How to Keep a House Clean

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It can be somewhat of a challenge trying to keep a house clean, especially if you live with several people or young children who are busy and getting into everything. I’m often complimented on how clean my house seems even with three kids under the age 6 running underfoot, so I thought I would share some of my tips and pointers on what I do to make sure that the place isn’t a disaster area most of the time.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Get Rid of Everything: Okay, well this may sound a little bit extreme. But it is true. If you get rid of everything, you don’t have very much to put away or dust and clean. We don’t have knick knacks on a coffee table. Heck, we don’t even have a coffee table. The kids have a few toys, probably more than I would like them to have. However, I usually purge through all of the things they get and either donate it or toss/recycle anything that is broken, worn, or missing pieces. It’s just a lot easier to clean up when there is not a lot of stuff you don’t use or need laying around everywhere. If you’re a packrat, this can be really hard to do. But once you get in that “simplified life” kind of mentality you’ll realize it’s a heck of a lot easier.

2. Establish a Routine: I try to keep a pretty consistent routine with the different household tasks I do. Obviously some days will be better than others and maybe sometimes I can’t always do my usual schedule. But by having a typical schedule of “Tuesday is laundry day” or my usual routine of doing the dishes right before bed is a good way for keeping the house a cleaner place.

3. Never Leave a Mess: Cleaning up after yourself seems like common sense, but most of the time if we get distracted or have a lot of things going on we might forget to put the peanut butter back in the cabinet after we made a sandwich or the kids might want to play with a different toy before cleaning up with the one they already had. By making a conscious effort to try and put things away as soon as you are done using them it will really help. (Note: Hopefully you already have some closet organization systems already in place for where things belong.)

4. Delegate: No one person can do all of the housework alone, unless maybe they are a maid and it is their full time job. (And even then, who is cleaning his/her house?) You have to delegate chores to other household members if you want to ever have a little time for yourself – otherwise they’ll be able to go enjoy everything and either your house will be a disaster zone or you will be stuck doing all the dirty work while they have fun, which can certainly add up a lot of resentment. Even young kids can have fun dusting or wiping down the bath tub, so getting them involved in it early will help them stick to it for a longer time.

5. If All Else Fails, Cheat: There will be times when you have unexpected company coming and you don’t have time to do a whole lot before they get there and arrive. When this happens, it is perfectly acceptable to cheat. Make the beds, light a richly scented candle to make the house smell nice and fresh, pick up everything off the floor and throw it in a box until you have time to return the items to their rightful place.  (Just be careful you don’t let it go for too long, otherwise you’ll have worse problems!

These are just a few of the things I do that help our house stay nice and neat. A lot of people cannot even believe that we have kids – many of them are people without kids who say my house is cleaner than theirs! If you do these few simple things hopefully you’ll notice not only a difference in how good you feel about your house but also how much more simple your life seems as well.