I love a clean and tidy home. It makes me feel great and proud of my home… I love sitting in my home when it is shiny and gleaming. Enter reality – my husband works long hours and I work from home. I have my two young kids at home with me and it is usually a constant battle to keep up to date with all the household chores and keep it clean and tidy.
***Disclosure – this post is sponsored by Flinka***
When I am busy with being a mom and with my business ,cleaning takes a backseat and things spiral out of control. I know there are some women that just love cleaning their home and spend a lot of effort doing so. Now the truth is that while I don’t have a lot of time available to dedicate to being an amazing housewife even if I did I would rather spend my time doing something else… in fact anything else.
My all time favorite tip for keeping your house clean and tidy at all times is to get rich and hire someone full time to do all the cleaning. Once again let’s get back to reality where most moms, including myself, just don’t have the money available to do that.
Here are my top cleaning tips for moms that detest cleaning:
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Declutter
This may sound like something small but it is huge when it comes to cleaning! Remember the more things you have the more things you need to pick up and clean. If your kids have loads of toys chances are they will leave them all lying around every single day.
Spend some time minimizing and getting rid of all the things you don’t need. This will save you so much time and effort every day.
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Chores Lists
This is another biggie – don’t do everything yourself. Even if everyone else in the household works a full time job or studies full time it is essential for everyone to pull their weight. Each person must have some chores that are their responsibility – even the smallest member of the household can contribute.
Make sure to let each person know what their responsibilities are and what it required of them every day. Alternatively you can make a list of things that need to be done and let each member of the household choose what they do.
The end result should be that mommy is not the only one slogging away to keep the home clean while the rest of the household behave like they are staying in a hotel with room service.
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Daily Routine
Fit your household chores into your daily routine and stick to it. No matter how you look at it you can’t escape from cleaning your home. Always remember that the more regularly you clean the easier the job is. If you let things pile up then it very quickly becomes unmanageable.
Allocate a certain amount of time each day to get your cleaning done and stick to it. I love what I call the “dirty thirty”. When I get home from dropping my kids at school I time myself for 30 minutes. I work fast and I clean the worst things first. Getting this task out of the way first thing in the morning feels great and I can also start working in a lovely clean home which makes me more productive and positive during the day.
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Tidy/ Clean As You Go
One of the best things you can do to keep your home clean and tidy is to keep it clean and tidy. When you cook supper have water in the sink and clean your dishes and utensils immediately while you are cooking. If you spill something on the floor sweep it up or mop it up immediately. It will be easier to clean when you do it immediately plus if you clean it when it happens it won’t get walked through the rest of the house. It is amazing how the smallest little spill can spread and dirty the entire house!
Keep a cleaning sponge or cloth in the bathroom and give your basin, bath or shower a wipe immediately after using it.
Make sure to also teach your children (and husband!) how to tidy up after themselves. Make sure your children know to take their plates and cups to the kitchen as soon as they are finished with them – they can even wash them too.
In this way every member of the household is making the minimum amount of mess behind them. This means less work for you at the end of the day! It may take lots of time to teach your children good habits and to teach them how to do chores but in the long term this will pay off for you.
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Use The Right Products
There is no need to go out and spend a fortune on all sorts of cleaning products but if you spend some time researching the best cleaning products to use it can make the job so much easier. Anything that makes the job easier is a winner in my books.
For every job in your home there will be the best utensil and the best product to do the job. Do some research and try out some products to find what works well for you.
I recommend you try out Flinka products, a line of sustainable, reusable, household cleaning products, towels and sponges that are produced by a 100+ year old family manufacturer in Germany. These products are better for your home, for the environment and for your pocket.
The fact that they are reusable is excellent since we live in such a disposable era which is having a devastating effect on our planet.
My house used to be so clean all the time before I had my son and pets.
Recently I feel as though I rather be out the house than in it, mainly with this long weekend that just passed, I cleaned my house on Friday and tried my best to be out and about, today was back to work and holiday school for my little one and after work I get to go home to a clean house. My plan of action worked out splendidly.
I normally use bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and bleach for any cleaning in the household and no fancy brands as I feel they don’t give me the great results that I get from the home remedies.
I normally use the Scotch Brite brand for the sink scourers, and for my dish cloth, window wipes, shammy cloth and dusters I normally purchase the Pink ‘n Pay brand as they are much cheaper than the rest and last for a lengthy period.
I will look out for the Flinka brand on my next trip at the grocery stores. Will compare the prices and life span on these products to check which is best suited for my home.
Thank you for sharing this brand with us. 😊
I love the smell of a clean house. When you come home and open your front door and you have that fresh clean smell. I have no problem cleaning but when I have a little demanding one who will not let me move (this happens more often than I like), it becomes impossible. Also by the time I have finished I have not had time to sit down and enjoy it and my children mess it up. The worst is laundry, if you miss one pile of folding after you take it out of the tumble dryer, it is a long downhill from there (from on top of the laundry pile).
My two year old loves to feed the dogs so he does that and my older boys help with packing and unpacking the dishwasher. They do have other chores but they have mastered to ignore those. When my husband cooks I am literally behind him with a cloth cleaning up. Even if we are stay at home mothers we need the help and there is no shame in admitting that.