Sick of constant clutter & cleaning - tips please for more simple life

[Littlemiss74]

Posted this in chat & then realised this might be a better place..

I’m sick of spending my weekends tidying & cleaning and basically moving ‘stuff’ around from room to room.
My DS is 13.5 & I want to to make the most of my weekends with him before he completely doesn’t want to do ‘family stuff’. DD 8 wants me to spend time with her and I’m always saying, I just need to do this...
I am constantly decluttering but the house never feels tidy or organised. There are piles of clothes everywhere and yet I feel as though I never have anything nice to wear.
I’ve tried making ‘homes’ for things but no-one else ever puts them back there so it just doesn’t work.
I feel overwhelmed by the constant mess - it’s not hoarder level, it’s just constant & I’m thinking there has to be a better way to organise everything.

I work mon-thurs so I leave all my jobs to Friday but that is never enough and it eats into the weekend.

Does anyone have any suggestions please for more simple living?

The organised mum method might work but you need to do a little bit everyday. It's a slog isn't it?

Are the kids tidying their stuff too?
Are you sure you are decluttering enough? I say they as I used to but then I knew deep down I wasn't really.

I would set aside a weekend to do one massive declutter. I follow Marie Kondo - and don't keep anything I don't absolutely need, or think is beautiful. I only have one spare of anything essential and replace the spare each time (iyswim). Then everything has a place and stays there. Don't leave a room / area with out tidying a little. I do the clear out once or twice a year. Do a weekly shop / keep lists and it all runs v smoothly.

I’m ordering myself the organised mum book, I’m praying it works!

The only answer is to get rid of it.

If you don't have insane amounts of stuff, you don't have to deal with it. It's easy to tidy up, in fact, you barely tidy up.

Almost everyone has way way way too much stuff and waste years of their lives handling it.

I have tried the organised mum method but I found it hard to do every single day on the days I’m working full time. If I’m not working I’m doing the basics to keep us alive and then am too knackered to start cleaning a room for 30 mins as I found it would always take longer than that.
It just feels relentless, like as soon as I’ve sorted one area another is a tip and so on.
I probably could be more ruthless but sometimes I find it hard to get rid of stuff especially if it means I have wasted money. I find it hard to be decisive too so I will dither and then think oh I might need it one day, I’d better keep it.
Just wish I could be a bit more minimalist - I feel like the clutter in the house makes my head feel cluttered!

I found the best way of getting rid of kids stuff was to tell them it was too babyish. Then store it out of sight for a couple of weeks before taking to the charity shop.

"I work mon-thurs so I leave all my jobs to Friday but that is never enough and it eats into the weekend."

This might be causing you problems, depending on what the 'jobs' are.

Do you/someone wash up every night, unload the dishwasher every morning? Do a load of washing every day, run the hoover round mid week? Otherwise it's not surprising that you can't get everything done on your day off. It's hard though with work. I know how you feel.

@lokomojo you are so right. Years ago I went travelling for a year with one backpack & a bag. It was incredibly liberating. I loved it. I had what I needed and didn’t miss anything.

Obviously it’s a bit different now with a family etc but I’m just finding it exhausting & I’m sure its affecting my mental health as I’m always trying (unsuccessfully) to organise things & tidy up. Often I can’t find something and then it leads to us being late & me being irritable.

It seems to be the way these days that we all have so much stuff & everywhere you look we are bombarded with images of stuff to buy, most of which we probably really don’t need. Sad really.

Yes, just stop doing it! Get rid of it! How many pans/tops/bits of random shaped plastic does one house need? Four pans? Ten tops? Zero bits of plastic shite?

You can just throw it in the bin and get on with your life and nothing bad will happen. I did this over ten years ago and it was a great decision.

TOMM done correctly won't take you longer than 30 minutes because the idea is you reach half hour and then down tools.

Can you not spare 3 x 10 minutes throughout the day?

Another vote for Marie Kondo. Have you read the books? It sounds like you need to do a little work on challenging some ideas such as it’s a ‘waste of money’ to get rid of something that you have duplicates of/don’t use/don’t like. You could sell or charity shop the items- to recoup a little cash or help someone in need and the charity.

For the kids stuff- have you tried a system of allocating everyone a box/big tub and putting things in that they leave lying around- and taking to their room? This is a good way to get rid of clutter from communal areas but can lead to a messy room- depends if you are happy to shut the door and put it out of your mind.

I’m with the previous comments - they work! A) spend an entire day decluttering )(everyone helps!) b) then 30/40 mins per day as per OMM and then every quarter do a “big job” for half a day (like clean out the shed or something) 😘 I do gardening on a Sunday too

I do TOMM Monday to thursday I don't do the Friday focus and I've started doing bedding on the weekend instead of the bedroom day it's made a big difference the main improvements are level one jobs mean bathrooms are clean throughout the week and hoovering downstairs everyday. It takes a little while for things like the kitchen cleaning to take under thirty minutes but if you stick to it I think it's great, keep your hardest days to easy work days , I do bedrooms on my day off and kitchen Thursday evening when everyone's out in my house , Tuesday is halls Day as that only takes ten minutes tops

Sorry just to add I do the bathrooms every morning while kids are putting shoes on etc it's a two minute job and hoover before I go to bed which again takes two minutes if done everyday

@lokomojo did you have a lot of stuff & do a big declutter then? How long did it take you & was it difficult to stop it creeping back in again?

I clean top to bottom on a Friday. Change beds, dust, polish, vacuum, mop etc

On a Thursday night I empty all bins, check all cupboards are tidy and everything is where it should be so all I have to do on Friday is clean interspersed with pegging washing, reloading machine etc

I find this works well for me and each morning I make beds, wipe round bathrooms and just wizz round round with a cordless Dyson if necessary.

TOMM wouldn't work for me as I like everything done so the house is completely clean throughout at the same time.

Friday clean takes about five hours plus ironing on Saturday morning.

Do people really not do beds, clean kitchen and bathrooms and hoover every day?! Wow I thought that was normal, I mean how do you cook in a dirty kitchen or wash yourself in a dirty bathroom? It doesn't make sense...

My advice as with most things in life- little but often.

I hear you - it’s never ending. I also work 4 days a week - sometimes 5 - and I feel that there us always something to put away, something to clean… I do agree that getting rid of stuff is the only way. Not crazy minimalist - but just making life a bit simpler. I am slowly putting this into practice.

I discovered minimalism (check out Joshua Becker on youtube) recently and its changed my life.

More so than Marie Kondo.

I'm gradually getting rid of loads of stuff and haven't missed anything. The hardest are toys as my kids are still primary age. But my youngest is enjoying selling some and saving the money.

As for cleaning, well I keep on top of washing by doing a load most days. DH does all the ironing at the weekend. We have a robot hoover that runs twice a week. Kitchen is kept tidy so surfaces are wiped every day. Toilets cleaned a couple of times a week and bath/shower when we get round to it.

The dusting doesn't often get done but no one comes round to see.

I did have loads of stuff and there were some specific circumstances that meant I just HAD to get control of the housework, like, for real. I had to suddenly keep the house hospital clean and I am so so lazy, I can't tell you how little time I ever want to spend on cleaning. So I made it as easy for myself as I could and now I'll never go back. It took a few months I guess? A few days to make the change. A few months to get through a few cycles of it (you think you're done and then you realise there's tons more stuff you can chuck). Then a few years to really embed it in my life and stop the influx too.

Back then I started with the bathroom. Just one of each thing - soap, shampoo, conditioner, etc, and threw the rest out. No duplicates, no multiples. That was where I started. Once you start it gets clearer and clearer how little stuff you actually need and how much easier life is once you are not constantly MOVING stuff from place to place. I wasn't a hoarder or anything. I had a normal amount of loads of stuff.

I also have a robot hoover -- you can do that when there isn't shit all over the floor!

The Kondo method would have been a disaster for me. Too disruptive unless you have a big big slot of time.
I recommend the onion method, doing it layer by layer. Do a round of the house removing easy stuff. Then repeat as you have time.
You build your decision-making muscles, and start seeing the benefits, inspiring you to go that bit deeper. You adjust to what possibly feels like things looking bare to start with, and relax into enjoying the calmness.
As you get further along housework gets easier and less time- consuming.
I'm not in favour of housework routines and clean as needed, but find keeping tidy gets easier and easier as you go along.
You must must address any habit of bringing unnecessary new stuff in though!

If you have duplicates of stuff or stuff you havn't used in a year - bin it - whole lot to the tip - I feel very guilty but even if I sell things on they will end up at the tip a few months /years later. Once you've cleaned you don't let any stuff build up again. One lot of guilt.

YY I agree. Don't keep things in your home just to stop them going to the bin. That's actually just you living in the bin. Don't live in the bin!

You sound like me

I feel like I'm treading water half the time with my cleaning. Some weeks it's overbearing.

Other than paying for a cleaner to help clean my bathroom I don't know what the solution is.

I work 5 days, after cooking tea, washing up and reading to my dd at bedtime and then I'm fit for nothing.

I've just had 2 weeks off so I've managed to clear my ironing pile, clean my bedroom, sort a box of admin...but it won't last😩