11 Great Tips to Keep Your Household Running Smoothly
11 Tips to Keep Your Household Running Smoothly
As a stay at home mom, your to-do list can sometimes feel never ending. If you’re wondering how you can stop the overwhelm, look no further! Below, I’ve outlined 11 tips to keep your household running smoothly.
Make Your Bed
People are very divided on making your bed, but it truly changed my frame of mind once we started regularly making our bed. This one little practice helps to get you into the mindset of Getting Stuff Done. Even if nothing goes right for the rest of the day, you still accomplished something. When I am cleaning throughout the day, or even just walking past my bedroom, I see my nicely made bed and it tricks my mind into feeling like the room is ‘finished,’ even if I haven’t tidied a single other thing. Plus, it feels just a bit nicer to climb into a prettily made bed.
Empty the Dishwasher Every Day
If your household is anything like mine, you’re doing at least one load of dishes everyday. To avoid having your sink piled up with dirty dishes, empty the dishwasher each day. I make it part of my morning routine. After I finish eating breakfast, I unload the dishwasher while my son is still eating. This leaves the dishwasher ready to be filled as we eat throughout the day. It is especially helpful if I am batch cooking that day. I can load used pots and pans directly into the dishwasher instead of cluttering up my sink. I have this set and I am obsessed with them!
Cook for Surplus
This tip saves me so much time! It especially comes in handy when I haven’t had time to cook. It’s really very simple. Instead of cooking a meal that your family eats once, cook enough for multiple meals. You can do this in two ways:
Meal Prep
This means cooking enough so that you can fill leftover containers for several days. I love glass storage containers like these.
Batch and Freeze
This means cooking enough to have leftovers to freeze. I love doing this with sauces. For example, I make my spaghetti sauce from scratch. It marinates all day long, so I don’t want to have to cook it multiple times per month. Instead, I freeze half of the sauce. If we are short on time, or I haven’t had time to go to the store, I can simply pull that leftover sauce out, boil some noodles, and I’ve got a tasty meal in 30 minutes.
Use a Stair Basket
Instead of running up the stairs every time you need to put something away, place a basket on or near the stairs and take it up when you actually need to go up. This saves you time and allows you to focus on the task at hand. If you only have one floor, try a centralized basket. For instance, If you are tidying up common areas, keep a basket near the living room, and throw all child-related items into the basket while you tidy. Once you are done, take the basket to your child’s room and disperse. Your household tasks will go faster if you are not stopping every five minutes to put a single item away.
Declutter for 15 minutes Each Day
Each evening, after I’ve put my son down for the night, I head down stairs and tidy up the living, dining and kitchen. I never work for more than 15 minutes, but it’s enough time to put away stray toys, wipe down the counters, and clean my kitchen sink.
I also enjoy filling the diffuser or letting a candle burn while I work. Having these communal areas look nice and neat when I come down the next morning gives me a sense of peace. Because my household common areas appear put together, I don’t feel overwhelmed at the start of my day, which gives me the fortitude to take whatever the day throws my way. It also takes a task off of my to-do list, which is always helpful!
Clean Your Kitchen Sink at the End of the Day
This seems inconsequential, but having a clean sink (empty of dishes and wiped down) when I come down in the morning makes me feel like I can breathe easier. I didnt understand why I always felt frantic in the mornings until I started cleaning my sink at night. Being met with a dirty to-do list first thing was leaving me overwhelmed and resistant to cleaning those dirty dishes. It’s sort of like making your bed, which I mentioned above. It feels like I’m ahead of the game somehow, and my household runs more smoothly.
Give Everything a Home
Do you constantly have things out on the counter because you move them from place to place trying to figure out where to store them? I’ve certainly been guilty of that very thing! Having a home for everything means nothing is just left out on various surfaces.
My yoga mat sat on my bedroom floor for months when we first moved into our house. I didn’t have a dedicated place for workout gear, so it sat – in the way – for a long time until I carved out space in our linen closet to hold the mat and all of our other workout gear. Now I can pull it out when I need it, but I’m not tripping over it. The same goes for toys, cleaning supplies, or random things you need but don’t know what to do with, like batteries or boxes of extra lightbulbs.
*A note on keeping stuff*
If I really can’t find a home for something, I assess whether I actually need that thing. Ask yourself if you need it, want it, or if you’re just holding on to it for various reasons. It’s ok to let go of knick knacks you no longer love, or gifts from loved ones that no longer serve you. Do you really need that third backup whisk? Or that extra blanket that always gets shoved to the back of your closet? Finding a home for every item means your counters stay clear and you stay less stressed.
Don’t Try to Do Everything at Once
Clean a bit every day, rather than trying to set aside one day to complete everything.
*Spoiler Alert* you will not complete everything on your cleaning list in one day. You will get burnt out and you will get distracted by your child. You will jump from task to task without really completing anything. And you will end up feeling defeated. By doing a little bit every day, nothing ever really piles up (except laundry, there is some kind of sorcery that keeps the laundry coming 😉 but we’ll get to that in a moment). By taking on just a few tasks a day, you can keep your household running smoothly. It works so much better than if you try to do everything at once. Check out my Weekly Cleaning Schedule printable for an actionable plan.
Do Laundry Once a Day
In our house, we don’t have quite enough laundry to do a load every single day, but I have a feeling that this will change as my son grows. Even still, I manage a load at least every other day, which keeps it from getting too out of hand. If you have a larger family, try dedicating a day to each family member. This will keep everyone on a schedule so that they never truly run out of anything. It also spares you from having to sort everyone’s laundry.
At the very least, aim for only doing laundry Monday through Friday, and you’ll you’ll have more time on the weekends to devote to enjoying your family.
Clean Up Spills Immediately
Meaning, if you see your toddler spill juice on the floor, stop whatever you’re doing and clean it up then. It will take twice as long to clean up that sticky spill later when it’s had time to dry and get tacky. If your spaghetti sauce splatters on the backsplash, wipe it down quickly before it has time to set (or stain!). It took me a long time to get into the habit of wiping up messes immediately, but I am SO glad I did. You can keep your household running smoothly when you don’t give myself homework for later.
Do One Task at a Time
Picture this: you open the fridge to take inventory for a shopping list and notice a spill. So you grab some cleaner and start scrubbing, only to notice two condiment bottles that are expired. You start checking all the other bottles because you don’t want your family consuming expired ketchup. When you go to throw the bottles away, you notice the trash is full so you stop to empty it. In the garage you notice the cans of paint next to the trash bin that you asked your husband to put away.
As you are putting those away you decide to touch up the paint in your bedroom. Once you have hauled the paint supplies into your bedroom, you realize you need to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. You need to put detergent on the shopping list, but you never made the list because you got too distracted by all of the things that need to get done.
If this sounds like you, stop trying to multitask. Focus on fully accomplishing one thing. Don’t stop sorting the mail until you’ve gone through it all. Fold all of the clothes and put them away before picking up toys. This will save you time and energy in the long run.
Running a household is no easy task. Take the time to put measures in place to help keep your household running smoothly. Have you used any of these tips to make life easier? Drop a comment below to let me know how it went!
