The Lazy Mom's Guide to Picking Up Your House Every Day

I never really cared about keeping a clean house….until I had kids.  Before they came along, it was just mine and my husband’s mess.  We rarely had company, so I didn’t see the point.  I had a weekly cleaning routine that did the trick most of the time.

But now there are two tornadoes living in our house…

If you don’t have kids yet, take a good note:  your house will NEVER look the same!!!

If you do have kids, you know that a toddler can destroy a room in ten seconds or less.  They can empty a dresser drawer quicker than a finger snap.  They can pull books off bookshelves faster than The Flash can run.  Pots and pans in your cabinets?  All they have to do is look at those and they just end up all over the floor.  (Maybe an exaggeration; maybe not….)

But, I have a secret that has been a TOTAL game changer for our daily decluttering routine!  And all it requires is the use of a fancy shmancy product that we call:

The Laundry Basket

Oh yeah.  Be careful folks, this is one serious tool.

You may have seen this idea before. I've been doing it for years so it's not exactly new. But, if you haven't heard of it yet, it's a good thing you're here!

It's just a laundry basket! Also, it would be helpful if you have a cell phone, which I’m sure you’ve got sitting nearby already. But if you're someone who doesn't have a cell phone, use a watch or an oven timer. :-)

So, how does this basket equal a clean house?  Well, lemme tell ya!

Step 1:  Put the basket in the middle of the messiest room in the house. We like to do this in the evening, sometime in the hour before we start our bedtime routine. If you're really wanting to maintain, you could do it at midday also, maybe before nap.

Step 2:  Holler at your family, telling them it’s time to clean this beast. Threaten to take their tablets away if they don't help you. Just kidding...but maybe not.

Step 3:  Set a timer on your phone for 5 minutes and yell, “GO!”

Step 4:  Race around your house like it’s a game and throw anything that's out of place into the laundry basket.  (Extra points if you throw something into it from across the room!) Your kids will be more willing to join in if you look like you're having fun.

Step 5:  Quickly pick up the basket and move on to another room.  Continue this process until the timer goes off. (I picked the most obnoxious alarm I had available on my phone.)

Step 6: When the timer goes off, give up for the day.  Leave the rest for the next day. But you might end up surprised at how much you can collect within five minutes

Step 7:  Take the basket around the house, putting its contents back in all the rightful places.  (I actually set a timer for 5 more minutes to do this.  Makes it more motivating and fun!) Or if you're absolutely not feeling the put-away part, just leave it in the basket. It won't go anywhere. (Unless you have an ornery little toddler who wants to dump it right back out. I had one of those.)

Step 8:  Repeat every day and eventually you will start finishing before the timer sounds! Picking up at the end of every day will make each day more and more efficient.

I’m not gonna lie, it took a while to make this trick seem worth it.  If we didn't get done before the timer, it felt silly to leave the rest of the mess. (Totally your call if you can't leave it... but don't get caught up in the mess and spend too much time on it!) Now that we live in a bigger house, I sometimes will do 5 minutes downstairs and then 5 minutes upstairs, depending on how messy it gets.  But this routine gives me a clutter-free house to wake up to the next morning, starting fresh!

Another tip: encourage your kids to help you put the toys away too. Just as they helped to put the toys in the basket, they need to help to put them back into their rightful place. Mine need specific instructions, such as, “Why don’t you go put this book back on the bookshelf?” Or maybe, “Do you remember where this car goes?” The teacher in me always thinks about how helpful labels would be, but I've never actually done it.

Why yes, I do have a pretty neat dog :-)

And then, once you reach expert level at this fancy laundry basket cleaning, you can train your kids to put their shoes and socks in the basket right when they take them off.  Or maybe you can teach them to just put things back in their rightful place, if you’re a better parent than I am.

This method provides a super easy way to prepare for company as well.  Your house will appear nice and neat, as long as you don’t forget to hide the overflowing laundry basket full of misplaced items. *wink*

Disclaimer: this is something we do along with a weekly cleaning routine as well.  But please don’t do the white glove trick on my cabinets or the TV.  You will learn that I am not a great housekeeper, even if looks can be deceiving.

Now, you may have a better routine than I do.  It might be WAY more efficient than my lazy way.  But, if you’re all about simplicity (or laziness) like I am, you should definitely give this way a try.

Even if you've seen this before, I hope that this can be a reminder to not stress over the mess, Mama. Eventually your house will be clean again and you will miss the little babies who used to destroy it.

Good luck!