A lot of the mess in your pictures is just temporary clutter: recycling that needs to go in the bin, dishes that need to go in the cupboard etc. I've found if I just sit down and make a one-time decision about where things need to go, it makes a big difference. Then you can automate (I mean do things without having to think about them) where those things go. For example, for your recycling, you could have a small bin in the kitchen for recycling. Every time a recyclable container is emptied, you put it in that bin. That gets it off your countertop. Pots and pans drying on the counter? Right into the cupboard when they're dry, you don't even have to think about it. Keys? Key hook.
The benefit of having "a place for everything" is that it automates tidying. That is, you don't have to think about it, it can just become a habit. If you can do it automatically, it doesn't distract you from your mental throughline (I think this is one reason those of us with a little ADHD have trouble keeping tidy. The "touch things one time" rule is hard because you're thinking, "Must remember to pick up child at 3 pm" and then you touch one thing that's not related to getting out of the house on time. That thing needs to go upstairs. You go upstairs. Oh, there's another thing that needs to be put away. You pick that up. It goes into the bathroom. In the bathroom is a wet towel. You take that to the laundry. Three or four "touch one thing"s later, you're late to pick up your child, if you even remember to do it at all). To have a routine that is automatic (and if you know how long it takes) means that you can walk into your kitchen thinking, "Oh, 2:40 pm, need to leave in ten to pick up Dora. Just will put tidy kitchen." While you are tidying kitchen, you are still thinking about picking up Dora because tidying kitchen is an automatic task, requires no mental decision-making. So you can be clock-watching and tidying at the same time. Bam, 2:50, you think, "Gotta go," and you actually get out of there on time.
It's the things that you don't know what to do with that seed the clutter, and once they're on there, it's harder to clean up even the easy stuff because you have to fiddle it out from underneath the seed clutter, or even if you tidy up the easy stuff, the seed clutter sits there looking at you, making the whole place look untidy, and tempting you to derail from your primary task (picking up Dora on time) so that you can complete "cleaning the kitchen". So eventually you need a plan for each kind of clutter, otherwise it becomes Seed Clutter.