If you are naturally messy and lazy how do you keep your house tidy?

[justwondering23]

I am very disorganised. I try to be tidy but I think I
am quite lazy and I have to really try to put things back in places! I'm starting the Marie kondo method to try and declutter and I've taken to trying to keep surfaces clear to make them easier to clean but I always have a mad panic every time someone comes around. I would hate anyone to just drop by unexpectedly as my house is not to the standard I want it to be!!!

Are there any lazy girls / cheats tips you can share if you have managed to make it work for you?

Thanks

I am messy and made the monumental mistake of marrying a messy man.

My roomba helps because it means I keep the floor of the public rooms clear, so shopping bags, shoes and toys all picked up. Then all the mess I have to deal with after work is at worktop height which makes a difference because I can look at a room and think if I just sort that table the room will be passable.

I haven’t extended to the bedrooms but I mean to. My windows and skirting boards aren’t the cleanest either.

We have an excellent cleaner, who does deep cleaning. I do top up stuff everyday. I can’t abide a dirty kitchen or bathroom. I do NOT like cleaning and can be very low energy but I know I must do it. A relatively clean home is vital to my mental health.

I’ve just discovered TOM - sounds like a good method. I’m going to adapt it to suit me eg bedrooms on a Monday after the DC have tidied on a Sunday night, bedding on a Weds as it’s my day off so I can do tumble drying and then put back on beds. Also do more on my day off then have Fridays off! Will see how it goes but can definitely see the benefits of doing a little each day rather than feeling overwhelmed by cleaning the whole house in one go.

Just remembered another tip.

Do you know those lists of daily tasks? When you look at them together it can seem like a lot so you have to break it down so it is spread out through the day and not added to the cleaning task for the day or it will be too much.

My routine
Do bedrooms - open curtains, make bed and pick stuff up when you get up. Similarity do a few minutes top up in the bathroom in the morning like fly lady suggests.

If you are both home at bath time one of us tackles the living area as me and DH will make minimal mess after that. Later evening One of us will tackle the kitchens getting the last things in the dishwasher before it goes on at bedtime.

Still got a cleaning tasks to do on top though which is where I fall down.

It's a work in progress here but it's taken a house move. We were in a tiny place with too much stuff and I was overwhelmed but moving gave me a kick to get rid of a lot. We are now in the process of building furniture and unpacking and I'm trying to plan the best place for everything, I really feel it makes a big difference to have a home for everything that is efficient as possible.

The cleaning is mentally tiring me as i seem to constantly be thinking about what needs doing! But I'm hoping it'll all become habit in time and I'm also training the DC - all three of us are autistic and struggle with executive function.

Mainly I'm trying to put things away/in the bin instantly and wipe up spills etc straight away so nothing builds up.

Also I'm working on my self esteem. Having a horrible house was depressing and I'm trying to remember that I am worth tidying up for. I deserve a nice house and it's kinder to myself to make the effort in the first place.

Yep, I keep reminding myself that the day to day stuff if it's genuinely done every day takes less than 2 min each so in theory I can push past that and get on to something I can really get stuck into.

Giving myself a time limit and saying right I just have to do 2x 15 min jobs helps because it doesn't feel so draining to think I've got to spend 15 mins emptying the dishwasher and hanging out the washing, than it does to imagine spending an hour+ cleaning.

I really struggle with this as well. I’m bad even at keeping on top of the daily tidying and cleaning, never mind the more irregular stuff. I’ve been doing fairly acceptable job for a few days now, but it’s been quite a task getting things back up to scratch after so much messiness and neglect so I can see myself getting fed up already. I’ve done less useful stuff every day, which is what I always end up doing.

Checking in...

It really helps to have a morning routine. Or a night time one. Or both, But I give up on night ones because my brain shuts down by 9pm. And if you are a SAHM, it really helps to have a short routine when you pick DC up from school.

In the morning I:
open curtains and windows and make my bed
go downstairs with a load of dirty washing in my hands and stick it in the machine
put the kettle on
feed the cat
empty and reload the dishwasher
make a cup of tea and a pot of coffee
wipe all kitchen surfaces
make packed lunches for DC and get breakfast ready

all before DC get up. I love that quiet time with music on , potteirng about. Never feels like work. I love the sound of the two machines whirring away, cleaning stuff.

When DC were little I'd do the school run and by the time I was back the washload would be ready to be hung out, so i'd do that first thing.

After school routine was:
hang up coats and shoes
empty school bags to check for soggy, screwed up remnants of homework sheets, letters and permissions slips and party invites
empty packed lunch boxes and water bottles
give DC a snack and chat about their day
act on anything urgent immediately: fill out forms, put dates in diary, locate any non day-to-day stuff for following day and put it in school bag or in the hall so you can't forget it (PE kit/wellies for pond-dipping/return library books etc.)

Keep a shelf clear in your home for anything borrowed - any books from school, toys from friends etc.

Mina thank you for sharing your routine! I really need to develop something like this.

One thing I have started to set up in the new house is a "leaving the house station". The DCs are home educated and every day but Sunday they have clubs to go to. I've put an old Ikea Trofast unit in the hall cupboard and the buckets have all their dance shoes, uniforms, doboks, leotards, even hair bun nets/grips. Then they will have everything in one place and we can hopefully get in the routine of having just one bag each which they fully unpack and repack before bed. In the old house they kept some stuff on the coat hooks, other stuff in their rooms etc so it all got a bit confusing and we would often find snack wrappers or worse in the bags the following week. Anyway come September hopefully it'll all be set up.

We are also changing our home ed to be more structured now (eldest going into y7) and since we moved last month they have been brilliant at helping more with housework, so I am hoping to build a routine that incorporates both, so one doing a housework task while the other does maths and then swapping, that kind of thing. They completely do their own laundry now rather than me washing everything together and then having to sort it, that saves untold time (they have their own rooms now).

Secondtime, my best tip from flylady was to buy a digital kitchen timer, so when I get the urge to hyperfocus on something, I set the timer for ten minutes, and go at it like the clappers. When the timer goes off, stop, cup of tea, oh look, there's the washing up I should have done mind you, cleaning the cooker is not something I do too much of, but I really want to clean the seals on the back door today

thought I’d come back and update: I’m starting from a clean house today because I decided enough was enough! I employed the only technique guaranteed to force me to clean up - inviting friends over

so from this morning I told myself that a bit of quick maintenance would instantly make such a difference and it DID! hoovered/mopped, wiped the kitchen sides, emptied dishwasher, made beds and tided some toys up.

feels so great to get it accomplished

I’ve NCed from upthread. I have now had the house tidy and cooked a PROPER DINNER every night for 8 days for both now. The house isn’t tidy in every respect but I’m making my mantra to make it a little bit better every day instead of it getting a little bit worse.

Yep day 14 here on our quest for clean and tidy. I have hoovered so many times in the last 2 weeks! And it's not actually too bad.
Am just getting sick of having to threaten to throw toys out if they aren't tidied at the end of the day.
I did hoover up a pen lid that annoyed the 5yo DD. But tough, I'd asked her to pick it up and she hadn't. Hopefully the message is sinking in.

It’s just so never ending. I hate doing the same thing over and over at the best of times; my job is specifically chosen to mainly be doing something different every day and every week. Doing something not very interesting over and over is just tortuous.

Interestingly I have no inclination to cook a proper dinner after all the cleaning I’m now doing. So the house is cleaner but we’re not eating very healthily.

New regime with the children - they have to tidy their rooms before bedtime every night! They are not happy.

Pay someone else to do it, once a fortnight or every ten days should suffice.

I married a man with OCD. Also, I’ve found just having less stuff helps so it’s less to tidy when it all gets out of hand. Work on one area at a time to get it completely clear rather than running around the house like a headless chicken. Focus on the areas that make a big apparent difference for limited effort: make beds, polish taps, shove everything in an Ikea bag. Anything that is eye level, starting from when someone enters the house.

I am lazy/disorganised!

When my house is a tip I throw everything in sight into shoppers and 'sort them out later'.

I currently have four large boxes of plastic tat in my bathroom... nobody has missed anything.

DH hoovers when it's tidy.

Cleaning - once a fortnight for the bathrooms is fine.

Washing gets put in the laundry basket as soon as seen. Wash on every day. Clean washing gets put into other laundry baskets (we have lots) for when I have time to sort (usually at weekends).

DH does the dishwasher.

I sweep the kitchen floor every few days, and clean fridges/floors occasionally rarely.

This used to be a big issue for me but I realise that it is so much better now, here are a few things I do.

Keep a pack of wipes in the bathroom, you can run a wipe around the sink etc while brushing teeth, this way the bathroom never gets really bad.

Chuck loads of stuff out, you won't miss it. Get some storage like Ikea stuff and have a place for everything.

Write list of rooms and allocate 10 mins to each, set timer and do what you can in 10 mins, you can get a lot done in 10.

Dishwasher while kettle boils, it takes less time than you think.

I also have a hoover around in the morning as I always think it looks much better after a hoover.

I just do it. As soon as I wake up, I make myself a coffee, get DS breakfast ready and I wash/dry dishes and clean the sideboards in the kitchen while DS eats his breakfast. Once that's done, I put CBeebies on while I get onto cleaning the front room. I just give it a quick wipe around (I use polish once a week), and go around quickly using the hoover (I use a cordless one). Just do it every day, bit by bit, then it doesn't take as long to do when you leave it for too long and when dust builds and collects.