Reducing my home overwhelm

If a mum of 3 under 6 can't do it, you probably can't either

No one has ever walked into my home and been impressed with my skills as a homemaker. There are often dirty socks scattered over the floor, the couch cushions spend most of their time on the floor to make a fort, and the last time I swept under the couch I pulled out enough toys and books to completely fill my washing basket. It took me an hour to sort them out and put everything back where it belonged.

Evidently, I’m no expert in home maintenance. In fact, I am very poorly qualified to offer this type of advice at all.

But I bet there’s a lot of other parents who want to get their home feeling a bit more manageable, who see the minimalism pages and curated homes of social media influencers, and feel like the mason jar pantries and colour coded wardrobes just aren’t achievable with a house full of children.

So I want to share my top 3 tools for getting my house under control, as a homeschooling mum of 3 kids under 6, and how I work with my kids to get things somewhat tidy.

10 thing tidy up

I mentioned the 10 thing tidy up in a recent weekend newsletter, and instantly received great feedback about it, which is why I decided to share this tip with all my subscribers. The idea behind this trick is simple. My kids can count to 10. It doesn’t feel like a huge task to pick up 10 things. Realistically, we can each pick up and put away 10 things in about 1 minute. Which means that within 60 seconds, there are 30 less things on the floor.

That is a lot less things.

Now, some days we spend the morning building with Duplo, so we have a lot more than 30 things scattered around the house. On those days, we may do a 10 thing tidy up every hour until we finally track down every last brick and put it back in the tub. On other days, we might spend the day playing outside, so just one 10 thing tidy up before bed is all that we need to do.

Some days, I am feeling particularly energetic, so I personally might pick up 10 groups of things. All of the books going back onto the shelf might count as one of my 10, and then all the shoes back onto the shoe rack as another. On other days, I might just not have the oomph to do any more than picking up 10 plush toys and returning them to their basket.

The great thing about the 10 thing tidy up is that it’s achievable. I rarely struggle to get my kids moving on doing the 10 thing tidy up, because even when the house is chaotic, we know that we just need to pick up 10 things. The task doesn’t feel overwhelming. It’s also easy to make fun. We might make it a race. Or maybe one person needs to pick up 10 blue things, and another has to pick up 10 yellow things.

Daily routines

I have a personal routine of getting the housework done early in the day. After folding, putting away, and hanging up washing, I turn my attention to one room. That means one day, I work on the bathrooms. Another day, I might work on cleaning the kitchen. The reason this works for me, is that with 3 young kids, it is impossible to have every room and every surface clean at one time. Achieving a level of cleanliness in one room is possible… just.

However, there are also days where the task of getting that one room back up to standard is a big task. Instead of pushing through and spending the whole day on it, I have a time limit. I put on a podcast while I am working through the housework, and when the podcast ends, that’s it! I’m done. I can pick it up again the next day.

I am also helping my kids develop their own cleaning routines. For example, at the moment I’m working with Mr 4 and Mr 6 to develop a routine around tidying up after snacks and meals. We’re sorting out the responsibilities so that after eating at the table, we work as a team to clear and wipe the table, and sweep up the crumbs underneath.

By helping my kids form tidying up habits, it reduces the burden on me. Well, eventually it will. We’re still at the stage where I have to remind them every single time.

Reduce clutter

Every time I tidy a room, I try to remove one thing from it, either to donate to someone else or throw out. It might be looking through my wardrobe and donating the fancy shirt that I really have no need to keep. Sometimes it’s removing the empty toilet paper rolls that have taken up residence on the bathroom windowsill. Often, it’s removing all the sticks that somehow make it into my house and taking them back outside where they belong.

I also encourage my kids to evaluate their things. We do toy rotation about once a fortnight, and whenever we are packing away toys at the end of toy rotation day, I’ll ask my kids if they’re ready to donate a toy that I notice hasn’t been played with at all lately. Sometimes they’re ready to let it go, but if they’re not, that’s ok too. The goal is simply to create awareness about the things we keep, and to have it be a conscious decision.  

A concluding promise

With my tips, I can promise you that your home will still look like you have children living in it. There may be spotless counters, for a second, but at the expense of chaos forming in the bedroom. I’m sorry, but this is just your reality.

I can also promise that the job of tidying your home will never be done. So don’t wait for your home to reach a state of ideal cleanliness before you can enjoy living your life. Push the toys off the couch, snuggle down and read a book. Ignore the crumbs on the floor by taking the kids outside for a bike ride around the block.

Lastly, I can promise that your kids won’t remember as much about what your house looked like, as they will remember what your house felt like. A loving home is much more important than a tidy home.

Beck xx

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I'd love to hear your thoughts! What are your tried and true tips for getting your house somewhat clean and organised, even with kids around? Seriously, I want to hear your thoughts. I’m not joking about how long it took to clean up under the couch.

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