Just popping on to share a very short little cleaning top tip with y’all. See, back before I had my second child, I was excellent at sticking to a cleaning schedule. And I still use that for a few things. However, life has gotten a lot more hectic (as it has for a lot of you, I’m sure), and so we usually don’t manage to clean on a schedule. But there is one thing that is so simple, but makes a ridiculous amount of difference:
Just pick things up off the floor.
For adults, try to put away anything that takes only a second to put away (make sure your coats are where they belong, your shoes in the tray, your bits n’ bobs are put away or at least not in a mystery pile, etc.)—you can always do it properly during tidy time. But, you know if you live with other people, children in particular, things just end up all over the floor.
Don’t have time to clean it up right now? That’s fine. Just pick things up. Toys, backpacks or bags, clothes…They can go on the table, the chair, the bed. Personally, we use the stairs, and the ‘trash counter’ as the main spots, but just getting things off the floor—anywhere—is helpful.
Again, this is different from just a junk drawer, in that the idea is that you’ll pick everything up, and put it away later—say during evening tidyup that same day.
I find that, when there’s a huge mess, if I just get things off the ground, it feels so much better. If I’ve been tidying the main floor, and my 3-year-old’s room, I’m not messing with my 5-year-old’s space. But I will put her things on her bed. I think it has to do with just having walking space, and maybe the visual clutter being limited to, say, just the bed, as opposed to every square inch of carpet.
I also find picking things up from the ground to be annoying (maybe I’m getting old), so doing it quickly all at once seems to help.
Anyway, that’s my top tip. We’ve been using it over here, and I gotta say, not stumbling on random stuff on my floors is certainly a mood-booster. I hope it helps you, too.
Good luck!
