me $100/week), and hired a lady that comes once a month to give the house a thorough cleaning. She cost $175 for the 1st (deep clean) visit and $100/month for the monthly maintenance cleaning. She’s actually there at my house right now as I type this from my office at work. It was the best decision I made in regards to keeping a nicer home for me and my kids. Plus…when they see a cleaner/nicer house it encourages them to KEEP it that way. I’ve noticed a lot less crap gets left out and they are helping to keep the cleanliness maintained between cleanings.
For $100/month…it is DEF money well spent.
Just stop cleaning everyday and you will see that nothing terrible happens with your house. I know there are different systems like Flylady when you’re constantly cleaning by small steps but that’s too much in my opinion. Try to dedicate a couple of hours every week when your husband is at home to help and don’t bother the rest of the time. Also there are some useless activities like ironing, just don’t do them. As for laundry, I’m not sure what is the problem – it is a task for washing machine. If you don’t have a dryer, I highly recommend it. And then you can show children how to fold clothes and voila. But my main idea is stop bothering so much about cleaning and let yourself live at little (three children and a dog is enough chores itself)
If laundry is your struggle, you may hate this suggestion but my friend with kids does this. Clean bins in the closets and dirty hampers in the bathroom. So once clothes get washed, they go to bins in the closet where kiddos can grab and go. She’ll spend the effort hanging anything that’s delicate but nothing gets folding or really put away. The kids dig thru the bins to get what they want to wear and her oldest son has started hanging his shorts/pants on his own. (He asked for pants hangers recently because he doesn’t like when the pockets get wrinkled.)
Regarding laundry…aka: the bane of my existence.
A couple years ago I was SOOO fed up with laundry that I was about ready to just throw it all out and buy all new shit. But that was a fleeting thought because I’m not a crazy person, so I did something else.
IDK where you are, but if you have any local laundry-mats there is likely a “wash & fold” service available. It is usually rather inexpensive. I think it was about $1.25 per pound last time I used the service but the prices vary depending on the area. In areas with a lot of industrial construction going on and temp workers living in their camper/RV parks, there will almost always be several services like this available cheap.
I took 4 or 5 trash bags full of my kids clothes. They prob weighed 8-10 lbs each. All I know is that the total cost was around $60 or so. I dropped it off in the morning along with 3 empty rectangular laundry baskets. That afternoon on my way home from work, I picked up all the laundry baskets filled up with freshly cleaned and folded clothes all organized by general size. When I got home I gave the kids their laundry and told them to put it up.
Now that I think about it…that’s something I should prob do again soon. It was such a wonderful feeling having ALL their clothes clean at one time.
If it makes you feel better, nobody’s house is regularly completely clean unless they have a cleaner. You have 3 kids and a dog. Aim lower. Go for “not gross.” You’re meeting that mark.
I think it was Phyllis Diller who said “cleaning the house while children live at home is like shoveling snow in a blizzard.”
It is endless, and we all feel it.
Pay someone else to come clean it once every two weeks, other than that just use my dishwasher every other day and pick up after myself when I make a mess
Give the kids chores. It’s not a magic wand, but it helps.
So for some things, like the kitchen, I’ve got no ideas. Also, I have no kids or pets, so I may lack some perspective.
For laundry, my best idea is fold it while you do something else. My wife folds while we’re on the couch watching TV, using me as a shelf. I’ll fold and hang in the bedroom with a YT video on the TV. We’re still very behind on the laundry, but this keeps towels and important clothes washed. Another tip is put it up while you’re standing up. Sitting down is the enemy of cleaning.
For the living room, I got a Roomba. This helped me get the floor cleaned so the Roomba didn’t get caught on something AND it keeps the floor vacuumed. It took about a week of running it daily to see where it couldn’t go (I left the guest bathroom door open and it got wedged between the wall and sink) and seeing what it got stuck on to know what not to leave in the floor. Now it runs 3x a week and our floor has never been cleaner.
Two small kids and a dog here.
Stop waiting for it to get messy and start leaving a room a little bit tidier than you found it.
Honestly if you develop this habit it will legitimately change your life.
Also drill it into your children to start tidying up after themselves, absolute game changer. My eldest is four and she’s being doing it since about 3.
You don’t. You just clean continuously forever. This is what being alive is. It sucks, I’m sorry.
i stoped cleaning a few years ago (2?-3?) now i clean when needed, tf, i live there, not be here and not breath. thats life id say.
I have three kids, 3 cats, and a dog who enjoys shedding.
I have given up and accepted that I live in a perpetual disaster of a house.
Of course teaching kids to clean up after themselves is necessary, but thats not your only problem. Everyone in dual-income homes clean at least a little bit on the days they work. Your husband also needs to do more to help, work is not a good reason, sorry. (Also, just saw your comment saying he’s unbothered by clutter. Thats a problem, he needs to help you maintain a home that you want to live in. It really sounds like you are taking the brunt of the household maintenance.)
Even stay-at-home parents need time off to unwind too. Its an ongoing job that never ends, not to mention the mental load of planning what needs to be cleaned.
You need help, your husband can’t just be the extra mouth to feed and clean up after. If he’s working 12 hour days, then it should be reflected in the salary that pays someone to help you maintain the home. If not, then this job doesn’t seem healthy for your household.
The best thing that has worked for me in letting things go that used to drive me crazy as far as not having my house as clean as I’d like is getting sick. I had a craniotomy for a benign skull base tumor and even now may require another surgery as that craniotomy solved some problems and created others. I have let things go in my house and even with myself I never would have thought I could. I do not recommend this method at all but still wanted to share what worked for me.
Sadly I don’t
Maid 2x week
Honestly I’m super fast and just power through while listening to music. Some things like vacuuming, I do every day so I have a routine—do dishes, wipe out sink with warm damp rag, throw rag on floor and wash floors. Dry with a dry rag—throw both in washing machine. Drag out vacuum, take along a garbage bag and vacuum while putting items on floor and flat surfaces away (throwing socks, hoodies etc towards washing machine, and putting garbage in my garbage bag). Put vacuum away, grab my bathroom rag and clean all surfaces in bathrooms. Empty garbages and throw cleaning rags and damp towels and any clothes left in bathrooms in washing machine. Start the washing machine. Get something out for dinner. Go to work, throwing the garbage bag out on my way.
Honestly I do that in 30 minutes and I love coming home to a clean house. I fold laundry in front of the tv or while I’m waiting for dinner to cook most nights.
I have a Roomba on every floor of my house. It vacuums once ever day. I have 3 cats, so their litter gets scooped every day. I do laundry when I get home from work and my husband does the dishes.
I use the fly lady system (well, a simplified version that works for me).
My children are older and only have one teen at home, so much easier for me these days.
Having little kids brings a challenge in the house cleaning department, but try to just enjoy the time. You never know when the last time is of sitting on your knee, emptying the toy box all over the living room, the last scribble on the dining table, the last time the school bag is flung in the hallway or the last time they climb into your bed.
If someone could tell you a day and time for all of the lasts, you’d spend so much time enjoying the chaos.
Check out A Slob Comes Clean.
Her first book, How to Manage Your Home without losing your mind, is likely your best place to start. You can borrow the audio book from the library and listen to it while cleaning or driving.
(Her latest book is aimed at Christian women, but the earlier books and most of her podcasts are not religious. She may mention cleaning her house because her church group is coming over, just like she mentions cleaning because her son’s football team is coming over. But it’s not evangelical. So don’t let the presence of that title on her list turn you off).
One of the biggest things is just clean as you go and think of it as mental energy balance.
Take the extra 10 seconds to half ass something vs waiting until any one thing piles up and seems insurmountable to do it perfect.
The other piece is finding places for things, so you are not just cleaning by shuffling things around.
Another way to make the laundry less of a chore is to have less laundry.
Don’t change the toddlers shirt because she spilled milk down the front.
The after school play clothes get worn Monday through Friday. One shirt and shorts/ pants/ leggings for the week.
Same towel gets used (one per person) after the bath/shower for several days in a row. How many is seasonally dependent.
Summer pool time? Pool towel gets used snd hung outside until dry, does not come in to mix with bath towels until it really needs washing.
Anyone old enough to be changing outfits during the day needs to be doing their own laundry.
And remember, things like denim jeans are not supposed to be washed all that often.
I don’t have any advice, just that I have 3 kids too. The messes never stop.
Putting away laundry is a great starter job for kids. My 5 year olds put away their own socks and undies. They will try to put away shirts, but I have to be ready to go behind them and fix it. My 9 yo puts her own clothes in the drawers.
Everyone likes to toss dirty clothes into the wash, IF they can push the buttons 😄
I’ve finally learned. Do a little at a time if it’s hard to get going. Congratulate yourself for that part, sit down, sip a coffee, do next step. I reward myself for getting my chores done. Say, I can’t have a White Claw until I do this and that…
Also, once upon a time, I had a cleaning service,. I try to remember how great it felt to come home and everything was tidy. Or staying in a nice hotel and how fresh everything is. Making your bed can do wonders for your attitude. And I do despise waking up to a dirty kitchen so that’s a must-do for me. Takes practice. But when you know the good feelings you have for a job well done, you’ll want to keep it up.
I only have 2 kids and 2 pets, but I feel like laundry, dishes, and trash are the three chores that are constantly in need of doing.
Cooking is the queen of all, and as long as dinner is on the table on time, some messiness can be forgiven in my household.
I just do it here and there as I can. If I’m watching a show at night, I fold laundry while I watch. If my kids watch a bit of TV, I do dishes.
Trash and vacuuming get done weekly or biweekly.
Restroom cleaning twice a month or as needed at my house.
Don’t beat yourself up about not having a perfectly clean house. It’s okay to have a bit of a mess when you’re in the thick of it, raising kids and working.
Just try to tackle it when you can and assign achievable tasks to the kids.
Your house will be up to your usual standards when you are out of this demanding season. Just slow down and enjoy your time with your kids and husband. Maybe get them all involved and fold during TV time together or wash dishes/dry dishes together after dinner, listening to music and dancong some.
It’s like a stack of blocks that keeps gradually falling down. Just keep stacking one at a time when you can. Forget impossible standards. People live there, so it will never be like a magazine.
It’s the place you call home. You’re there, living in it, a lot of the time….the majority of the time. Try and accept the presence of life there
Have a time of day when certain things are “done.”
For instance, if you only do dishes once, and it’s after the evening meal, then that’s the time of day that the kitchen is clean–counters wiped, floor swept or mopped, trash out, spot checks done, room is done. And the snack dishes do not count even ten minutes later, because it was clean at the time of day that it’s meant to be clean.
I like my bedroom clean after I’m dressed. If I bring laundry baskets in there later in the day, and they sit there until the next day, that’s fine, because when I opened the curtains that morning, the bed was made, the dressers tidied, and it was a neat space.
Maybe your living room is cleaned up after the kids go to bed, when they are small, and maybe they help you clean it up before evening snacks, when they are older. Dog hair gone off the furniture, socks back in their owners bedrooms, books and toys put away, etc. For that five minutes, the room is done.
Laundry for us has hampers for each person in their room. In other years, one person did laundry, or everyone did their own as they learned how, until I did for two and the kids all did their own. Now, spouse has time to do their own, so usually we each do our own, and then whoever is doing theirs when the little hamper for towels in the laundry room is full, also does that. Laundry room gets cleaned up after the laundry is done, usually the next day, because we each have a few things that get hung up to dry overnight.
For the normal weekly cleaning, we do it on a certain day, with a schedule that works for how we use the house now, so a quick clean for most rooms of dusting and vacuuming, pet hair, and wet cleaning of any fixtures or appliances, and then a fussier cleaning of one room most weeks, doing under things and along the edges and behind things, dusting the ceiling corners, and wiping off the things that don’t need it too often but just now and then.
I actually made a little book for us for this house, including all the things that need attention once a year, seasonally, and monthly, so we can both remember.
I live on my own, but I clean as I go along. I hate leaving it all to build up.
Obviously with others in the house it’s easier said than done. 😅
I don’t have kids but I have 4 pets. I feel like I’m cleaning all the time too and at some point I just accepts days with the mess. It’s never ending. The one thing I will do consistently is vacuum though – if not everyday, it’s every other day, we’re a no shoes house and my dog sheds like a mf.
You don’t. You’re either not working and constantly cleaning or your house is always not fully clean. Or you have enough money to have a housekeeper. Or you adopt child labor and force your kids to constantly clean. I don’t even have kids and my house is always not fully put together. Like ever. So don’t feel bad.
I made the commitment to do all the laundry in one day. It really, really stinks, but it does give you six days of breathing space.
Don’t leave it to build up, clean it for at least one hour a day, it will always be clean
This is just what I found works for me:
I realized at one point I have 7 rooms to keep clean. Each room was assigned a day of the week. If it’s a day I don’t have a lot of time, bare minimum I focus on whatever room is assigned to that day for at least 15 mins.
Tuesdays is what’s supposed to be the formal dining room but it’s our room of random. It never takes me long to do that one and my husband is doing dinner tonight so I’ll get a jump on the Wednesday room, which is our living room. That’s mostly just getting clutter out and back to where it belongs. Even if the rooms the stuff go in are an absolute shit show, I put those items back where they go and those items only. I’ll worry about the rest of the room when it’s day comes up. Eventually you get on top of the cleaning so you can knock out a room pretty fast and do 2-3 in a night. Or do 1 and focus some time on a different random task (reorganizing a drawer or whatever). I always wipe down the kitchen and dining area after dinner to keep those areas in check
But if I clean my living room today and tomorrow if falls apart, it’s gonna be crazy till next week. It never stays “perfect” but it’s my best way of staying on top of things lol
Three kids! There’s just me and my spouse in the house and I clean some every single day, cannot imagine it with kids. I think I’d just designate one room a clean room that gets attention every day, maybe your bedroom, so you can mentally recharge in there and the rest are a work in progress.
I would bet a months wage that your husband is not doing his equal share….