If you work full time and your house is clean

[TheEarlofButties]

How? Is there something you sacrifice? Educate me **

Im out the house the kids are out the house who is making a mess

An excellent cleaner who comes every other week.
ruthless about decluttering and getting rid of all the outgrown clothes, shoes, toys that aren’t played with.
Having too much stuff makes it a lot harder to keep the house tidy.

Reduce/remove clutter and have a space for everything.
Do bits and pieces as you go along (I will never just stand and wait for the kettle to boil, for example).
Have set routines for end of day (dining table wiped, kitchen cleaned, lounge tidy).
Everyone takes their part in end of day routines. I think this is a really key point. DC can put toys in a box from a few months old; adjust jobs as they get older.
"Family clean" on Sunday morning - because we are mostly on top of stuff it's basically 30 minute each.

Never go to bed with dishes to be cleaned. All surfaces wiped.
Feather duster, 5 minutes around shelves and surfaces every couple of days
Have a robovac and send it round daily.
One room can be a dumping ground. Saturday morning is for clearing it. Bathroom cleaned then too
Don’t have children
I’d say don’t have a hairy dog but we like this one.

Another tip would be "don't have dogs"

We mop kitchen floor once a week unless something splilt in which case the spilt bit is mopped up.
Vacuuming with everyone out the house all day - downstairs twice a week and upstairs once at most is plenty.

Clearly you have different levels of "messiness" with dogs in the house.

I wouldn't say we are super clean so not holding myself up here but things that help us stay on top of the house:

Dishwasher goes on every night and is emptied every morning (teens job)

Washing machine is run every morning (timer delay) ready to hang out when we wake up

No one leaves in the morning without their bed made, washing brought down, sides cleaned etc

House reset every night

Cleaner ince a week hoovers and mops fully, we just spot clean the rest of the week

I have a cleaner. I never understand why higher paid people don’t contract out as many tasks as possible.

If I can earn significantly more per hour than the person I employ to do the jobs it makes perfect sense. If my employer said they’d pay me 25% of my equivalent hourly rate to work an extra few hours, I’d turn it down. Doing the cleaning myself is the equivalent of that.

Have a partner that values a clean home the same as you do.

Family helps. We have a baseline expectation and everyone contributes. Daily reset is around half an hour each day and then I do a proper clean once a week which involves bathrooms, mopping, hob etc.

and washing is all done over the weekend.

I earn minimum wage. A lot of cleaners charge more than that!

The joke is I am a qualified professional 😂

I’m not but a friend is. Both her and her DH worked full time (he recently retired).
Rules:

1: never put it down put it away.
2:Don’t leave the washing up, do it now.

1. Give the bathrooms a thorough clean every week without fail.

We have a regular Friday evening drink either there or mine. I notice she has dinner all prepped, the ingredients in neat little bowls ready to cook and everything else tidied away - chopping board etc all back where they belong. I know I could pop in her house any time and it would be immaculate. My house I have to spend an hour tidying/vacuuming before she arrives. Her DH is a bit of a tidy freak too, and their kids have probably inherited the neat gene as two boys one girl I don’t recall it ever messy! They have a dog too.
I also live alone half the year (widow, DD away at uni, son on his own) so guess my tolerance for mess is pretty high. I’m better when other people are here and my DH was a very tidy man.
edited to try and fix numbers but failed.

Never have pets. Have a DH who values a clean, tidy home and is great at leaving the kitchen spotless. Train children from a young age to change sheets and keep things neat and tidy. If you can, get a dishwasher and tumble dryer. Game changers.

No kids help here but we do what our parents taught us. Everything to it's place when you are finished with it. Once a week we do hour together proper clean. Kitchen gets cleaned as we cook and finished after dinner. Dh is actually the better cleaner as well.

That's how my son cooks for us. When he gets in, he does all the prep, the ingredients are chopped and in bowls, the surfaces all wiped down, the pots and pans ready on the hob. Very practical!

Absolutely we do need to clean daily to keep on top of everything but Dh or I will steam the kitchen floor once over the weekend so that’s kept okay, we clean up after each meal but it’s a team effort, happily wipe over the sink in the loos if I’m in there and notice it needs doing.
But the weekly cleaner ensures no amount of clutter is ever left to fester and grow. That’s the most valuable thing about having her, it holds us to account regularly so that small things don’t become a bigger issue. We tidy up regularly, little and often.

Plus the ideal thing is to have the least amount of ‘stuff’ necessary. The less stuff you have, the less there is to tidy, put away, keep on top of.

Fiercely decluttered everywhere
A place for everything, everything in its place
Weekly cleaner
pet free child free single household

I am a messy cook. On the odd occasion that I have prepped, chopped and placed everything in bowls, I have found it much more relaxing. Might adopt this strategy again. I can then bungalow all i dishwasher.

My house isn’t spotless but it’s presentably tidy.

Just don’t have loads of junk and loads of places junk can hide.

Storage units and drawers all over the place just accumulate junk.

I appear to be one of the few people on here without a cleaner!

Seriously, it really works!

Little and often and routines. E.g. it takes c. 5 min to change the bed and it's done before work on a Monday without fail. 20 mins to clean the bathroom and done as soon as I get in (before sitting down!) on a Friday.

Oh and Eufy the robovac is my best friend 😆

This, and don't put it down, put it away.
It helps that dh and I are naturally tidy, wrll I am, he's a fussy and pernickety sod :)

I decided this weekend that I am going to get a cleaner again. It’s been 18 months of resentment at giving up half a day of my weekends to cleaning/laundry/big shop and my job is busier than ever before, so can’t get anything done even if I am WFH for a few hours.

DS seems incapable - no matter how many sanctions are put in place - of doing any of his jobs correctly and essentially adds to my workload with every action - I am sick of yelling at him and have now taken to financially penalising him as that is the only thing he cares about. I have him 100% of the time, he is 16 but has not managed to get a job yet (he does apply for things all the time).

That sounds horrible, and is giving you too much stress. He's obviously decided he doesn't want to do it.

Mine is passibly clean but kept tidy. We tidy as we go and I clean at the weekends. I also draft in teenagers, we all make a mess we all clean up. It's harder with small children.