As a beginning home keeper, you shouldn’t be stressed that everything in your home should be perfect. Instead, I highly recommend this simple home keeping strategy to set an achievable routine.
Newly married? Have you just moved into a home? Has the mail clutter began to accumulate? How about the laundry? Is that a 7 business days needed to put away type of scenario? And how do I know? Because I’ve been there.
In this current day, wives have so much on their plates. Not only do you need to have a full time job to help supply for your family’s financial security, but you also need to keep a perfectly clean house, keep everyone fed with homemade meals, take care of yourself, and (in many cases) have a side hustle. I definitely get it. Wives’ main job used to just be home making and keeping life running smoothly. Now, we have to still do all of that, but also work 8-9 hours a day. So really it’s absurd that people think we should be doing it all and our homes still be perfect.
So the first thing I want to start with is, you don’t need a perfect house. There! I said it. I’m tired of the stigma that our busy wives and moms need to have perfect homes. It’s simply not achievable for busy lives.
I’m going to follow that with this: We still need to have decently kept homes. Why? Because our homes have a huge impact on our mental health and stress levels. I know that I’m contradicting myself, but it’s so true. Let me explain.
Our homes set the tone for our lives. When we have a messy and unclean home, it has a huge effect on how we live the rest of our lives. If an unorganized mess exists in our home, it’s going to follow through to how we behave at work. It might make your mind feel cluttered. It also may feel like you don’t have everything “together”.
I’m going to be the first to admit that keeping a clean home isn’t my expertise. But in my busy life and over the past few years, I’ve developed a strategy to keeping our home fairly maintained without adding excessive stress to my life trying to keep it that way. It starts with what I like to call the “power hour”.
The Power Hour
A power hour is when you set a timer for an hour and work consistently and with intent for the full hour at doing things around your home. This includes anything from dishes, to laundry, to cleaning up your cluttered mail pile. I try to have a least one power hour a day during the week. This is usually right away when I get home or off of work. By having a quick power hour to tidy up our home, I find myself able to relax more in the evening.
How to strategize this simple home keeping technique
So how do you go about strategizing a power hour? It’s one thing to say that you are going to diligently work for an hour, but another to actually execute that. If you aren’t careful, you can end up running around your house and in the end get nothing done.
To strategize my power hour, I start where the mess is the worst. Usually, it’s the kitchen for me. That’s where the mail clutter accumulates, dishes need washed. The only exception to this, is if I need to start a load of laundry while I’m working in the kitchen.
So I might start a load of laundry and immediately start washing dishes and tidying up in just that one room.
Once I have the kitchen picked up, I’ll move to one of my least dirty rooms… I know, I know. Not necessarily what you might have expected. The predictable next step is moving to the next messiest room.
What I’ve found, is that by starting with the messiest room, I conquer my biggest problem. By then moving to one of my least messiest rooms, I get a quick and easy win. It’s a motivation tactic. Because if I moved into my next messiest room, I might face burnout or a wall looking at how much needs done. By conquering a room quickly, I get excited (maybe? actually more on a high from “winning”) that I’ve had two rooms done and am more likely to continue working diligently on the next messiest room instead of hitting a mental block.
So that’s my simple home keeping strategy. I continue to work back and forth from messiest room to least messiest room.
Now, don’t expect that I get my whole house picked up in an hour every day. Sometimes it happens. And sometimes during the week, I settle with having one power hour everyday. This keeps my house manageable without spending all my time just cleaning. But that doesn’t mean everything gets done. So no, my home isn’t perfect.
On weekends, I do multiple power hours to do my cleaning. But most of the time, I can’t do them all in a row. Instead, I’ll start a load of laundry, do my power hour, and then find a relaxing task to do for 30 minutes. This might be reading a book, watching a TV episode, going outside for 30 minutes on a walk, whatever. Then, I come back and have another power hour. This is more of a deep decluttering and cleaning of our home.
Seasons
Now, this is all fine and dandy, but it would be neglectful to say that this consistently happens year round. It doesn’t. During my gardening and harvest season, our home get’s neglected. Instead of deep cleaning on a Saturday, I might be canning all day and decluttering in-between batches.
During the winter seasons, I have more time to clean, keep on top of laundry, and keep the home picked up. Minus calving season, I suppose.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Give yourself grace. A messy home is a lived in home.
Final Thoughts on Simple Home Keeping
My biggest piece of advice is to just try your best to consistently have a power hour, one per day. Doing this will help keep your home more picked up and take the stress off of having a perfect home. You’ll get some wins and feel proactive.
And what I’ve found, is that this power hour becomes a time of self reflection or de-stressing. And I actually hate cleaning! But when I’m so focused on cleaning and picking up during this time, my mind ends up wandering and reflecting. I’ve actually come to enjoy this time.
So what’s your strategy? How to do you go about keeping your home picked up? Let me know!
