Do you find it challenging to maintain a tidy home? If you’ve young children, Another One Sweeps the Dust presents you some effective house cleaning tips for working parents.
As a parent, it can seem like an overwhelming task to keep the house tidy all of the time. Even after mopping your kitchen floors, sooner or later, there will be crumbs and spilled milk waiting to be cleaned again. The newly polished stainless steel appliances are filled with fingerprints again. How about your freshly cleaned velvet couch? Another stain is already present, right?
It is tough to be a working mom or dad and keep a spotless and well-organized home, but it is not really impossible. You can keep your house tidy even if there are dozens of children and pets running about all day long if you know how to handle things fast and in the least complicated way possible. Keep on reading to learn how to have a clean home, even if you are a busy working parent.
Best House Cleaning Tips For Working Parents
Your definition of a tidy home has likely changed dramatically after becoming a working mother or father. You used to put everything in its proper places, clean your floors once a week, and dust every surface, including the ceiling, on weekends before you had children. You didn’t leave crumbs in the couch’s crevices and took the time to arrange the pillow. You’re lucky if you get to sweep your floor every week now that you devote your time to work and taking care of your children, and you certainly don’t have time to mop it or give it a deep cleaning. This is probably long overdue.
But you just need to remember that this is just a phase of your life. There comes a time when this way of life will end. The constant cleaning of the kitchen floor and fingerprint removal from the walls are not needed anymore before you know it. Don’t let the imperfect state of your home cause you to miss out on the precious time you’re spending with your kids.
Your days are full of fun activities with the kids and necessary errands, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find time to keep your home in order. And that’s why it’s helpful to have some quick house cleaning tips for working parents with full schedules. You shouldn’t expect a perfectly clean house from these quick cleaning techniques, but they should get the job done in a way that is appealing and clean enough. Good enough is better enough for us now.
1. Clean One Area at a Time
Don’t try to accomplish all of your cleaning in one sitting. Spreading out your cleaning activities over the week if you skip a day or two and also reduce the time you have to spend cleaning each day.
You can allot 15 minutes to half an hour per day to cleaning if you divide your responsibilities between days, such as dedicating one day to the bathroom, another to the kitchen, and yet another to the bedroom.
2. Include the Kids in Simple Cleaning Tasks
Get your kids involved if they can assist you with the simple tasks appropriate for their age. Have the kids help you dust or unload the dishwasher while you clean the bedroom. Before you start vacuuming, ask everyone to help you pick up loose items and put them back in their proper places.
To a limited extent, even the youngest children may assist with light cleaning and organizing. You can let them put their toys back in the boxes. Make use of this to make a chore chart that will help everyone in the family understand their role in the household’s daily duties. This will help you a lot with cleaning, which is good practice for them.
3. Invest in Good Cleaning Machines
You might think buying expensive cleaning machines is absurd if you can do the work yourself. That’s definitely not the point. Cleaning machines like robot vacuums and dishwashers can help you save a lot of time. Why wash the dishes by hand for 20 minutes, 2 to 3 times per day, if you can just place them in a dishwasher for a minute and pamper yourself while waiting for them to get cleaned? Time is precious for most working moms, so investing in these cleaning machines is not a bad idea but a great one.
4. Put the Things Back in Their Proper Place Right After You Use Them
After using the coffee carafe and mug, put it in the dishwasher and when you’re done reading a book, place it back on the bookshelf. Putting things in their proper place is a simple habit that can lessen the time you spend on clearing the clutter around the house. Practice your children with this simple task as well so there won’t be piles of clutter everywhere.
5. Always Have Cleaning Supplies Ready
Always fill your cleaning caddy with the tools and supplies you need to clean your home. Make an inventory and checklist of what you need to buy the next time you visit the market. Having these tools and supplies on hand at all times will help you clean whatever things or areas you want to clean with easily.
6. Clean the Area That Bothered You the Most
If you keep seeing a very messy area in your house and it bothers you a lot, clean it first before anything else. Just try it first thing and see how much more relaxed the rest of your day goes. Once you get the hardest thing out of the way, the remainder of the day’s work will appear much less daunting.
7. Put Temporary Storage for Clutter
The messiest rooms can be helped by having temporary storage added to them. Rooms that become disorganized easily should have clutter containers installed. To maintain the appearance of tidiness in your home, you can simply toss items of clutter into the appropriate bins and hampers and then deal with them as you have time.
8. Remove the Shoes Before Entering Your Home
Aside from putting on a rug or mat on your door entrance, make it a household rule to remove the shoes before entering the house to lessen the amount of dirt and grime accumulation on your floors, especially for the carpeted ones. With this, you can avoid having very messy-looking floors or carpets. You can also install shoe storage so that it will look more organized.
9. Declutter from Time to Time
One of the best house cleaning tip for working parents is toss the things you don’t use anymore. You can donate the ones that are still in good shape and dispose properly of the broken items. You can give 5-10 minutes of decluttering every day before you go to bed. The fewer things you have, the easier for you to clean up. Less mess, less stress!
10. Do a Major Cleaning Every Month
Giving your house a deep clean is possible for busy working moms too! Just choose a day when you and your family are all present. You can ask them for help with cleaning or delegate tasks to get everything done quickly but efficiently.