What are your routines that prevent mess, minimize cleaning?

[Anonymous]

With everyone home and with little ones under 4, I'm looking to establish and teach some effective habits that prevent mess or promote cleaning up little messes before they get big. I grew up in a pretty messy and cluttered home and feel that I didn't learn those habits, but hints like the "OHIO" method (only handle it once) have been life-changing for me. Same thing for cleaning the tub while you are in it showering. What are your routines, hints, tips, tricks, books, and resources that can help keep things organized and clean without having to spend all of your weekend doing a major cleaning job every weekend?

What are your ounces of prevention to prevent the need for a pound of cure?

[Anonymous]

Every night, we pick up the living room/parlor area before we go upstairs. We don't leave toys out. When I go downstairs in the morning to enjoy my coffee, everything at least looks picked up. And that way, it's all picked up in the evening so that I can vacuum after they are well asleep, or as they are eating breakfast.

[Anonymous]

Don't marry a clutterbug like I did. LOL.

Teach your kids not to leave dirty dishes in the sink. Meal is done, they can help you put dishes or cups in the dishwasher. Use one cup all day long. It also helps to keep food only at the table, rather than allowing snacking in front of the tv or in the playroom or wherever. Minimizes the spread of food-related mess.

We taught DC to do a "two minute drill" a few times per day. Rather than "clean your room" which would seem overwhelming we would set a timer for 2min or 5min and tell them to get done as much as they could. When kids were that young, we would help, but it got the habit going.

[Anonymous]

I like Flylady.

[Anonymous]

Have a weekly rotation of cleaning chores and pick a time of day where they get done.

Don’t go for anything fussy, like little cubbies for shoes. It’s not happening.

Make sure there’s a way for the “default” cleaning person to clear clutter without pain. So a big basket for toys or whatever, a big deep drawer for paper...just somewhere you can toss stuff that’s been left out. The people who own it can dig through the basket/drawer/whatever for their things. You might have a once/week toss rule for the toy basket. Like if bedrooms are cleaned on Sunday, anything left in the toy basket is tossed Sunday night.

I really believe in those clear bins from the container store for shelves and in drawer dividers.

[Anonymous]

Get an outlet installed in a closet or pantry on the main floor if you don’t have one for a Dyson stick.

[Anonymous]

I break up cleaning bathrooms into parts. Clean the toilet in the kids' bathroom one night while they're in the bath, wipe down the sink another night. The components of the job don't take a ton of time, so it's less daunting than doing everything at once.

[Anonymous]

If something is not picked up before the end of the day, I put it in a domain box. They have about a week to sort through the box and reclaim. Otherwise bye!

[Anonymous]

I hate clean as you go, sue me. 20 minutes of every hour, blah! I feel like I'm always picking up or having to rush what I'm doing so I can get back to tidying things. It's a plague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get an outlet installed in a closet or pantry on the main floor if you don’t have one for a Dyson stick.

So funny! We just bought one last week. GAME CHANGER! Even DH is vacuuming.

[Anonymous]

We have cleaning people who come twice a week, so we're not scrubbing toilets or anything over here.

We sweep each night after dinner, or after another meal if there are visible crumbs. But always after dinner.
When we do something, we do it all the way. So you don't take clothes out of the dryer and leave them in the basket. You fold them and put them away where they go and put the basket back where it goes.
When we do something we clean as we go. So when making baked ziti, as soon as the pan goes in the oven, I clean the pot the pasta boiled in and the bowl everything was mixed in.
When we finish something, we clean up before moving on to the next thing. So if we come home with muddy boots, we take them off and then rinse them in the utility sink. We don't just kick them off and run away to go play. When we finish a library book (adults) we put it in the spot for library books to be returned.
We open mail in front of the shredder and next to the scanner. We open it, handle it, and file, shred or recycle all within five minutes.
If the kids make a mess, they help to clean it up (even if their "help" is just spreading the mess around more because they're learning to take responsibility for their messes). This starts around 18 months at the latest.
You don't relax until everything is done. So when people leave after a dinner party, we clean up from it, throw out the garbage, put away the food, sweep the floors, etc.

[Anonymous]

Throw stuff out all the time. Broken little toy? Trash it rather than throwing it back in the bin. Folding laundry and hole in a sock? Throw it. Bringing in the mail or opening Amazon boxes? Throw away the junk and the packaging AS YOU OPEN. I also making getting rid of stuff part of regular bedroom and office clean up rather than a big once a year purge.

Do a basic clean up at the end of the day before you sit down and watch TV or read a book or whatever. Run the dishwasher, wipe the counters, throw all toys into bins, toss all items that shouldn't live in the livingroom into a box to be claimed by their rightful owners in the morning. When we first got married I had to train my DH to agree that things actually had homes, that his magazines didn't get to live on every single horizontal surface, but on one. Etc.

[Anonymous]

Kids clean up after themselves. If they make a mess at dinner, they clean it (I may do a last pass to make sure everything is gone). They pick up their toys. Have a simple organization system that even a 3-yo can follow.
For my tasks, I have a weekly rotating schedule and set time (9-10pm). When you don't allow cleaning/ tidying tasks to pile up, they take less time each time.

[Anonymous]

De clutter, de clutter and de clutter.

The end.

[Anonymous]

I didn't grow up in a super neat place. The one thing my mom taught me that I later put into action was always make your bed. It automatically makes the room look cleaner. I have built on that one grain of advice to become a neat person -- much neater than I ever was growing up, in college, or as a single person. I still have a long way to go. Mopping, sweeping, vacuuming don't happen as often as they should, but everything is more or less picked up. I've also embraced a happy level of clutter, but early on we set a rule against toys staying downstairs. My kids are older now (late elementary, middle school), so toys are not an issue. Getting them to put away their clothes, hang up towels, wipe the sink and not leave a puddle in front of our shower are our current struggles. IN general I do it for them, but not without reminding them that it's their responsibility! LOL