I promise, these daily cleaning habits are quick and easy!
Cleaning can be so dang overwhelming as a busy parent. I get it, I live it. I’m a SAHM/WAHM and have two young toddlers running around and another on the way. With a few habits and a simple cleaning schedule you can stay largely on top of your chores and make them a whole lot less painful.
Is my house perfectly clean and tidy? NOPE. I’m pretty sure it’s not even possible as a parent of toddlers unless you A- hire someone regularly or B- spend all your time cleaning. That being said… can my house be tidied in less than half an hour? YES. It’s clean, but lived in. Ya’ll know a toddler tornado can empty bins upon bins of toys in half a second flat.
There’s also a big difference between clean (think dusty/dirty) and tidy (think toys everywhere). I do not doubt that someday we will truly miss these tiny toys when our toddlers are all grown up and off being independent, angsty teenagers.
So… what can we do to keep things clean and tidy in less time with less effort? Implement a bunch of these daily cleaning habits! Pick and choose those that work for you. And once you’ve nailed the first few, add a couple more until you feel content and on top of your chores.
Contents
11 Daily Cleaning Habits
If it only takes a minute or less, do it.
Let’s walk through some examples:
Hang up your coat. Put the shoes in the shoe rack. Hang up the backpack. Put away the sweater, Put the blanket back. Close the dang cupboards. Start the dishwasher. Empty the lunchbox. Wipe up the spill. Put the keys away. Put your dish in the dishwasher.
Doing these as they come up prevents you from spending 15-20 minutes at one time doing all these tedious tasks.
One load of laundry a day
I know there a bunch of ya’ll who love procrastinating laundry or doing it all on “laundry day” (and that’s great if it’s not a source of stress for you) but for me, a load of laundry a day keeps the laundry depression away.
I habit stacked this chore with brewing coffee so without even expending an ounce of energy my body dumps a load of laundry in while my coffee is brewing. What else am I doing besides sleepily staring at the pot anyways?
This is particularly efficient for stay at home parents or work at home parents because you can find a minute to flip it during the day and then you can put it away when you have a break or at the end of the day.
It’s a little more complicated for the parent out of the house all day, or in a big family situation where multiple people are doing multiple loads a day as you can’t hog the machine. In these scenarios maybe it’s more helpful to throw a load in as soon as you get home from work or as you begin cooking dinner.
Wipe the kitchen counters/surfaces
The kitchen is the most highly used, highly messy room in most of our homes… especially for us stay at home / work at home parents where every single meal is eaten at home.
Keeping clean, uncluttered counter tops goes a long way and is a valuable daily cleaning habit.
15 minute daily clean
Set a timer, remove all distractions and GO! It’s amazing what you can accomplish in 15 focused minutes.
You can grab my busy parent cleaning schedule in this post here.
Make your bed
Maybe climbing into a bed with messy sheets and rolled up blankets doesn’t bother you? If that’s the case, skip on by this one. For me, there is no better feeling than climbing into a crisply made bed at the end of an exhausting day of parenting. It’s undeniably worth the minute of my morning.
Stay on top of dishes
Easier said than done, I’m well aware. There’s nothing more daunting than an overflowing sink of dishes so I try my very best to keep the dishwasher loaded and dishes washed and set to air dry.
One thing that really helps me with this is the kids each have one wooden hand wash plate – forcing me to clean it after each meal so it’s ready for the next.
Sweep the kitchen
Kids are notoriously messy eaters. Add in pets and snacking spouses – well, kitchen floors are pretty gross. Sweeping the kitchen is a valuable daily habit in keeping a clean home.
Put clothes away
In my personal opinion it’s pretty pointless to fold toddler clothes when they love to empty drawers. Just toss them in the drawers and be done with this chore!
Sort mail
My personal least favorite task and one I do my best to delegate to my husband! Thankfully it’s not his nemesis so we are able to work together to go through the mail daily.
Clean up clutter
Have a cupboard or place for everything. Use labels. Donate donate donate! Sell. Re-gift. Host clothing swaps. We live in such a materialistic society, but research shows clutter is STRESSFUL.
Learn to minimize. There are so many resources to help! One of my favorite places to start is with Diana Rene – The Decluttered Mom.
Catch all box for kid clutter – they put away or you donate it.
Do you have kids who leave things out all the time? Implement the kid clutter box. At the end of the day pick up the forgotten, abandoned items and give your kiddos one chance to put them away or else it gets donated. You’ll see them start to respect their things or you’ll simply have less stuff to put away next time…
Summary of these 11 daily cleaning habits to keep household overwhelm at bay:
- If it only takes a minute or less, do it.
- A load of laundry a day keeps the laundry depression away.
- Wipe those kitchen counters
- Daily 15 minute C L E A N
- Make your bed
- Do your dishes
- Sweep the kitchen
- Put the clothes away
- Sort the mail
- Clean up clutter
- Start a kid clutter box – they put it away or you donate it.
Which one are you implementing first?
