Make it Easier in 2026!
I have four children. And as David is told in the film “Love Actually”, eight really is a lot of legs. It’s a lot of shoes on the end of those legs and lots of coats too. Clothing in general actually, if I don’t get at least two loads of washing on every single day then I am positively doomed. And with those eight legs, shoes, coats and clothes comes all the “stuff” belonging to four children (and two adults let’s not forget). It’s the toys and the books, bags, football and rugby boots, craft boxes, dance gear, hockey sticks and swimming stuff for practically a whole gala’s worth of entrants! There are tiny little bits of plastic everywhere in this house too; in the form of dolly shoes, building bricks, board game pieces… Oh And that’s before we’ve even thought about the digital stuff; the computers, tablets, mobile phones and their chargers (although to be fair, mostly the chargers seem to hide themselves) and with my now 16 year old in her GCSE year, there’s always a work book (or twelve) on the dining table, coupled with flash cards and pens and pencils not in a pencil case!
My house is a mess!
And I don’t want it to be…
But… I’m no rookie, and after 16 years of parenting, I have built some tips and tricks for making the weekly re-set and clean, work smarter, rather than harder for me!
Here’s how:
The tidying is the toughest part, but you can’t even begin to clean until the decks are cleared! So, while I will never understand why plates get put on top of the dishwasher instead of inside it, and my rule of “one toy out, one toy away”, is never adhered to, I have ways to get ship shape regardless, with my weekly deep(er) clean day lasting only a couple of hours, instead of a full time slog!
Firstly:
- Arm yourself with the right tools
It’s all very well dabbing a duster around while using hard graft to deep clean the floor, tile grouting and lime scale in the bathroom (anyone else use an old toothbrush? Trust me, it is no longer the way forward)! Let’s take a load off here. Very have all the home essentials you need to gather the arsenal required to make this stuff a doddle.
Think storage (and I like to make that work for me as well as the kiddos)! We don’t have a dedicated playroom, so we do need a kids toy storage unit that as a dining room doesn’t look out of place. When I want the room habitable for guests to sit at my table, and can’t impractically shun the toys to another room, I can, instead, have them put away (by me, of course) somewhere that gives pleasing for the aesthetic, as well as working hard at doing its main job (housing the clutter)!
Any storage unit has to be easy to use and put those toys and games away with ease, it also needs to be easy to clean and well made (because children are not careful). I think we’ve created just the right balance with ours!
And when I talk about cleaning… The aftermath of the tidy, you need good tools there too, because this is not a jolly, this needs to mean business and get it done fast – WHO has time to spend hours shifting limescale by hand?!
Two words: STEAM and MOP! (And can I just say, errrrm, BRILLIANT!)
A steam cleaner is absolutely the way forward and my steam mop multi tasks so while I could have been on my hands and knees with chemicals, spraying right, left and centre as I scrub the tough bits (that still don’t shift), instead my steam cleaner glides over the strongest of clinging on lime scale, sprints through a dirty floor to make it sparkle (as an upright it works a dream), and with this one, it adapts and can be hand held to get to spot on places too. OH. MY. GOODNESS. It has literally changed cleaning day for me – effortless and over and done with before I’ve had time to think how much easier it would be if I could employ a cleaner and be done with this menial chore that was never in my manifest (before the kiddos come home from school and immediately undo my not so hard work)!
Secondly:
- Employ practical challenge
Could I spend all day going over and over, finding every last crumb, mark, streak or top that needs a dust? The answer is yes, absolutely! I can get completely consumed with it all, become thoroughly overwhelmed and start doing 45 tasks at once. I begin something, see another thing that needs doing, start that too and before we know it nothing has really been done and everything is mid clean. To combat this I give myself challenges. I will assess a room, eye up how much needs addressing and offer myself damage limitation if I’m on a real shoe string for time.
Things like:
Bed doesn’t need changing today, leave that, and leave the only half full bin too!
And then I decide what does need to be done, maybe:
Windows need an inside clean, vacuuming is necessary, anti bac the sides and air the room for ventilation.
Next I give myself a time limit, maybe 10 minutes, and off I go.
It’s a challenge then, to get all the room’s designated jobs done within my time frame! I find this method actually rather enjoyable and not only that, it really does spur me on and instead of procrastinating throughout, I get the stuff done! Tools help, the right mind set too, but knowing you only have a certain amount of time before you will have to stop really does get that room clean!
Cleaning can be overwhelming and feel fruitless when it seems to take an age and nothing ever really looks pristine. I used to have to just lick and spit and do the necessary because I felt I never had the time to thoroughly do anything but since employing these simple tricks and tips, it really does ace that feeling of it being a proper deep clean, every single week!
And one more thing:
Though I do love a day when the whole house gets blitzed, even if it is in record time, I do also like to try and do one big things every single day. Cleaning one cupboard in the kitchen out is totally manageable before work, before bed, fitted in any which way but deciding to do the whole lot is usually very unmanageable without allocating a whole day and making it a big thing. Little bursts of cleaning throughout the week also help me keep on top of it all. Jobs I know I will want to do before I clean the whole house at the end of the week, like emptying all the swing bins from the bed rooms and bathrooms, can be done in one swoop the day before as I notice them all filling up!
Then it’s time to stick a wax melt on, sit down with a cuppa, and, usually in my case, wait for the next washing load to finish so that I can hang it out after transferring the last load to the ironing pile, the ironed clothes to the drawers and the newly deposited lot from the linen basket into the machine which is the hardest working thing in this house (thankfully now, it’s no longer me)!
Collaboration.
Follow