Okay, so I’ve been a housewife for the majority of my married years. Andrew and I have been married for over 11 years, and I only worked for two of them! I never thought I’d just be a housewife and stay-at-home-parent, but here we are. I enjoyed working when I did, but once I had Gerrit, I knew I wanted to be home with my kid(s) in those early years. Part of being at home all day, in my mind, is taking on the bulk of the housework. And over the years I have tried many different things for staying on top of it. It wasn’t until the past couple of years that I finally found something that worked for me! I’ll share in a separate post what my cleaning schedule looks like, but these 5 tips have really helped me:
Consider Your Phase of Life
When we first got married, I had oodles of time on my hands. We had just moved to a new country, I was giving myself time to get settled before looking for a job, and I probably could have had the cleanest house ever. I had OODLES of time. But I also didn’t have a clue how to keep a clean and tidy house. I stuck to a cleaning schedule here and there, but I struggled to stay on top of it. The thing about this phase of life? You don’t really realize how much time you really have.
Next I moved into two-full-time-workers phase of life. When Andrew and I were both working (and sometimes had different work schedules), we cleaned minimally during the week. When we didn’t have weekend plans, we did heavy cleaning on the weekends or did panic cleaning before we had people over to socialize. It worked because it was just the two of us. I don’t think things ever really got deep-cleaned, but the house was usually fine.
Then there’s mom-of-a-newborn phase. I realize that there are some newborns that are blissfully easy to care for: they eat quickly without spitting up, they sleep easily and for long stretches, and when they’re awake, they’re perfectly content to lay and look around. I’ve heard stories of moms of newborns who don’t know what to do with themselves because they have a lot of free time on their hands. Then there are moms like me: your newborn wants to nurse around the clock, they spit up a lot so you’re always changing clothes and bedding, and don’t you dare put that baby down: they will loudly protest. If you are like me, housework falls to the bottom of the to-do list. This is survival mode. In this phase of life, you are not allowed to get down on yourself for the state of your home. You’re keeping a tiny dictator alive, and that’s all you can handle. If you get a pocket of time and your energy is there for cleaning, I always say just get the dishes and laundry done. Keep it simple.
When you start to catch your breath and move into mom-of-young-kid(s) phase, I feel like you can start to tackle a cleaning schedule. Sometimes. There will still be times when someone is sick or the toddler isn’t sleeping again, and then you slide right back into survival mode. Back to just dishes and laundry. And that’s okay.
I’m in a phase of life where I’m getting large chunks of time to myself for the first time since Gerrit was born. Gerrit is in 2nd grade and in school 5 days a week, and Berend is in preschool doing 3 full days a week. It’s been nice to really feel on top of housework and decluttering for the first time… ever!
You may find yourself in the working-parent phase of life. I haven’t been here yet, but I imagine it’s a mix of survival mode and weekend cleaning phase. You do what you need to do during the week (which is probably fine, because your kids likely aren’t home during the week either), but you tackle bigger tasks in the evenings or on the weekends.
Whatever phase of life you’re in, accept it and do your best with it. If you have a lot of free time, take advantage of it! If you’re stretched super thin? Be okay with just-the-basics cleaning or see if you can hire someone to help (I’ve been there).
Declutter
It’s all well and good to go into a cleaning plan with high motivation and good intentions. But take a look around first. Are you really ready to clean… or do you have way too much stuff laying around?
I first seriously decluttered after reading Marie Kondo’s book. This book really was “life-changing” for me. I looked at decluttering in a completely different way, and I purged seriously for the first time. This big declutter happened before our move to Texas in 2016, and it was definitely needed since we were downsizing. But I continue going through phases of accumulating and purging (kids seem to need a lot of stuff), and I’m getting better at knowing when I need to do a good declutter.
During Andrew’s 2nd deployment, I wanted to do better with keeping up with the housework. I decided I wanted to hire someone to come clean the house for us. It seemed a little frivolous, but I knew from deployment #1, that keeping up our home AND keeping up with our boys (5 and almost 2 at the time) on my own was challenging. So we agreed that we’d hire someone to come clean just the main rooms of the downstairs (kitchen, living room, dining area, half bath, & hallway) every other week, which left just the upstairs and our office (aka “room of shame”) for me to deal with. Besides the actual cleaning (which was ah-maaazing!), the best thing I learned about having a cleaning service was the importance of decluttering. They couldn’t clean quickly and effectively if there was stuff everywhere. Having to declutter the night before the cleaners came was annoying, but it was necessary and became a good habit.
So is your house ready to clean? Or do you have some decluttering to do? If you have a LOT of decluttering to do, just start with your flat surfaces (floor, countertops, tables) so you can do some cleaning and feel accomplished.
Know Your Cleaning Style
I’ve read the books, watched the YouTube moms, read the blogs, and tried the Pinterest things. I’ve had chore charts for myself, daily schedules, and times of completely winging it. What I’ve learned? What works for me might not work for you.
My mom would tell me about my grandma always having her daily task housework: Mondays are for laundry, Tuesdays are for floors, Wednesday is bathroom cleaning day, etc. I think this works really well for some people. It’s easy to remember, and it’s just one day of whatever chore you have to complete. Once it’s done, it’s done until next week.
Then there are the room-by-room people. These are the ones who tackle a whole room at a time: dust, vacuum, wash, scrub, etc. This is also a great method; once you’re done with the room, you’re done!
Some people don’t do much daily cleaning at all. They prefer to set aside a day or two to deep clean. I’m sure deep cleaning means different things to different people, but I understand it to mostly be room-by-room… but you’re doing EVERYTHING in that room. Top to bottom, dusting ceiling fans, wiping baseboards… methodically working through rooms until everything is cleaned up or they run out of time/energy.
And then we have combo people: you tackle x chores every day, then do a few y chores from a list. This way you’re staying on top of maintenance cleaning but also moving through a list of bigger jobs or just seasonal tasks. If you’ve heard of FlyLady, this is pretty much what I think of as her method of cleaning. She tackles daily tasks but adds in zone cleaning as well. I know a lot of people who love this method and highly recommend it!
Finally, we have me. I’m calling myself an ADHD cleaner. I have found that I’m very easily overwhelmed by cleaning (something I really don’t enjoy doing). If there’s a long list? I probably won’t do it. If there’s a whole room? Nope, I can’t do all of that… it’s too much. So how do I stay on top of it? Divide & conquer. More on this soon.
Keep it Simple
Whatever type of cleaner you are, keep it simple. Just one room, just one task (like dusting the whole house), just a short list of things. Unless you absolutely love cleaning, you probably won’t want to do it if it feels overwhelming.
I choose to keep it simple by only having three or four items on my to-do list each day. The tasks I choose for a day depend heavily on how much free time I’ll have, who will be home with me, and how high priority my tasks are. As soon as things on my to-do list aren’t getting done, I know I need to reevaluate.
Time Yourself
Do you ever find yourself putting off a household chore, a cleaning task, or an errand because of how long it will take? If you’re nodding, you may be like me in that you really don’t know how long things take you to do. One thing I always put off doing is going through the house on Sundays (garbage day is Monday) and collecting the trash from the small bins in the bathrooms. Guys… it takes me less than 5 minutes to do this. We have three bathrooms on two floors, and it’s honestly a very quick chore to get done. When I remind myself of that, I’m way more likely to just get up and go do it. Because then it’s done! I can check it off the list. So next time you have a chore that you’re always putting off, set a timer and see how long it really takes you. You may be surprised at how little of your time it takes up and find the motivation to just get it done and out of the way.
I hope these 5 tips are helpful for some of you! Something else I thought I’d share is something that I want to improve on with housework:
Deep Cleaning
Guys, I hate cleaning. I mean, not as much as I used to, but it’s still not something I look forward to doing. Getting into a cleaning routine has been wonderful for my maintenance cleaning. But I still have those things I should probably be cleaning once a month or once/twice a year. The last couple of years, I’ve done fall and spring cleaning. And it’s a LOT. I usually start out strong and fizzle out over the course of it.
So now I’ve gone so far as to break it down even more… my current plan is to tackle the downstairs (the main living space) in my Fall Cleaning & Spring Cleaning and then go through our bedrooms and upstairs bathrooms in winter & summer. Stay tuned to see how that works out for me. When do you do deep cleans? Do you schedule them or just get the urge to do them?
On An Even Kiel 