Please help, it's the little things we can't manage

[MossyOilTank]

We both work full time and have older primary school age children. Before work yesterday I walked the dog, did a load of washing, folded another, sorted the dishwasher, made lunch. I got home from work at 7 last night having done the grocery shop on my way. Unpacked shopping, made dinner, did more laundry, loaded dishwasher, changed bedsheets, hung laundry then went to bed. Got up this morning and the kitchen table is sticky because it didn't get wiped.

I feel like my life is work and housekeeping. House always feels grotty. Planning to start TOMM but it feels like there's these small things which build up, like worktops not getting wiped, which cause overwhelm and I don't know if TOMM will help that.

How do people deal with the details when they're really busy?

You did all that - what did your partner do??

Could you give the children a zone each, nothing huge just a tidy and wipe over. One gets the kitchen one gets the lounge. Do a week then swap. Its probably only take about 15 minutes each, you could even set a timer and then when it's up they stop. I'm really clear with mine that everyone that lives here helps out!

I do think a clean home needs everyone pulling their weight, I assume DH does as well. Buy when you're busy and working you have to choose the priorities I guess and not sweat the small stuff.

Get a cleaner.
Do online shopping.

Those two things will really help

Did the bedsheets really need changing on a Wednesday night? Some things have to give.

I agree with pp - if you are both working full time , get a cleaner once a week. And grocery shop online - you'll love it.

You need flylady in your life OP www.flylady.net
I could've written your post a while back and worse and now everything is ticking over nicely. No build up and no guilt/stress.

Can you online shop on your break and utilise free click and collect where they just load it into your boot on the way home?

Get a slow cooker if you don't already have one so some nights a hot dinner is waiting when you get home. Also cook double portions when you can eg. not much more effort to make 2 cottage pies etc. and then you have a home cooked ready meal for your freezer you can pull out in the morning.

We have a cleaner and this is still us to some extent. Cleaner came yesterday, house was lovely. I cooked dinner (reheated batch of veg sauce made the previous night, added cooked chicken to mine and DSs and chill to DHs, cooked some rice - somehow this still to 30 mins...) and emptied the dishwasher while DH took DS to visit a neighbour.
We had dinner, DS threw rice all over the floor in his attempt to help wipe up.
I cleared up the kitchen while DS talked to Grandma on FaceTime and DH disappeared to the bathroom.
I then turned around a washload while DH ordered winter tyres online and ignored DS. Asked DH to clear up the rice and took DS down for a bath. Bath time, toddler wrangling and bedtime. Got back to the living room to find DH had not yet cleared up rice, reminded him and collapsed in a chair and started working through e-mails, sent myself some reminders for jobs to do today at lunchtime. DH made me a cup of tea and went back to playing on his laptop.
I went to bed, reminding DH about the rice. He grumped that it was on his list.
I can be 95% sure that there will be rice on the floor and the toddlers chair when I get home tonight. I am 8 months pregnant, I am not crawling about on the floor doing it. It’s the same when he clears up the kitchen, he loads the dishwasher, puts leftovers away and wipes the surfaces but leaves any actual washing up by or in the sink.
A cleaner is great for keeping on top of the big things like kitchens and bathrooms and general cleaning (ours will also change the beds) but will not solve the sticky table or rice on the floor problem unless you are willing to leave it a week. You need your DP/DH to pull his weight and actually notice that these jobs need doing, goodness knows how you achieve that!

Husband had built some furniture and taken the children out for the afternoon to be fair. But yes, I'd have planned dinner ahead in his shoes. He doesn't like to plan but in my world it's a necessity, so it causes me financial and mental frustration when we end up grabbing takeaways or abandoning routine tasks because there's no time.

We only do laundry at weekends.
We change bedsheets once a fortnight, at the weekend.
We clean up after dinner - DH is very good about doing this every night.
We all (including DC) spend 10 mins tidying every night. This will include squeezing extra jobs in, eg I'll wipe down a bathroom or DC will hoover the living room if we have time after basic clutter is dealt with.

I think it's important to identify what you DON'T do, to carve out time for the rest of your life. Otherwise housework takes over.
eg we DON'T do laundry M-F
DC re-wear tops and we all re-wear trousers, PJs etc
We do no housework on Weds, our longest work day
We have something like hotdogs for tea on Wednesdays so no real cooking.
We DON'T clear the kitchen after breakfast or (M-F) lunch. Dishes are allowed to pile up until after dinner and are dealt with in one go.
We don't tell each other off for stuff left undone. We all have a lot of shit going on and this is our home, not a boot camp.

We say thank you to each other for bits we do. It's twee, but I like it. We get a lot more done by trying to help each other out than if we're arguing about whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher, or feeling resentful because no one else is taking their turn.

These little jobs are perfect for primary aged children.

Mine are late teens now and I struggle to accept how little they do but up until they were about 14 they were quite good about the house and had responsibility for things like putting the bins out, emptying the dishwasher, clearing the table (and wiping it), changing their own beds. Actually that's one thing I did get right as a parent and that they still do. No mother needs to touch her teenage son's bed sheets! They put them straight in the machine and I'm none the wiser.