The Beautiful Life

Cleaning for Busy People

We’re on week 4 of the Practicing Hospitality book study over at Passionate Homemaking. This week is about getting organized, establishing a routine–learning how to manage your home, instead of letting it run over you!

One of the recommendations in the book was to work on keeping your house tidy, so that no matter who stops by, or when, you won’t be embarassed. For those of you who have known me very long at all, you’ve probably heard me talk about the book Scaling Down. It’s a fun-to-read, motivating book about how to make do with less. I read it at least twice a year when I need to be inspired to go and get rid of some stuff. I love the feeling of freeing up space in my home, of being able to bless another family with things that we don’t need anymore. With three kids ages 6 and under, someone is always outgrowing something. Regularly going through your stuff and getting rid of things that you don’t love or don’t use really cuts down on cleaning time. And that’s really important to this homeschooling, work-at-home mom. I love it that the kids can get out everything in the house and it only takes about half an hour to put it all back. That makes me happy.

I also try to get the kitchen cleaned up each night, while dinner is cooking, and then load the dishwasher. I set it to run in the middle of the night so that I can keep throwing stuff in there right up to bed time. We also do a quick pick up with the kids right before they go to bed. Then on Fridays, I run the vacuum and do a quick bathroom clean. I might also mop and clean windows if I’m feeling inspired. It takes me less than half an hour. Then on the weekends, I try to deep clean a room of the house if I have time. I love this schedule because all I have to do is remember my Friday morning cleaning and keep up with a few little things during the week, and my house looks pretty good.

Of course, we all have days when we are sick, tired or just need a day off. If you stop by on one of those days, I can clear a spot at the kitchen table and we can have some chocolate, because chocolate always makes everything better.