Keeping on top of cleaning and organizing your home can be difficult. Especially if you have kids, pets, and a busy schedule. This is an area that I always used to struggle with, and I’m still not perfect! I thought that keeping a clean and organized house would take hours of work each day and I was completely overwhelmed by the idea.
I began observing friends and family members and reading countless blogs to learn the secret to maintaining a tidy house. What I realized is that there is no secret but instead a set of common habits that require very little extra effort.
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Keeping a Clean House Can Be Effortless!
That’s right! I learned that keeping a clean and tidy home could actually be effortless! But it is an ongoing journey and it requires developing a set of new habits. I have compiled a list of ideas that I use daily to make cleaning our house manageable and effortless. Keep reading to learn 23 tips that will help you always have a clean house.
1. Start Your Day by Making the Bed
In my search for ideas on how to always keep a clean house, I came across one habit that almost everyone agreed on: make your bed every day. I didn’t think something as small as making our bed could make that big of a difference.
I didn’t see why I should make our bed every morning when no one goes into our room anyways, and it was just going to get unmade again at night. But when I started making our bed in the morning, I realized that it really makes our bedroom look so much cleaner and it encourages me to keep the rest of our house tidy.
2. Enforce a No Shoe Rule
When no one wears shoes in the house, you will cut down on the amount of housework you will need to do. Less dirt and dust will be tracked through the house, so you will need to clean less often.
Taking off shoes will not only reduce the amount of dirt that is tracked in, but it will also reduce the number of toxins and other harmful substances. Our shoes track in chemicals from the asphalt, herbicides, pesticides, and bacteria from public places such as restrooms.
If you like to wear shoes in your house, you can use house slippers or a new pair of shoes that are only ever worn inside the house. Check out this website for more information on why you should institute a no-shoes policy.
3. Deal with Clutter
Clutter makes your house look messy right from the start. Before you try any of the other ideas in this blog post, go through each room of your house and declutter. Get rid of anything that you don’t use or that you have multiples of. Make sure everything in your house has a dedicated place.
Clutter affects productivity and causes the brain to feel unfocused. When you keep a clean space and make sure everything has a dedicated place, it helps reduce time trying to find things and makes putting things away quicker and easier.
I find that keeping our house clutter-free is the best way to keep it from getting too messy. A clutter-free house makes cleaning SO much easier and less overwhelming! In fact, when your house is clutter-free, it will likely look clean to your guests even if it’s not clean. That’s a huge benefit of decluttering for those of us that hate cleaning!
4. Clean in Quick 5-10 Minute Bursts
Tidy in 5-10 minute bursts right before bed and right before you leave in the morning. That way you wake up to clean house and come home to a clean house. You can involve your kids in this to multiply what you can get done in the cleaning burst.
When the 5-10 minutes are up, stop immediately. Having a time constraint will help you to be more likely to get started cleaning and it will help you to become more productive in the time you have.
5. Keep Flat Surfaces Clear
Keep your countertops and tables clear. These areas tend to be magnets for clutter. Only leave things on your counters that are essential items. Then make sure everything else has a spot in your pantry, drawers, or cabinets. When your countertops are clear, it makes the whole room look cleaner, and it becomes much easier to wipe surfaces down because you won’t need to pick things up.
Wipe down your bathroom counters and kitchen counters daily. It is a quick process because you won’t have built up messes on your countertops. It also makes your bathroom and kitchen look so much cleaner.
6. Enforce Toy Free Zones
If you have children, you know that kids’ toys end up left in every room of your house. This makes your house look cluttered. I tried instituting toy-free zones in our house, and it made a big difference. The toy-free zones in our house are the kitchen, bathrooms, and the master bedroom. My daughter is not allowed to bring toys into these spaces.
Instituting this rule has made a huge difference in the number of toys that are lying around at the end of the day. It also makes it easier for my daughter to clean up her toys because she can find them quicker.
7. Take Care of Paper Clutter
I recently organized all my paper clutter. It took me 10 hours! Now I organize papers as I get them, and it is so fast. Every day when I get the mail, I sort the mail before I even get out of the car. I throw all the trash away immediately and file anything that needs to be filed. Having paperless statements is a huge help with having fewer papers to go through.
8. Never Leave a Room Empty-Handed
Make it a habit that every time you leave a room you take a few things with you to put away. This reduces the amount of clutter you will have to deal with at the end of the day and ensures that your house never gets too cluttered to concentrate.
Whenever you get ready to leave a room, scan the room to see if there is anything you can take with you to put away in another room. For example, before leaving your bedroom, you may see a cup of water that you can take with you on your way to the kitchen or socks on the floor that you can throw in the laundry basket.
9. Follow the 5-Minute Rule: Clean and Organize as You Go
One of the best tips I started using was if it takes 5 minutes or less, do it now! This has saved me so much time. Instead of things piling up and making huge messes, I clean little things as I go. If you don’t keep on top of the quick 5-minute tasks, they will quickly add up to an overwhelming mess.
Whenever you come to a task that you can complete in 5 minutes or less, you should do it right away. Don’t hesitate or tell yourself you will do it later. Finish the task then and there. You will be surprised how effective the 5-minute rule is for keeping your house clean and organized with minimal effort.
Keep a list of 5-minute chores so any time you have a brief period of downtime, you can tackle one of those tasks. Some ideas of 5 minute chores include dust mopping floors, unloading the dishwasher, emptying trash cans, organizing the shoe rack, wiping down counters or mirrors, etc.
10. Use the One-Touch Method: An Essential Rule to Always Have a Clean House
The one-touch method is another great rule to adopt. The rule is that when you go to put something down, make sure that you put it where it belongs, that way you will not have to pick it up again later. Setting items aside to deal with later only leads to clutter.
When I came home from work, I used to leave my shoes at the door, throw my purse and bag on the table, and put my coat on the back of the chair or on the couch. This would not only make our house look cluttered immediately, but it also wasted my time because I would have to go back to all those places to clean up my things. Now I try to remind myself to use the one-touch method and put things where they belong right when I get home.
I think about this rule any time I am tempted to put something down where it doesn’t belong. When I change my clothes, instead of throwing them on the floor, I either put it in the hamper or I will hang it back in my closet if it wasn’t dirty. When I get the mail, I sort through it immediately instead of putting it in a pile. When I am getting ready in the morning I put my things back in the bathroom cabinets right when I am done using them instead of leaving them on the counter.
You can teach the one-touch method to your kids as well. Explain the method to them and how it is helpful. Model how you are using the one-touch method and how it saves you time and makes it so you don’t have to clean up large messes later.
11. Use Baskets to Help You Clean
If you want to keep a tidy house, you need to think smarter instead of working harder. No one has time for walking around in circles. When you are cleaning, keep a divided basket with you to put the things that are laying around your house. I have a basket with 3 sections in it. I choose categories for the three sections based on what is laying around the house at the time. Categories could include your children’s bedrooms, bathrooms, the master bedroom, the laundry room, the kitchen, etc. When you categorize everything as you pick it up, it makes it really easy to carry the basket to each room to put things away.
Before I started using this basket, I would pick things up, and when my hands were full, I would deliver each item to the room it belonged, sometimes going to multiple rooms, and then I would repeat this process until everything was put away. What a waste of time!
Using the basket saves a lot of time. I also use the 3-section basket when I am decluttering a space. I will use a section for things that need to be thrown away, things that need to be donated, and things that need to be put elsewhere in our house.
12. Put Laundry Baskets and Trash Cans in Strategic Places
If you notice that laundry or trash is piling up in certain areas, place a basket there to contain the mess. I recently came to the realization that my daughter needs a laundry basket in her bedroom because her clothes always end up on the floor instead of in the laundry basket in the laundry room. I also put a trash can in her room for the same reason. If you have an upstairs, keep a basket by the stairs for anything that needs to go upstairs so you do not waste time walking up and down the stairs every time you see something that needs put away.
12. Keep Your Cleaning Supplies in One Basket
Carry a basket of all the cleaning supplies you need for every room of your house, so you do not need to waste time walking back and forth to get what you need. You can also carry a trash bag to dump all the little trash cans in so you don’t need to walk back and forth to the main trash can.
13. Keep a Donation Bin and a Return Basket
I keep a tub in our garage to put items that I want to donate. When the tub is full, I will drop off the items at the nearest donation center. If something needs to be returned to a store, I put it in a bag with the receipt and put it in my trunk so that while I am in the area, I can easily return it. I also do this with items I need to return to friends or family. If it is in my trunk, and I happen to be going to visit them, it’s already in the car and I am more likely to get it back to them in a timely manner.
14. Clean While You Cook
When you are cooking, you will find there are seconds and minutes where you are just waiting. You may be waiting for meat to defrost, water to boil, a pan to heat up, or something to finish cooking in the oven. These seconds and minutes are dead time, and dead time adds up. Utilize all the dead time you have and put away ingredients, empty the dishwasher, rinse dishes, etc. I even pack the next day’s lunches while I’m cooking dinner. That way I don’t have to clean the kitchen twice.
When I started cleaning as I cooked, I was amazed to see how many tasks I could squeeze into those little chunks of time. By the time dinner is ready, I have a nearly clean kitchen so when we are done eating, it only takes about 10 minutes to finish cleaning the kitchen.
Read my post on how to always have a clean kitchen for more tips and tricks to keep your kitchen clean while you cook.
15. Use a Garbage Bowl
One way to keep your kitchen cleaner while you cook is to use the garbage bowl method. I used to constantly walk back and forth from the trash can to throw scraps away. And I would inevitably drop pieces of food on the floor on my way. I find that keeping a container on the countertop to throw all my food scraps and other trash in saves me a lot of wasted steps and helps keep the floor clean.
16. Deal with Dishes Immediately
Don’t let your dishes pile up. When I even have a small pile of dishes, it seems to grow exponentially as I procrastinate cleaning them. When you wash your dishes immediately, they are so much easier to wash because the food is not crusted on. Always start your dishwasher after dinner, unless it is still relatively empty. Then take time to empty the dishwasher before you go to bed, so you have an empty dishwasher to start the next morning. I find when I start the day with an empty dishwasher, the dishes do not pile up in the sink, and I can continue to have a clean kitchen.
17. Let Your Cleaning Products Do the Work for You
Spray and let it sit. For surfaces that you need to scrub like a stovetop or shower, spray those areas in each room and then go back to the first room you sprayed to start wiping the surfaces down. Giving the cleaner time to sit will save you lots of scrubbing time.
18. Keep Your Floors Clean
We have ceramic tile in our kitchen, dining room, and bathrooms and dark laminate flooring in our living room and hallways. Mopping is by far my least favorite cleaning task. It takes forever and within a day or two, the floors look messy again with footprints and food crumbs.
If I quickly dust mop all the hard floors it makes them look much better and it only takes a few minutes. I only vacuum our bedrooms once or twice a week, but when I do, I will take the vacuum and go over all the hard floors too. Vacuuming the hard floors is much quicker and is more effective than sweeping with a broom because a broom just seems to spread the dust around. Keeping the floors dust-mopped enables me to get by with mopping less.
I currently have a robot vacuum on my wish list. This will make keeping the floors clean even easier. Although I’m not sure what my cats would think about it!
19. Have a Cleaning Schedule to Easily Maintain a Clean House
Find a realistic cleaning schedule and give yourself time to let it fall into place and become a routine. Have a routine for daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning tasks. It is also helpful to plan your movements so you can avoid jumping around to different tasks in a room. I like to clean top to bottom and in a clockwise motion around the room.
For my daily cleaning schedule, I like to clean by chore instead of by room. For example, on Mondays, I clean mirrors, counters, and toilets, on Tuesdays I dust, on Wednesdays I vacuum, etc.
20. Involve Your Family
Keeping the house clean and tidy should be a family affair. You should not be the only one tasked with keeping the house clean. Divide the cleaning tasks between you and your spouse to lighten the burden. Also, take the time to train your kids to help you. Read my complete guide to how to get kids to do chores for more tips and information on involving kids with chores.
From a young age, kids can be taught to make their own beds, tidy up their bedrooms and bathrooms, put their toys away, empty the washer and dryer, sort clothes, clear off the table, etc. This not only will help you but will help your children develop the habits they will need to maintain a tidy household when they are adults.
21. Make Cleaning More Enjoyable
I like to listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks while I am cleaning. If I’m doing a 10-minute speed clean, I like to listen to fast-paced music to help me work faster. When I am doing something that takes longer like folding laundry, I like to listen to podcasts or audiobooks. Having something to listen to, especially something that is helping me learn new things, really makes cleaning more enjoyable.
You can make cleaning more enjoyable for your kids to. Check out my list of 21 games/activities you can do to make cleaning fun for kids.
22. Minimize Cleaning Supplies
I had no idea how toxic my cleaning products were. I used to have a cleaner for everything, including separate cleaners for mirrors, toilets, showers, the stovetop, the floors, wood furniture, etc. When I realized how toxic these cleaning products were, I began transitioning to “natural” store-bought cleaners, then homemade cleaners, and then finally to Norwex cleaning supplies.
I still use natural/homemade cleaners for the shower and toilets, but other than that I use 2 Norwex cloths to clean my entire house. This by far has been my biggest time saver! I carry around a damp Envirocloth and leave a window cloth draped over my shoulder. I use only water and these two cloths to clean my mirrors, counters, appliances, cabinets, tables, and other wooden furniture.
23. Don’t Expect Perfection
I have always been a perfectionist, and it REALLY bothered me when I couldn’t make our house look perfect. This perfectionism made me procrastinate because I was looking for the perfect method to make my house look clean. I finally came to the realization that done is better than perfect. If you always try to be perfect, you’ll never get anything done.
Be Persistent. You’ll Have a Clean House Soon!
Keeping a tidy house is a process. If you are like me, you have several bad habits that are contributing to your untidy home. Now you need to work on developing habits that help you keep a tidy house. But we all know bad habits are hard to break and good habits can be equally as hard to develop. It’s all a process, and it will take a while. Take it one step at a time and be patient with yourself. In time, you will have a clean and tidy house that is easy to maintain. What are your favorite cleaning tips that help you to always have a clean house?
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