why is my house such a permanent mess?? Tips please!

[alsteff]

There's only me, my 6yr old DD, 1 cat & 2 guinea pigs (who live in the garden).

Just not sure what I'm doing wrong, but whenever I look around all the available surfaces are covered in stuff.

There are clothes spilling out of drawers and in variable piles of (dirty/clean laundry/ironing/ too small / too big/ going up to to the loft/ charity pile/ebay pile/fixing pile etc..).

I've a terrible habit of having boxes / drawers of bits (just miscellaneous crap really, parts of sets of toys, face cream, the odd plaster, magazines, letters from school etc... Jeez you should see my handbag!!

DD seems to be into toys with 100's of pieces (playmobil, sylvanians etc...) sometimes i wish she'd just play on an Xbox all day, except we don't have one and i don't mean that really .............but you know :-)

It seems to take me hours to put all the stuff away so I can actually see to clean things. Perhaps we just have too much stuff, I'm not really sure if everything "has its own home" to be put away.

Honestly it's like time is swallowed up, I can work for hours on it but the difference is minimal and not very long lasting. Am I just totally useless at house work?

I'm trying to work 5hrs a day from home, having just set up my own biz, but could quite easily spend the day tidying and definitely do prioritize the house over work time which is ridiculous because perhaps if i made more money I could get a cleaner.

I brought this up at a 'return to work session' I went to some time ago and the workshop leader said i needed to let it go, and how important was it that my house was immaculate. But really I'm not looking for immaculate just acceptable. I feel embarrassed inviting people round etc...and have to have warning time to tidy up first. Most other people's houses just seem so perfect I just don't understand how they do it! How do you do it???

So any hot tips on how to keep this all under control would be great. How much time do most people spend tidying / cleaning their houses every day / week etc.....

I think you're right that earning more would allow you to pay someone to do the domestic stuff. It's an ongoing argument I'm having with myself. It would mean working more hours, but more free time (and less stress) overall, as less housework to do.

There is a lot to be said for having less stuff, though - I think the less you have, the less time you spend organising/cleaning/tidying it!

Firstly I would have a cull. Be honest to yourself why are you keeping bits?

Toys - again a good cull go through and bin/charity shop the best stuff or sell. Do this every few months and on birthdays etc request no more toys!

Go to ikea and buy lots of stacking boxes or buy bigger ones from the the really useful box company - these can be built into units and are much more expensive but better.

Clothes - get some of those vacuum bags and pop all the summer clothes into there and suck away. Pack away.

Go through clothes and chuck what you no longer wear - I'm not keen on stacking stuff in the loft as its never seen again. If it dont fit - bin

Be true to yourself you are going to have time to put stuff on e-bay as sometime you just need to shift it. Surely you can pop to the charity shop on a saturday am?

My house is always a mess but it can be made right in no time so my mess is just the children's toys and every day stuff.

Hope this helps?

Firstly you are not alone, all Mums of little ones have had their houses full of untidy crap that apparently can't be managed at some point. I found it especially stressful so instead of trying to maintain all spaces I started with just one . I kept one room toy and crap free so that I could relax/unwind with DH after my boys had gone to bed (or for me to have a cup of tea in when they had afternoon sleeps). The rest of the house could be as untidy as my boys could manage but I kept my sanity through this one room. Outside of this I obviously kept the kitchen/bathroom hygenic (not necessarily tidy) and from time to time 'broke out' into other spaces whenever I had enough energy. As you are trying to work from home could you pick your study as the child/toy free clean space?

Good luck and chin up!

Some excellent ideas here. Thanks. Feel motivated to start on some personal clean space! Good point about stuff hiding in the loft, I think I am definitely a "horder"!

Through experience a cleaner has only the time to vacuum, clean and dust. You still need to have a tidy and put stuff away so dont think its that easy. I have spent many a few hours running made putting all the toys away, clothes in drawers and sorting through those 'piles' before she arrived.

Have you tried FlyLady www.Flylady.net You can find some helpful things on her website even if you don't want to commit to the whole flylady thing.
If you like Flylady there are a few threads on here where people post and try to keep each other motivated.

Sorry if you already know about it.

My rule is only the christmas tree/decos and luggage goes in loft.

just had a peak at fly lady looks interesting......
I really would need to hire a skip if i emptied the loft!

Ok - going to start on my glut of toiletries and cosmetics tonight!
Thanks you domestic goddesses!

If you want to join the "Motivational" threads :

(can't remember exact titles)
one is called: Babysteps towards BlackCats chocolates

and the other is something like this:
Part 2,if a tidy house is your new years resolution, Flying with us could be the solution.

Both in Good housekeeping.

I work from home, have done for years.

Fly lady can be intimidating but do look. I don't officially "fly" but have taken one or two of her tips.

One or two tips from me.

I allow myself max of 30 mins housework before I start work. I never let myself go past 9.30 doing house things having arrived back by 8.50am from school drop off. Generally I do kitchen clean-up, load dishwasher (please tell me you have one, I didn't until two years ago - totally changed my life and I too have just one DC who is also six) Also put a load of washing on. I keep a broom in the kitchen and swepp most days. Bad at mopping but a sweep is done in 2 mins flat. All is at hand in the kitchen. Don't care what it looks like to others to see my broom - works for me.

When I make myself coffee I unload dishwasher/washing machine, hang stuff out to dry as kettle boils.

Same again at lunchtime. Just a few mins. All is better and less guilt ridden and depressing working from home if the kitchen is cleaned first thing. I DO NOT shine my sink like flylady - that's too much for me. I put things on stairs that I see that need to go upstairs etc and take them up during day when I leave my desk.

Do look up fly lady and hotspots. It's brilliant. and is key to my thinking since I found it.

After a while, you get into routine, within a couple of weeks, and you find that some days for work you only have 10 mins but doesn't matter. Or that you kitched isn't bad today, don't need to sweep so you can put washing away. Or hoover/sweep another room.

Another flylady thing - I try to clean bath and sink after I've had a bath, just a wipe down but doing it often means less to clean so it does end up speeding up. Or clean bits of bathroom when DS is in bath.

Key for me is to not overload myself. Don't think I'll do all the washing away, just the stuff that's just dried. Anything I do is a bonus. That's a bit fly lady I think, to do a bit and congratulate yourself rather than beating yourself up for not doing enough. Five mins a day, or just one drawer at a time. It's like applying the Alcoholics Anon theory to housework and mess!

Good luck and you're not alone. First rule I think though is don't beat yourself up. We can be our own worst enemies sometimes.

Sorry - one last thing. Feel I didn't explain. Fly lady and hot spots is about identifying the messy hotspots, the places where things always collect in your home, and has good strategy about how to tackle them.

I've experimented with those translucent plastic crates. They will stack up and you can put things in according to some classification. They are not so heavy that you can't lift off the one you want. You can see what's inside them.

With luck the things you don't ever use will eventually end up at the bottom of the stack so you can freegle or fleabay or bin it.

You can hide them if you want people to think you have no piles of junk, perhaps in shed or garage or spare room.

Cleaners don't tidy. That's your job.

May I recommend you have a look on this thread here, there are some excellent tips on how to get organised and tidy :)