Tips for Keeping Your Home when Tidiness is just not Your Thing

I don’t know how you feel about personality types or gifts or the foundation of habits our parents instill in us–but some of us get dumped out into adulthood without a knack for keeping a tidy home. We just do. And that especially stinks when you are the primary keeper of your home. As a woman, it feels lonely in the land of a messy lifestyle as it seems most of my peers seem to get a thrill from organizing or deep cleaning. That’s just not me.

But I do appreciate the peace that a well-kept home affords. My husband does too. And even the kids play more creatively and intently when they have open space to do it in. So let me be clear: I LIKE a tidy home; I just lack the skills/gifts/traits that make achieving such a status natural for me.

So, of course, it’s either sink or swim when you’re an adult and a parent, so it may not be pretty, but I’ve found a few ways to keep my head above water here in the ocean of my kid-ridden home. And of course, because we non-tidy moms often feel alone in our lack of home-keeping skills, I’m sharing some practical and spiritual tips with the handful of you who will find me on the internet and connect your slobbish spirit to mine. Solidarity, sister! So here are my tips (they’re heavy with the words at the beginning, but I promise they lighten up if you stick around for the end;)

Cultivate the Self Control to get Energized in a Reasonable Amount of Time.

So I reach a state of overwhelm right about halfway through the day, just as my three kids all go down for naps (bless them). But everything in me wants to ditch the lunch dishes and just take a nap too.

And when I admit this to other moms, I am so often encouraged with grace. They tell me to shed the guilt and just take the nap. Sometimes I need to hear that, but often, I know the difference between me genuinely needing some rest and me just indulging in laziness for too long. Me catching up on the sleep that motherhood called me away from in the night and me mindlessly, fruitlessly scrolling through my phone in bed are just different animals. (I don’t know about you, but most of the time–I CRAVE a nap, but can’t actually fall asleep as I think about all I need to do.) So, I pray for discernment and conviction to know the difference.

But also, it helps to KNOW what actually helps me reset, get energized and get into the work. So maybe that’s allowing myself fifteen minutes of phone checking (that’s fine, but I need to set a timer and keep to it!), then maybe a cup of coffee and a treat help me to push through the midday fog (again, having the self control to not let that time linger longer than it needs to is key.) Or maybe a 20-minute workout is what I need to get moving (energy sure does beget more energy, I’m learning. Do not underestimate those endorphins!) If I haven’t opened God’s Word yet, even just five minutes in it helps to set my mind on what’s eternal rather than all these earthly things. Whatever the case, do what you need to do to have a rest and gear up for what’s overwhelming you, don’t feel guilty about the controlled amount of time you’ve given yourself to do those things, but then roll up your sleeves and get into it.

Know your WHY.

My six year old is a master at unloading the silverware, but today he was complaining about it the whole time. “Why is this always only my job?” he laments. “It always interrupts my fun!” (I love when kids perfectly articulate out loud exactly what we feel in our hearts but know better not to say! LOL) So I said something like, “I get it, man. And me, too. I do not like having my fun interrupted for housework either! I wish you or your brothers could do my jobs sometimes instead of me.” Here is where I make eye contact with him, “I don’t love doing the dishes but I love the people I’m doing them for.” And I see him look up into my eyes and shift his head to where his little brothers are playing and I know that he gets it, too.

Another encouragement I’ve given him that seemed to click well in his mind was: “When I do a chore, I lift the burden of that chore for everyone else in our home, allowing them to do something else with their time. That’s love, bud. That’s loving someone more than I love myself.”

For me, a few more “why’s” that I keep in my heart are:

Shout out to the Risen Motherhood podcast for this one–Restoring order to our homes is a microcosm of what God is doing all over Creation. Sin makes a mess of what He created to be good, but He redeems it. Here, there–He masterfully and joyfully restores order. He cultivates Christlikeness in our broken souls. If I can just dwell on that spiritual parallel–that I am reflecting my Father in the keeping of my home, it tends to get my heart set in the right place.

Scripture says, “Let the man who does not work not eat!” Life isn’t meant to be comfortable, easy and entertaining. God is very clear that there is work to be done, and the sooner we can come to grips with the fact that avoiding it will not make it go away, the better. Perhaps the sooner He’ll give us the gift of finding JOY and reward in that work, as well!

Though I’ll probably never be verbally appreciated as much as I long for in our home, I can do it all knowing that my Heavenly Father sees. I can do all things as unto Him, as if He is my boss. And when I work with a heart of humility, flowing with love for Him and for the image-bearers who live in and visit my home, He is pleased–and THAT is the greatest reward there is.

Know your WHY NOT.

What doesn’t help is growing in bitterness toward the mess-makers as you clean up each mess. If that’s where your heart is, sister, it is better that you leave the mess as it is and spend some time in prayer and reading God’s Word. There is no eternal reward, no benefit at all in a clean home with an embittered heart at the center of it. (I typed that out and then audibly said “ouch” here at Starbucks thinking on how hard that can be for ME at times.) Just say no to rage cleaning!

Okay, now onto some practical tips…

Put on some tennis shoes!

Something makes you feel like getting stuff done when you’ve got some athletic support strapped to your feet. I dare you to relax on the couch once you’ve got tennis shoes on and have started working. Those things just keep ya going!

Put on some rubber gloves!

Is this obvious? It wasn’t for me so I’m sharing it. As a mom, I wash my hands like a billion times a day and have the worst eczema because of it. So I hate getting my hands wet. I realized I was avoiding dishes and wiping down counters and tabletops all day long because of it. But now I just keep some rubber gloves ready at the sink, and when I put them on, all of a sudden, I’ve got the whole dishwasher loaded, the pots and pans hand washed, and all of the surfaces wiped down simply because 1.) I didn’t have to get my hands wet to do it and 2.) I didn’t have to feel anything disgusting in the process! Look at me go!

Have a killer playlist ready.

Sometime, when you’re just scrolling on your phone, wasting time (let’s be honest), make for yourself a playlist that YOU love. Something that gets your feet moving–and keep that thing saved and ready to go. Add to it whenever you think of an upbeat song that you can’t get enough of.

If you’re in more of an intellectual mood, listen to a great podcast. Sometimes having more content to listen to makes me want to clean for a little longer than I normally would.

Let the light in!

For real–turn on all of the lights and open all of the curtains. Something about seeing the whole room lit up motivates me to clean every corner, and it feels like I’ve really earned it whenever I finally turn the light off for that room.

If it takes less than five minutes, JUST DO IT.

My friend gave me this nugget of golden wisdom and it has really changed the way my whole day goes–for the better. If I actually time how long it takes to wipe down the bathroom sinks or hand wash that egg pan, I would laugh at how long I let it weigh on my shoulders because I was avoiding it.

Only handle it once!

Another tip from another wise friend of mine, has me finishing tasks that I tend to leave halfway done throughout the day whiiiich add up to an overwhelming mess at the end of it. So if you brought the mail in, throw out the junk and file away the important stuff! If you cleared the table, don’t just leave the dishes in the sink, put them in the dishwasher. Finish tasks! Don’t handle it more than once!

Never go anywhere in the house empty handed.

Maybe this won’t always apply to my life (like, maybe, one day I won’t have someone between the age of 9 months and three years emptying cupboards and carrying items far from their place of origin), but if I’m walking from one room to another, there is always something out of place that I can put in its right place. I try to never go empty handed, and the habit has started to feel natural enough to not even feel like an effort!

Have the whole fam do a “3-song sweep.”

We try to play three songs before lunch and before bedtime where we all pick up together. My boys love the privilege of each picking a song. Sometimes we pick for them because we just need to get down to business.

My boys also seem to be most invigorated by seeing their dad getting into it with all of us, so encourage the man in your life to invest into the good and helpful habits of your kiddos while they’re young by modeling them enthusiastically (even if he just doesn’t feel like it–none of us do). It’s three songs! But if we add all of our short times together, we’ll get nearly an hour of labor out of our family by the end of it.

Now, my kiddos are young, so this is a season of training, but I know that with daily practice, patient instruction and good modeling from us, it’ll pay off for them (and for all of us!) later. What helps is either giving them three tasks to focus on (ex: You pick up the books, put the pillows on the couch, and throw all the trash away) or giving them a fixed number to work toward (find 25 things that are not in their right place and put them where we’ll look for them when we need to find them!) or giving them a small area to focus on (can you clean up the spot where you were crafting this morning?)

Cleaning still isn’t easy for me, but I’ve found that these spiritual and practical tips carry me along through the labor I don’t love for the sake of the people I do love. I appreciate the wisdom of friends and authors and podcasters who have inspired me to lift my eyes to Heaven as I do this earthly work. I also appreciate friends who swap babysitting with me and my mom who visits so that I can do some deep cleaning, like twice a year. (And by deep cleaning, I usually mean picking up the house, vacuuming and mopping all on the same day. :P )

I always appreciate new tips! What has helped you to get into the groove of cleaning?

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