Wish you had a clutter-free, clean home all the time? Trying to figure out how all those Instagram girls seems to have their stuff together and not piles of mess throughout their home? Let’s chat through 14 secrets to keeping a clean house.
We just wrapped up our 30 Day Declutter Challenge where we purged and organized our entire home. Going through an area and completely transforming it is an amazing feeling, isn’t it?
You no longer feel stressed out each morning because you can’t find the shirt you planned on wearing or can’t find your keys as you’re about to leave. And you love not continuously tripping over toys, shoes and stacks of paper because everything is now organized and has a home.
But will it last? Yes!
However, like most things, you can’t just set it and forget it. There is a bit of upkeep to a clean organized home but if you follow these simple tips, it won’t be too hard!
14 Simple Secrets to Keeping a Clean House
1. One Touch Rule
This is one of the most important secrets to keeping a clean house when it comes to keeping the clutter at bay. Only touch an item once. How does this work? Here’s a few examples.
You go out to get the mail. Rather than throwing it on the kitchen counter to only grow into a giant mound by the end of the week (or by the time you get to it), go directly near a trash can and sort it. 90% of the items will likely be discarded (junk mail, flyers, catalogs, etc.) so you can immediately take care of a good chunk of it.
Any magazines you get can be immediately placed in their home, which we discussed during the living room week along with some great beautiful options for magazine holders.
Take care of bills right away rather than added to a pile to tend to later. File other important papers once opened.
Yes, getting the mail could turn into a 10-15 minute activity when you factor in opening it all up, hopping on your computer to pay a bill or heading to your file cabinet to put away an important paper. But wouldn’t that be better than sifting through 100 pieces of mail at once when you’ve let them pile up?
This way you’re not dreading the activity all week, tripping over a growing stack of papers or missing deadlines. You pick up the mail once and put everything in its proper home.
Here’s another example. You pick the kids up from school and you all come storming in the door, hungry and ready for dinner. Rather than kicking shoes off and leaving them in the middle of the room, leaving jackets, hats and mittens on the floor and lunchboxes in backpacks on top of the outerwear heap, touch each item once.
As shoes come off, put them in their place. Maybe it’s on a plastic mat to dry off from being in the snow or immediately into their respective basket.
Each of my kids have their own basket of shoes that’s easily accessible to them — even as early as 3 years old they could get their own shoes and put them away without my help!
Hang up jackets right after you remove them. Bring lunch boxes right to the kitchen and wash them while backpacks get hung up.
You only touch each item once and put it away to its home rather than wasting extra time and energy picking them all up at the end of the day!
2. Leave the Room as You Found It
This particular secret to keeping a clean house can be more of a difficult task if you have kids, but getting them involved in the process helps! When you leave a room, look around. Are there toys out? Is the book you were reading on the couch? Did you use a blanket that’s now on the floor? Put it all back where it belongs.
Make it a habit to check the room before you leave and put it back the way you found it. Then when you’re in the room the next time, you won’t be overwhelmed by the clutter or mess since everything is back in it’s proper place.
3. Start the Week Off With a Clean and Clutter Free Home
One of my favorite secrets to keeping a clean home is to start the week off clutter free! Every Sunday I make sure to clear all the clutter from our home to start the week off right.
Most weeks I start upstairs in the morning while I’m getting the kids ready for church and make sure laundry is put away, toys are picked up, books are where they’re supposed to be, and my own bedroom and bathroom are neat and tidy.
Then in the afternoon, I tend to the main level and basement. I make sure our kitchen island (which is the most prominent spot for clutter build-up) is completely clean of any papers, projects or odds and ends.
Then I double check my office to make sure bills are paid, important papers are filed and there’s no build-up there.
I redistribute toys that accumulated in certain areas and make sure each kids’ bins are full of their toys and not each others. Check through areas that seem to get messy and annoying and make sure everything is taken care of.
If you start the week of with a clean home it’ll make it so much easier to keep your house clean!
4. Clean as You Go
One key secret to keeping a clean home is to clean as you go instead of waiting until your home looks like a bomb went off! Yes, this sort of means you’re constantly cleaning, but when it just becomes a habit you won’t look at it as cleaning.
Heading to your kids room and notice their sweatshirt lying on the ground? Grab it and bring it with you. Waiting for a pot of water to boil for dinner? Wash a few dishes.
Clean as you go so you don’t have 100 tasks to do all at once!
5. Have a Place for Everything
This one is super important. Everything in your home needs a place to live. This will make everything so much easier!
If your scissors live in an organized drawer in your kitchen, not only do you know where to find them but you know where to put them back when you’re done!
I notice that when clutter starts accumulating it’s time for me to find better homes for my stuff or organize the home it lives in.
6. Make Your Bed Every Day
As the saying goes, “the state of your bed is the state of your head.” So do you want to feel like a hot mess every day? Nope!
Making your bed every day will help you start your day off on the right foot. It’ll be a quick reminder that a simple task that takes just a few seconds can make a big impact.
7. Go to Bed With a Clean Sink
After you finish dinner or your nightly glass of wine, wash it and clean out the sink. This way when you wake up in the morning, you’ll enter a clean and tidy kitchen and not a sink full of dishes!
8. Go to Bed With a Clear Counter
This one takes a bit of effort but once you do it, you’ll feel like a million bucks! Start clearing off any clutter that started accumulating as you get ready to make dinner. Put away papers, throw away junk and put toys back where they belong.
Make sure as you wind down for the night that everything is put away and nothing is left on your kitchen counter that shouldn’t be there!
9. Pull Out the Laundry Basket Once a Week
And no, not for laundry! We all know that clutter and stuff just ends up in the wrong place in your home. Once a week, pull out the laundry basket and walk around your home. When you spot something that doesn’t belong in that spot, put it in the basket.
After you’ve gone through each room and have filled up your basket, put it all away! Get the kids involved if you have them and make it a game. Time yourself to see how fast you can get everything back to the correct spot. Pretty quickly everything will be put away and you’ll be done!
10. Do a Little Bit of Laundry Every Day
One secret to keeping a clean house that I recently learned is to do a little laundry every day. We all know how awful it can be when we are presented with 8 loads of laundry to not only clean but also dry, fold AND put away. If you do small loads every day and just make it part of your daily routine, it will be much more manageable!
I recently read that doing small loads on quick wash is just as effective as larger loads on your regular wash cycle. You won’t use as much water and your clothes will still get clean (trust me, I’ve been doing this for a while now).
Get in the habit of throwing in a load each morning and putting it away each evening.
11. Set a Timer
Have a few extra minutes in your day and want to tidy up a bit? Set a timer! It can be easy to start cleaning only to get carried away and not stop for an hour (or more). This can be great if you have the time but can also derail you from other tasks like cooking dinner!
Set a timer for 15 minutes and tackle one area. If you finish early, great! If not, stop and move on. You can always come back to it at a later point!
12. Stick to a Cleaning Schedule
Create a schedule and stick to it! Maybe every Saturday you clean the bathrooms, each Sunday you vacuum, and Wednesdays you wash the floors. Whatever it is, make it manageable and stick to it!
Check out my printable weekly cleaning schedule! It’s got great tips and a sample schedule you can use and adjust to your needs.
13. Get Help!
Sometimes the best thing you can do is get help! Maybe that means getting your spouse or kids involved or maybe that’s hiring someone to come once a month or so.
There’s nothing wrong with getting a little help!
14. Make It FUN!
Lastly, make it fun! One of the best secrets to keeping a clean house is making it enjoyable. Blast your favorite tunes, make a game out of it or reward yourself with a piece of dark chocolate after a less than enjoyable task. The more fun you can make it the more likely you’ll stick to it and have a clean home!
That’s it! I hope these 14 secrets to keeping a clean house help you!
Want more cleaning tips? Head here to know how to clean your white Converse sneakers, or learn the best way how to wash your down jacket or tips for how to wash a weighted blanket.
Want more organization tips? Check out one of these!
Kitchen
- How to Organize Your Kitchen
- 7 Kitchen Pantry Organization Ideas
- Spice Storage Ideas
- 13 Kitchen Products to Get Organized
- 16 Genius Under the Sink Organizing Ideas
Closet
- How to Purge Clothes and Organize Them (Expert Tips!)
- 11 Places to Sell Your Clothes for Cash
- 6 Tips to Sell Your Clothes Online
- How to Organize Your Shoes
Bathroom + Linen Closet
- Bathroom Organization
- Organizing Your Hair Products
- How To Organize Your Makeup Drawer
- How To Organize Your Linen Closet
Living Room, Storage Room + Garage
Kids
- How to Organize Toys (& 12 Toy Storage Ideas)
- 7 Genius Ways to Organize Baby Clothes
- 25 Lego Organization Ideas
Misc
- Entryway Drop Zone Organization
- 14 Simple Secrets to Keeping a Clean House
- 7 Genius Home Organization Hacks
If you want to do a 30 day declutter challenge, get a free guide here!
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Love your tips! I must have at least 2-3 dozen Books on decluttering, organizing, cleaning, household schedules, and minimalizing! Your tips are fantastic! I am trying to figure out a way to save this page on my iPhone because I went to refer to it time and again!
Thank you so much! You can always bookmark this page to easily come back to it whenever you want!