How to Keep the House Clean as a Busy Mom

As a busy mom, you're always one laundry basket behind and often have to cram cleaning the bathroom, dusting the blinds and driving to dance lessons all in the same hour. However, there are several ways you can squeeze in some housecleaning around your normal activities. Here are some ideas to stay on top of the housework and stay sane in the process.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Clean the bathroom and the kids. Spend some quality time with the kids, get them clean and enjoy a clean bathroom all at the same time. Put younger kids in the tub and toss in some bath toys. Since you must be in the bathroom with the kids anyway, pull on the rubber gloves and clean the toilet, sink, floor and mirror. You'll never be more than a step away from the tub. Let the kids play with the toys or engage them in a story, song or basic conversation. After the bath, it's easy to finish the bathroom by cleaning out the wet soapy tub.
2. Use family baskets. To control general clutter, purchase a medium-sized storage basket for every person in the family, even mom and dad. At a certain point every day (such as before dinner or before turning on the TV after school) set out the baskets in the room you want cleared out. Everyone spends 5 minutes blitzing the clutter in the room and putting each object in the right basket. At the end of 5 minutes, everyone grabs their basket and puts the contents away. This can be done in several rooms at different times of the day.
3. Learn laundry management. The key to keeping up on laundry is simple--keep up. Start at the source--actually getting the clothes washed. Pick two times a day to start and transfer a load (such as in the morning after everyone has showered and again right before you go to bed). As the load comes out of the dryer, fold it quickly and put it away. It takes 15 to 20 minutes each day to keep up and keep consistent, which beats spending 2 to 3 hours conquering the pile of half-dirty and half-clean clothes on the laundry room floor.
4. Clean one piece at a time. Pick one small space to clear out once a week for 20 minutes. A small space might be the top of the refrigerator, the arts and crafts cupboard or the top dresser drawer. Combine this time with something else pleasurable, such as calling a friend, listening to some favorite music or quizzing your child on spelling words. Soon, you'll have lots of small clean organized spaces throughout the house.
5. Assign older children a "Room of the Week." On the first day, go through and clean it with them, showing them what you expect and the steps to get it that way. They are responsible for that room for the rest of the week. As the "inspector" you can assign points towards an allowance, special outing or other reward. Switch rooms as needed.
6. Clean kitchen mess as you go. It's easy to prepare a meal and leave out all the ingredients, pots, pans and utensils. To cut cleaning time in half, use something and then put it away. Dunk the dirty pans in hot soapy water while you assemble the meal, then do dishes while it bakes. Stack dirty utensils in the dishwasher just before washing your hands to set food on the table. After dinner, cleanup is merely the dinner dishes.

Tips & Warnings

• Another idea is to deep clean just one room per day. The idea is that once cleaned, a room will not be too bad off by the time its cleaning day rolls around again. This beats spending all day cleaning the house and having it become all dirty again at the same time, creating another all-day cleaning event.
• Never leave young children alone in the tub, even for a moment. Collect all your bathroom cleaning supplies before bath time.

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