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The bigger my family gets, the trickier it is to keep a clean home. The laundry pile keeps getting bigger, the dishes multiply, and the streaks and smudges on every wall and doorknob seem to appear overnight! It can be overwhelming! I could spend countless hours cleaning everyday to keep my home spotlessly clean, but I’ve got better things to do with my time folks! I’m a mom of 4 and as I’ve said before in my post How to keep a House Clean with Kids, I want to actually spend time with my kids more than I want to impress the world with my ridiculously clean home!
The One a Day Rule for keeping a clean home is great! It’s the best thing for overwhelmed moms, like myself, who just want to keep a tidy home so they can get on with the rest of life!! Here is how it works:
Dedicate 1 day a week (except for 1 day which you TAKE OFF) to a specific room in your house. Monday might be kitchen, Tuesdays might be Bathrooms, etc. Then, just take 15 minutes, or however long you have for the day, and do something to deep clean that room that isn’t part of your normal quick clean up. It might be cleaning a shower on Bathrooms day, or cleaning out the fridge on Kitchen Day. It’s all up to you! You can do ONE THING, right?
When it comes to laundry, everyone is different. I have found it VERY overwhelming to dedicate one day to Laundry. It’s just too much! I’m way too scatter brained to remember to go down and change loads 6 times in one day and the laundry either ends up wrinkled from sitting in the dryer for too long, stinky from getting forgotten in the wash, or left in piles and not put away. Instead, I have applied the one-a-day rule to my laundry too. I try to do one load a day and just be done! Not only do I not have kids whining at the end of the week that they are out of clothes, when I do this, but that load actually gets washed, dried, folded, and put away! I also have a washer with a delay timer, so I like to put my load in the night before, set the timer and walk away. Then, in the morning, I just have to throw it in the dryer. One less step in my morning!
Another way that you can apply the one-a-day rule is by tasks! Here is how that works:
One day could be for picking up clutter everywhere, the next could be for cleansing your house (mopping, washing windows, wiping down walls, toilets, etc.), the next could be for organizing a specific room, and another could be for something else. Just don’t dedicate one day to laundry, unless that really works for you!
The point is to stop trying to take on your whole house every day! Just do a quick tidy up and then focus on one thing! Whether that one thing is ONE ROOM or ONE TASK just keep it simple! Then get on with life and spend the rest of your day doing something else! Life is too short to clean all day!