Help me keep my house tidy.

[Cheeeeislifenow]

I have three sons and a dh, we live in a three bed semi. I am constantly cleaning and picking things up.
How do other people have nice houses?
Most of the time I would be embarrassed to have people round, cups left out, washing in the table to be sorted, cushions and throws messed up. How do other people manage? It's actually getting me down because i a stuck looking at it.

The most important thing is to not have too much stuff so that everything has a place and can be put away.

The next issue is to make sure everyone is pulling their weight. I try make it very clear that it is not my responsibility to do everything. If some one leaves a cup out I tell them to come and deal with it, Yesterday morning I came home from walking the dog and my children had left their breakfast things next to the dishwasher which needed to be emptied. I wasn't very pleased.

How old are your dc?
Mine have been expected to help out since young and little but often works well.
This is my general routine (mine isn’t mess free but ok)
Get kids involved in all tidying up

Laundry on in the morning
Clean up breakfast stuff and wash up/load dishwasher straight away
Tidy everything up before lunch
Tidy up after lunch and wash up/load dishwasher
Tidy up before dinner and run the hoover
Tidy up all dinner stuff and wash up/load dishwasher
Try not to do anything messy in the evening
Dc to tidy up bedrooms every evening and put clean clothes away and dirty clothes in laundry bin.

Before you get into a routine like that, make sure everything has a place so dc know where all their toys and books go.
They should have a place to put all their clean clothes in organised places.

Once a week do these tasks -
Clean bathroom
Clean fridge
Hoover upstairs
Change bed linen (2 weeks can be ok for this)
Meal plan and shop (get dc to choose meals too. If they know what’s coming up and they’ve had a hand in choosing, they usually complain less)

The best bit of advice I've read is don't sit down. After I read that, it made me realise how much I always think " oh I'll just have a 5 minute break" which then turns out to be an hour. Tidy as you go during making and after eating meals etc. Put a load of washing on a day even if it doesn't fill the whole machine. I've been making small changes like this for the last 2 weeks and my house has never been so tidy

I used to be really untidy but am now the complete opposite. I just decided I wasn't living in an untidy space any more and started putting things away as soon as I'd used them. I clean up the kitchen immediately after dinner, I fold up throws and straighten sofa and cushion before I go to bed, I never leave a room empty handed as can always be putting something away as I go. It's taken a complete change of all my previous behaviours but it feels like much less work than tidying up in one giant shit-tip session.

I have also massively decluttered and everything has a place now so its easier than when I had too much stuff. I think you just have to think about it all the time until it becomes a habit.