House is still a mess...

[Booksandpens]

I've been decluttering for years ages, and when the house is tidy, everything seems to have a home, so I don't think it's an issue of too much stuff, but the house still ends up looking like it's been shaken upside down by the end of the day. I just don't think I've learned how to tidy up efficiently, and it's actually depressing now.
I clean the kitchen this morning, but all the surfaces are already covered, and it only seems to be getting worse.
The worst is I'm a sahm, and youngest goes to preschool a few hours a day, but I never seem to get on top of tidying, which means I then don't have time to spend with the DCs because I'm fretting about the house.

I tried TOMM but it took so much longer than the estimated time, and it's disheartening seeing that whatever I do, within 3 hours the house is back to being a mess.

How can I improve? I'm thinking I might need a star chart just to remind myself to tidy as I go, but I'm an adult, and it seems absolutely pathetic that I can't get a grasp on the house.

I find it helpful to re-frame what a job actually IS, so putting away ingredients and clearing bowls etc is all part of baking, not a separate job to do later - until those parts are done I haven't finished the baking task IYSWIM?.

I’ve always been quite messy but have started to act more like this and it’s made a huge difference. Suddenly it’s not a chore to procrastinate over, it’s something I’ve done already.

Myvisions, I read the toothbrush principle book a while ago, as well as 10 other books about organising a house, but putting theory into practice is a whole other game!

Magic, I think that's the issue, I don't automatically know what the job is, although DH would know. Maybe I need to follow a list until it becomes more natural.

ClutterBug, I do regularly go through our clothes, and limit them but maybe I'm not drastic enough.

I will try TOMM again and see if I can follow it better.

Mincepies, yes I do think there's a bit of that happening, I will try a timer. I know that if I did things daily it wouldn't become such a mammoth task, but my brain doesn't seem to catch on!

Jilted, that's good to know, there's still hope for me!

You need to fold the washing as you take it off the line. You can’t hang another load until the other load is put away so you can use the basket. Having less crockery and cutlery also helps in the kitchen, you can’t use more as you have to clean it to use it. Things like that help me a lot.

Madeline makes a good point - if you've ever been away to a holiday cottage with just a suitcase you'll know that it's generally pretty easy to keep clean and tidy because it there isn't that much stuff to keep clean and put away. If you only have 6 forks, you can wash and put them away a lot more quickly than if you have 24! And somehow I always manage to survive with just one suitcase...

Def try TOMM again - she has lists - and use a timer so you don't lose the will to live tidying for hours. She also has a decluttering bootcamp I think. I bet timing yourself will make a big difference

I now leave the dishwasher door open at mealtimes so dh & dc are reminded to put their stuff away and it works even though I really shouldn't have to remind them!

It is hard when you’re at home all day long and you have a little one there most of the time!

My saviour has been this book - www.amazon.co.uk/Manage-Your-Home-Without-Losing/dp/0718079957?tag=mumsnetforum-21 - and the author’s podcasts series ‘A Slob Comes Clean’. It is for naturally messy people, and she not only gives heaps of good useable advice but makes me feel ok about being tidy not being my thing.

I do know exactly where you're coming from though. It's so hard to prioritise tidying that last 5/10/30% over whatever else is happening in your life. Even if that's just playdoh with the kids. Reading this thread it seems to me that you still feel quite overwhelmed by it all.

Some things that made a difference to me:

• flylady home blessing hour. Ignore all the sink shining and shoe wearing business, just try to tidy properly once a week on a deadline (say 1 hour) then do this home blessing hour of targeted cleaning the next day. My list's a bit different to flylady's.
• an alternative is to make an "external" deadline - invite people round or book a cleaner in, purely to force yourself to tidy. We had a fortnightly cleaner for about a year and this really helped us get on top of tidying properly. I resisted for years because it's a daft use of money, but short term it helped and the house has been kept much better since, even though we no longer have cleaners. I find inviting friends over has a similar effect.
• accept that having a tidier house means spending more time on housework than you currently do. There are no magic solutions to that. People with tidier houses spend more time cleaning them. It's ok not to choose that path.
• it's all about routine for us. 10 min tidy is built into our day, we have a dishwasher emptying rota so dirty stuff can go straight in. We have non-laundry days to focus on other jobs. Kitchen is tidied every single night by DH.

A few days later... I've started to use the "dead" time before school runs while the DCs get their shoes/coats on to make sure kitchen counters are clear, and bins are emptied. We have a very small recycling bin in our kitchen and usually let it overflow as we only empty it once a week so if I empty it daily that should make quite a difference.

I'm behind on laundry again so today is going to be a laundry day.

I did get the DCs to tidy their room this morning, and will hopefully continue that every day.

OP, I had the fortune of moving into a brand new house a few years ago. The layout was very different, I moved from a cottage in the country to a modern apartment in the town centre.
I had to figure out where everything would go. It took a bit of jiggling and ruthlesness, but I’m there.
The main thing for me was making everything ergonomic.
I make my own bread, for example. I want to ikea and got a plastic basket that fits into my kitchen cupboard, and everything for baking is in there: yeast, salt, seeds, flour, measuring cups. So when I bake, I get the bread machine out and the basket. Everything then goes back into the basket and back in the cupboard.
We have continental breakfast, I don’t have cereals in the house. I have a tray in the cupboard with peanut butter, spreads, dutch bread in a tin etc. It lives in the cupboard above the bin bread. I have another basket in the fridge with butter, jam, cheese etc, it’s the breakfast basket. So when I get things out for breakfast, I get the tray and the basket, put them on the table, load the lot again when we’re done.
It’s jist me and DD, we each have our own laundry baskets and foldable baskets. I don ‘t mix the loads usually, it’s easier if I have a whole load for each of us. So then I just fold/put away mine, put her basket in her room and she sorts that out.
The ironing pile has its own basket, it lives at the bottom of the airing cupboard. My ironing board is hanging on the airing cupboard door and the iron lives in the ironing basket. So everything is in one place, easy to collect and out back.
The cupboards above the dishwasher have the plates and cups, the nearest drawer has the cutlery. So when I empty the dishwasher, I don’t move from the spot, literally, everything is within reach.
By the door I have a kallax with those inserts. One for my shoes, one for my DD’s shoes, one for bags/handbags and a drawer for keys etc. So when we come in it’s easy to just dump everything in there. Or if it’s a mess, I can just shove everything in it’s box in a minute.
HTH

So my worst job in the whole works is putting clean clothes away I HATE it! Happy to wash clothes, hang on the heated airer but for some reason I can’t put them in the individual rooms so I have come across a great solution.. I have 4 boxes that can either stack when kids are on or stack inside each other. Every member of the family has a box and their is one for towels, sheets etc. Every time I take the dry stuff off the airer I put it in that persons box and then I leave it until it’s either full or I feel like putting it away. It’s eorking really good and I have also realised how many clothes we all have (too many) I have a little corner of the spare room with this little laundry system and now it’s no longer a chore and I don’t have piles of clothes everywhere.

Whole world that should say

Oh gosh should say when lids are on not kids!

The basket idea for each "activity" is a good one, I'll try that.

Laundry boxes might be the way to go, if I can't get in the habit of putting things away. If we had the space I'd have a family wardrobe where everything would live, but that not the case at the moment!

I dread putting clothes away because there isn't space in the drawers for all our clothes. I counted today and DD has 8 pairs of PJs which is ridiculous! Times that by 3 kids and a husband and we probably between us have over 20 more pairs of pjs than we need. No wonder I am ramming stuff into drawers! Same with mugs, we have about 30. If you have lots of storage for clothes then putting stuff away is probably less stressful. I am going to try and clear out some clothes so there is less stuff on rotation to pile up in the washing. I have managed it with school uniform. They have 3 shirts and 2 bottoms each and we keep on top of it well and they never have a problem finding clean stuff.

The kitchen is my nemesis. I often have to dash out of the house for school before I have cleared around the baby's high chair.