The Busy Working Mom’s Guide For A Clean Home

Every working mom struggles with keeping  a clean home. It doesn’t have to be difficult. Use this guide for a clean home to help you make decisions on what to clean daily.

Is this your normal day? You’ve come home from work, exhausted. As soon as you step into your home you notice stuff everywhere. Toys, mail, dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, clothes on the floor. You put down your purse and start clearing a pathway. After a few minutes, you give up. It’s now time to start dinner.

Who has time to clean? Working mom doesn’t have to mean messy house.  Follow along for 5 tips to speed up cleaning and eliminate that let down feeling when coming home from a long day’s work. The busy mom’s guide for a clean home will help you to accomplish a cleaner home in less time, read on.

Narrow Your Focus

Concentrate on your main living spaces. The kitchen and family room should be your main focus. Or perhaps other areas see more traffic in your home. Be sure your focus is on the two main living areas that require daily attention.

By keeping these areas clean and tidy on a daily basis, you will feel less overwhelmed when entering your home after a long day.

The Ideal Time To Clean House

The following tips could be broken up into different times of day. It just depends on your schedule and energy level. Some moms have more energy in the morning. Use whatever time frame works best for you.

In creating a cleaning schedule that actually works, I give some pointers that may be helpful when scheduling time to clean.

Clear  The Clutter

Grab an empty basket. A laundry basket is the perfect container. Pick up any items that don’t belong. Toys, clothing, mail, anything that has another place then your main areas. Then take the basket to the kitchen table and have the family claim their stuff. Then they can put it away. But sometimes it is easier to just deposit the items in respective places yourself. Yeah, I know, we are not teaching the children properly with this technique. Pick your battles I say.

Your home is already resembling some sense of order with this first step. It didn’t take all the long. Just a bit of effort can be quite effective.

Tackle The Kitchen

There always seems to be dirty dishes in the sink. Utilize your automatic dishwasher. It is not so automatic if is not loaded and unloaded daily.

Make it a habit for all family members to put their own dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

Even the littles can put their dishes in. Don’t worry so much about placement. The big idea is to get the dishes out of the sink. Plus it is helpful to you as well as teaching little ones that in a family we help each other.

Fill the kitchen sink with warm, soapy water. Place any pans in that need to soak. Use this soapy water to wipe down kitchen counters, stove and table.

While preparing dinner, the sink of soapy water is a good place to stick dirty utensils to either rinse for putting in the dishwasher or go ahead and wash.

Wash A Load Of Laundry Daily

The two most important items to keep clean, are those that will accumulate. Dishes and laundry seems to grow incredibly fast if not done daily. Dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom take the same amount of effort whether done daily or weekly. So prioritize your chores.

To multitask, throw a load of laundry in to wash while you are clearing the clutter and cleaning the kitchen. Let your machines do the work while you do the manual labor. If you do this daily, the laundry will not pile up. Keeping the laundry to a minimum will  lessen your week end work load. No more mount washmore if done daily.

Use A Cleaning Caddy

 Having a cleaning caddy makes it much easier to go from room to room to clean. Plus it helps to keep all your favorite cleaning supplies in one place.

I found my cleaning caddy at Home Goods. It is a white metal container that is so pretty. Anything that is pretty makes cleaning better. With a cleaning caddy, you are not backtracking to retrieve cleaning products.

I keep an all purpose cleaner, my vinegar spray for cleaning windows, a microfiber cloth or two and floor cleaner in mine. I just grab and go.

I believe in spray bottles whenever possible. Just spritz, wipe and go. How easy is that?

I consider using a microfiber cloth instead of paper towels to clean, a better alternative. The microfiber cloth provides enough of an abrasive so that I don’t need a stronger cleaner.

Cleaning Floors

Always check with your flooring’s manufacturer on the preferred method of cleaning your flooring.

When I have more time, I do a squirt and mop along with my Swiffer wet cloth to quickly clean my laminate floors. Again, I use Method for my floor cleaner. The almond scent smells fresh. Using a squirt bottle cleaner on my wood laminate floors, helps those Swiffer wet cloths go a little further. Therefore, helping keep costs minimal when using the disposable Swiffer cleaning cloths. I only use one per cleaning now that I have found the squirt and mop cleaner.

I have also discovered these wipes that clean electronic screens. They remove dust and fingerprints. The electronic screens stay dust free longer. A plus in my book for the extra cost.

Clean From Top To Bottom

Gravity is your friend when it comes to cleaning. Always clean from the top such as tables and counters. Once that is done, vacuum or sweep the floors. Dust and crumbs seem to find their way to floor regardless of how careful you are not to brush them to the floor.

So, remember clean top then bottom.

These are my 5 tips to a busy mom’s guide for a clean home. It’s basically breaking down cleaning to a manageable list of daily cleaning. I find that if you use these five tips, you will cut down on your cleaning time.

Isn’t that we all want?