I want to have a tidy organised home how do you ladies do it?

[Zscalent]

I'm 40 year old with 1 DD5, 2 dogs and a cat. Me and my DH both work full time. We really struggle to keep on top of the housework, if you called in youd prob not notice as I prioritise downstairs kitchen living room and bathroom so they are usually clean and tidied every evening but upstairs is nearly always a disaster area and almost every cupboard of the house is filled with miscellaneous junk. DH takes care of the washing which means at least everyone has clean clothes. This weekend we were away so I didn't get to do the usual weekend cleanup and now the place is even more of a disaster than usual. I just can't seem to find a rhythm that works and feel like such a failure when I see friends spotless homes

An easy first step is to try as much as possible to give every object in the house a proper home, not just jumble it all together somewhere. We've still got one junk cupboard and the junk in it seems to multiply. It'll help keep things tidy, as inevitably when everything is all together, more mess is made when finding and getting things out (especially if a child is involved...).

I'm going to be brutal but honest. The key thing is for both partners to view maintaining the home to a certain standard as important enough to put time and effort into it. There's a lot of I statements in your post. Unless your other half is on board with maintaining your home to the same level as you, you're on a hiding to nothing.
If you are both on the same page, then routine is key. Cleaning and tidying little and often, with regular clear outs of small areas.

For me step 1 would be to declutter and give everything a proper home. I find it so much easier to tidy when things have a home and are not just thrown in whatever cupboard. Which leads on to being able to clean properly and quicker.

It is a short term pain plan when you have to sort out every cupboard and move things around, get rid of things etc but it does work in the long term.

I divided entire space into 5 (one per week day, weekends are housework free now). Getting on top of each space (declutter, full deep clean) took a couple of weeks but now I can whizz round each area in about half an hour max.

Agree decluttering is key, if you feel like you’re forever having to tidy up. Do things in this order:

Declutter - get as much as you can out of your house, choose whatever method works for you (one area at a time, going round the whole house with a bin bag and chucking anything broken, charity shop donations etc)

Organise - have a place for everything and everything in its place, once you have a system in place it’s so much easier to put stuff back where it belongs. For example, I would just chuck jewellery/hair clips etc on the side or in the bathroom but now I have a bag for hair stuff and my jewellery box is neatly organised it’s much easier to put stuff back. Oh and life by the mantra ‘don’t put it down, put it away!’

Tidy - once everything is organised and has a home/system in place, tidy little and often. Do a daily reset which can be whatever you want e.g don’t leave any dirty dishes out, do a quick hoover, make sure all coats and shoes are put away. Whatever looks like a tidy house to you

Clean - I like to do little and often rather than wasting most of my weekend (unless I’m in the mood to do a deep clean!). Once you have clean and clear surfaces it’s much easier to do a daily wipe down and keep the house looking ‘guest ready’

it’s not easy though so don’t beat yourself up, hopefully once you build up small habits it becomes easier, and don’t compare your home to your friends ‘spotless’ homes as I bet they aren’t!

My ADHD group has a weekly Tidy&Thrive session, and a Meal Prep session that I usually use to clean the kitchen while something is in the Instant Pot.

We also have challenges (some a few days, some weeks long) and there is usually several groups competing and one will be home/environment focused.

It’s made a huge difference, not being on my own and us cheerleading each other.

There probably are house focused groups for any kind of brain type out there. Might be worth giving a free trial a whirl to see if it works.