Hello and happy Thursday friends! Today I wanted to share with y’all some of my mom hacks for keeping a tidy home. Everyone want to have a picture perfect house for all of their holiday decor! (Hello Instagram photos!) That along with guests and family coming over for parties, gatherings, celebrations and other events, you want to keep your home in tip top shape.
I’m not going to claim that my home is perfect in any way. Friendly reminder that I have a four year old daughter and 15 month old son! Oh and that son is currently in seek and destroy mode about 95% of the day. There is so much stuff around our house that always seems to make its way into our kitchen and living room aka where we spend most of our time.
Instead of telling you an awesome weekly cleaning schedule or sharing how to start your spring cleaning now, I’m going to share with y’all 4 simple tasks that my husband and I do every evening to help keep our home feeling tidy and put together for the next morning!
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Mom hacks for a tidy home.
1. Clean all dishes in the sink.
Don’t stress yourself out about constantly doing the dishes as soon as one is dirty. Just make sure that before you go to bed, all the dishes are either washed and put away or in the dishwasher. This saves you a headache of trouble come morning when you have a million things on your to do list.
I’ll also admit that I don’t really do the dishes in my house. My husband is a rockstar and heard on the radio (years ago) that in happy marriages, the men do the dishes. Since then he’s been our dish guy. I cook and he cleans up. If you can convince your husband to do this, I highly recommend it. Teamwork makes the dream work and it really does make everything come together faster.
2. Pick up the kids toys only once or twice a day.
I have given up on cleaning toys up all day! It gets exhausting with my tornado toddler who is sure to grab exactly what I put up. If a huge mess is created downstairs in our main living area, I’ll clean it up right away. Otherwise, just wait until after they go to bed and put them all away at once. You can also pick up during nap/quiet time and when they go to bed for the night if the mess is getting too big or it gives you anxiety. Constantly cleaning up after them all day is going to wear you out and frustrate them.
Moral of the story, let them play and don’t pick up because they’re likely to get everything out again.
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3. Clear off the counters.
This is a big one for me. Crisp, clean, uncluttered counters are dream worthy. Am I right? Unfortunately, that’s not really the life I live. Things are constantly being placed on my counters toys, mail, art work, cups…so many cups, and more. (Please tell me I’m not the only one with so many cups each day?)
Obviously the cups get pushed to the sink to be cleaned, but everything else needs to go back to its home. Art supplies in the cabinet, toys in the bin or back upstairs, books on the shelf, mail read and stored or tossed, trash in the garbage can, etc. If something doesn’t have a home, I usually wonder why I have it in the first place and it ends up getting trashed. I’m all for getting rid of the clutter!
Once my counters are cleared, I feel like a new woman! P.S. This usually only takes a couple of minutes!
4. Quick vacuum around kitchen and living area.
This one is simple and easy. If you have a robot vacuum, which I highly recommend getting (we have the Bobsweep that is currently on Groupon for only $174.99!), just run it during the day when you’re out of the house. If you don’t, I recommend just doing a quick once over in the kitchen and living room to pick up unwanted mess from dinner and the day. That way you’ll start with cleaner floors in the morning!
With two kids and two dogs at home, I run our BOB during the day and still vacuum up quickly after dinner. So much dog hair and food crumbs all over the place!
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It takes 10 minutes.
It may seem like a lot, but I can assure you that it takes me about 10 minutes to get these mom hacks for a tidy home done. I usually do it after Brody goes to bed while Chloe is starting to wind down. Like I said, JP jumps in and helps with the dishes and putting away toys, and I usually do counters and floors. Even when I don’t have his help, it takes 10-15 minutes and I wake up with a tidy home.
I’m not claiming to have the cleanest home, but a tidy home is important to me. I don’t want it to look like a tornado came through every day! Plus when I get these 4 things done before bed, I feel accomplished and like I can relax for the rest of the evening!
What are your tips for a tidy home?
Is there anything else you do each day to help you keep it all together?
I love this! I totally agree that it is helpful to remove the clutter, but only focus on cleaning up toys a few times a day. Otherwise, you are spending all of your time just picking up toys!
Yes! I feel like I used to just walk around behind my daughter cleaning up after her. Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot and changed my ways when baby 2 came around!
This was helpful! Now that I am a mom of an almost two year old, sometimes your not sure how to keep thing tidy or even decent. I am a very clean person so my clean is totally different. But doing this daily can easy my anxiety a bit lol!
Oh girl I can totally understand where you are coming from! I’m a very clean person too and feel the need to keep everything in my house that way. Unfortunately, that’s not the season of life we’re in, so I’m compromising to keep my sanity!
These are great easy cleaning tips! For me, the key is minimalism. Previously, I was going mad trying to keep everything picked up and clean. I got rid of pretty much 85% of everything and it’s been so much easier!
That’s amazing!
Thank you for sharing these hacks! It can get quite overwhelming when it comes to keeping the house clean when you have children. I never know where to begin and I feel like as soon as I get one area cleaned then some other area is a disaster. This gives me a few tasks to get done each day to keep the house together without feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
I’m so glad that you found these helpful! I felt the exact same way as you. With little ones, we live in a phase of life where we don’t expect to have a perfect home, but you want it to feel at least tidy! I hope that you’re able to implement them or find your own version that helps!
I feel that clearing the counters and the coffee table are key in my home. As well as giving the couch a good fluff. I agree you can accomplish a lot in 20 mins.
Yes! As soon as those surfaces are cleaned it feels like a new space.
i love this kind of useful article ,it’s help us in our life , thanks for share
You’re welcome! I’m glad that you found it helpful!
Great post! The toys things is real. I started picking them up at nap! Not worth it. We do it after she goes to bed now LOL
That’s how I started too and now it’s not worth it until after bedtime. They literally just pull them right back out.
This is sounds like my routine! I love having everything in place for my mornings! Love it!
That’s awesome! Once I started this, I haven’t looked back. It’s been so helpful!
Loved this post! We keep things really minimal around here which helps with less to clean up! Thanks for putting this together!
I try to do these same things everyday too and it really does make a difference! Thanks for sharing!
Great tips! Thanks!
I completely agree with you on all these tips. My kids get older so they do a great job at doing the dishes every day! And clean counters…that is a MUST for me! All day long though. It makes me feel better even if there is stuff everywhere. I do have a three year old so he is in the pull toys out everywhere stage so I leave those until evening.
I can’t wait until my kids can do the dishes! That’s amazing.
I feel like once I clear the dishes in the sink they just pile back up! Lol it’s a never ending cycle but I does feel nice for those few minutes of nothing being in there.
I know what you mean! I’ve been leaving them for the end of the day instead of constantly doing them throughout the day. Then my husband is home and helps so it goes even faster!