April 12, 2021
Think You Don’t Have Time for a Cleaning Routine? How to Find Time When You Think You Don’t Have It!
Do you feel like starting a cleaning routine would be nice but that cleaning routines are for…..people that are home all day, people without little kids, and/or people who have a traditional schedule, or for people that are super organized. Not for you. I totally get that and remember that feeling. I was teaching and working a second job when I decided that cleaning all day Saturday wasn’t working. Our little apartment, exhaustion, and piles of laundry reflected that it wasn’t working. What changed? I started to re-think HOW I was approaching homekeeping. Instead of thinking of it as something I dreaded and a thief of my precious weekends, I decided that I needed to figure out a better way to keep our home clean all week long.
pictured: Glass Spray Bottle | Color Coded Cleaning Spray Bottle Bands | Aqua Bar Mop Towels
Twenty+ years ago, the Clean Mama Routine started to take shape. After tweaking it through different homes, jobs, and with kids of different ages and stages, I started to share it online in 2009. Now? Hundreds of thousands of families have found success with the Clean Mama Routine. My goal? To reach more homes and share how you CAN do the routine when you’re tired, exhausted, over-worked, and busy. Not sure how to start or where you can possibly find the time to make a bed let alone clean a bathroom? You’ve come to the right place!
If you think you don’t have time for a cleaning routine, but you want a clean house and are frustrated with HOW to get there, you need to start small. Little daily habits that slowly form into a routine is surprisingly, what will get you there. Here are three simple ways to help you get started. Read through them and choose something that resonates with you. Try it and see how it feels. Do it the next day, and the next, tweak and make changes. Keep going and with a little effort and consistency, you’ll be the one with the clean house 🙂 Make sure you read all the way through for links to other helpful posts and for my new Guide to a Flexible Routine.
DO ONE DAILY TASK
Too tired, overwhelmed, unmotivated? Choose ONE THING you can do. Instead of getting stuck in what you didn’t get done, think of what you DID get done. If you are too exhausted to even choose something, have your MVP pre-chosen. Just do that ONE THING. For me, it’s the Daily Task of WIPE COUNTERS.
pictured: Days of the Week Towels | Glass Spray Bottle | Premium Bar Mop Towels
SET A TIMER FOR 10-15 MINUTES
If I’m feeling unmotivated or only have a small window of time that I can clean something, I set a timer for 10-15 minutes and get what I can get done, done. I don’t stress about the list, I do what I can. Have 10 minutes and a lot of clutter scattered through the house? Grab a laundry basket and fill it with the stuff that’s out. Or see if you can do a couple Daily Tasks in that 10-15 minutes. Surprisingly, most cleaning tasks don’t take as long as we think they’ll take, it’s the putting them off that just makes them worse. This post has a whole list (and a free printable) of things you can do in about 5 minutes – keep it somewhere for those days when you have a couple minutes and a mess that you don’t want to deal with. If you have the Daily Tasks down and are ready to add the Weekly Tasks, you can set a timer for 10-15 minutes and get what you can get done for your Weekly Task.
START A LOAD OF LAUNDRY
This is a Daily Task, but just getting a load in the washer and going can make a big impact. Get a load of laundry started and if you want to, do the day’s Weekly Task while waiting for your laundry to finish washing. If you have a speed wash option, use it and race it to get the Weekly Task done and maybe a Daily Task too.
SET UP A CLEANING ROUTINE THAT WORKS WITH YOUR SCHEDULE, NOT AGAINST IT!
Looking for more? Check out these posts!
A Manageable, Realistic Cleaning Routine for Any Schedule
Cleaning Routine Hacks When You Don’t Have Time to Clean
Nathalie Says
You probably hear this so often that you are tired of it but finding you and implementing your daily task and weekly task routine has changed my life.
I have no idea how it is that I spend LESS time on housework but live in a home that is cleaner than it has been in years. Most days, by the time my family rises all my chores for the day are done and I’ve enjoyed my first coffee on the back deck. Keeping the house looking like this is a snap… how is this different? I guess it’s the compartmentalized and one-thing-at-a-time approach to housework. Way better than the buckshot approach I’ve been trying to get to work where I’d do a little of this and a little of that and the next thing I knew nothing was done and the place looked worst than when I started.
Take for example cleaning my windows. It took me the better part of a week to do the exterior and interior windows but working top to bottom, left to right in whatever pockets of time I could find and before I knew it the job was done!
Anyways, I could go on and on but I’ll leave it off here and just say thanks for all you do.
Clean Mama Says
Post authorAw, love this Nathalie – thank you for following along!