5 Strategies for Cleaning Your Home- and keeping it that way

My husband and I are notoriously messy people. We clean up the house on Saturday, and somehow by Sunday afternoon it looks like a tornado swept through and undid all of our efforts.

I constantly find myself frustrated by the messiness, and yet I know that Taylor and I are the one's who have created it. Houses don't just get dirty on their own; nor does a dirty house suddenly become tidy.

Keeping a clean home takes hard work, discipline, and a solid plan- one that must be consistently implemented.

1.) Clean as you go

If you are as messy as I am, you've probably found yourself staring at that stray sock in your living room for days before actually picking it up. I mean, you can pick it up later, right?

But if you pick everything up "later", you suddenly end up with 10 stray socks in the living room instead of one. One dirty dish left in the sink becomes seven. And that coffee you dripped on the floor three days ago now needs an army-strength cleaner to lift it. Instead of merely needing to "spruce up" the house, you now have a much larger job ahead of you. Cleaning as you go will ensure that you won't have nearly as hard of a job on "cleaning day".

2.) Have a cleaning day

Speaking of cleaning day: make sure you have one. I know it's easy to skip out when there is something more exciting to do, but choose a day of the week where you schedule in your cleaning time.

Maybe Saturday morning is the best time for you to clean, or maybe Wednesday evening when the kids are at karate class would work better. Regardless of when it is, if you schedule in a time to clean you are more likely to do it. This will help prevent you from letting your house go to the wayside.

3.) Suck it up 

As a 25-year-old, I still find myself feeling like a kid sometimes. But just because I feel young, doesn't mean that I am excused from my responsibilities. The fact of the matter is, I'm an adult. I have a responsibility to take care of my home.

Tell me I'm not alone. Tell me I'm not the only one who wonders how I got from 12 to 25? I went from watching cartoons on Saturday to a job, a spouse, bills to pay, and a home to clean. I am slowly learning that part of keeping a clean house is just sucking it up, silencing the protesting child within me, and deciding that I will do what I have to do.

4.) Don't wait for your husband

You know those socks I mentioned before? The ones that kept accumulating in the living room? Well, quite often, those socks are my husband's. I find myself thinking, "I'm not picking those up! Taylor needs to!". But when I wait on my husband to do what I could easily do myself, I am only letting the mess get bigger.

Sure, it'd be nice if he picked up his socks (and sometimes he does). But is it really so hard for me to pick up a sock? Is my pride so strong that I'm not willing to take care of my home or not willing to help my husband out, simply to prove a point? Proving a point can often lead to a very messy home.

5.) Live a life of gratitude

We are much more likely to take care of things that we are grateful for. Taking care of our homes when we lack thankfulness becomes very tedious. But if we realize what a blessing our homes are, and realize that keeping our houses clean is an act of worship to God, suddenly cleaning and caring for our humble abode seems much more doable.

Even when we are tired, even when all we want to do is eat a pint of ice cream and watch Fixer-Upper, if we will view house-cleaning as a work of art and an act of service, we can find joy and strength to keep at it.


Believe me- I get it. Messiness is natural to me and my husband. It's much easier for us to binge-watch our favorite Netflix series than it is to get off our butts and clean something. But keeping a clean house is necessary, important, and will make you feel so much better once you get a schedule going. Having a home that feels clean and inviting is worth the work.