Easy Cleaning Routine for Working Moms
Are you looking for a realistic and easy cleaning routine? One you can accomplish every day with a full time work schedule? With just 30 minutes a day, I have figured it out. I found the perfect cleaning routine for working moms.
Do you feel like you just don’t have time for a cleaning routine?
I know I did. As a full time working mom, my time is very precious. The little bit of home time I get to spend with my family is limited. I spend more time with my patients than I do with my child. between working and having to care for everyone in the house and the animals… there just isn’t time to clean.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my job. I don’t dread going to work every day. I don’t hate my coworkers. It’s quite the opposite. Aside from the fact that I need to work to pay my bills, I also choose to work. I am lucky to work. I am lucky to have a job that helps me to support my family.
I am busy person. Even if I don’t have anything planned, I will find something to do. I am constantly in motion. In fact, just last night I was telling Leslie, “You don’t kiss my face anymore.” and she told me, “It’s because you never sit still.”
Ouch, but she is right.
It’s funny because even though I was always working, moving, cleaning and organizing I could never get the housework caught up. I would wake up at 4 AM. on Saturdays and Sundays, I wish I was kidding, and clean the house all day. Then come Tuesday, the house was a wreck again. We lived out of the laundry basket in the living room. All of our clothes would just sit wrinkled in that laundry basket, where eventually, the cats would lay down or Pancake would nest. So, then the clothes would have to go back in the washer, just to repeat the cycle.
Is Your Messy Home the Reason for Your Stress?
I know it is for me. Just seeing something out of place sends my brain into action. I automatically start thinking about how that item needs to be picked up and while I’m picking that up I need to wipe the counter down, then after wiping the counters I need to sweep the floors…
.Literally just visualizing the mess makes me uncomfortable and causes me anxiety. I was unable to relax in my home because everywhere I looked, something needed to be picked up or cleaned.
Imagine just walking into a room and feeling at ease. Nothing at all has to be done. You can just go in and enjoy your space. When was the last time you could do that?
With just a few minutes a day, you can keep your house clean.
I searched and searched for a solution. All I could find was daily cleaning guides geared towards moms who stayed home with their children or moms who worked from the home. The guides were impossible for me to do daily. Wash the baseboards every Wednesday? That is not what I was looking for. I needed a cleaning routine that was practical for a mom who worked outside of the home. I listened to podcast after podcast and read so many blogs.
Eventually, I started piecing things together that I liked from each thing I had read and finally, I put together a method that worked. With just a few extra minutes a day, my house is staying clean.
Cleaning Routine Breakdown:
The morning chores and the evening chores will work hand in hand. When I mention switching the clothes to the dryer, I am referring to the clothes that you’ve put in the washer the night before. Once you’ve caught up on laundry you will only be washing very small loads. One days worth of clothes for your family.
Morning chores
- Make the bed. 2 minutes.
– Just do it. You will start your day off on the right foot. Starting that routine will keep you on track, helping to give you the motivation to complete your next task. Bonus: getting into a perfectly made bed in the evenings feels so good. The bed can change the entire look of the room. Think about it, why do you make the bed after you’ve cleaned the room really good on a day off? You’re not going to leave that bed a mess because a messy bed = a messy room. - Switch the laundry to the dryer. 1 minute.
-Do this after your first morning routine. Whether it’s letting the dogs out or turning on the coffee pot. Make this the next step in that ritual. Eventually, you won’t even have to remind yourself to do it. You will just go right to it. You want to do this before you get dressed for work. After you’ve switched it over, go and get ready. Since the load is so small, it should dry pretty quickly. 20 minutes tops with my dryer and that gives me time to get myself ready for work. - Wipe the bathroom counters/sink. 2 minutes.
– While you brush your teeth, during the actual brushing phase, take a face towel, wet it with water from the sink or place a cleaner nearby that you can grab quickly, and wipe down the sink and counters. A quick wipe is all it needs. By doing this every morning, the grime won’t build up. This is so easy because you are wiping the counters while you are brushing. - Fold/hang/pick up laundry. 7 minutes.
I am being generous with the minutes here for the laundry. For my family of three, our laundry is minimal day by day, but a weeks’ worth is total chaos. Having to pick up one set of clothes, (two if we aren’t re-wearing pajamas) per person is a lot easier and can be done much quicker than 7-14 sets per person if you are doing laundry day. Are your kids old enough to help out and pick up their own clothes? That could shave some time down for you. Think about it like this, you are only picking up three pairs of socks. Three outfits. Three towels.
I am usually done in about five minutes. My laundry baskets haven’t been touched in ages. - Random quick household chore. 3 minutes.
– Take the last 3 minutes and look around at what needs to be done. Wipe the kitchen counters down. Sweep a room. Spot mop really quick. Empty the dishwasher if the load wasn’t big or clean up the morning dishes like your coffee mug. Find something that you can do quickly. I love to walk around and look for things that I can get done in less than a minute. That’s what you have to remind yourself. If you can do this in sixty seconds, then why not?
Total time: 15 minutes
Evening Chores (Not Including Supper)
- Empty the dishwasher while you cook. 5 minutes.
– Empty the dishwasher while you are cooking dinner. While you are waiting for something to boil or brown. Empty the dishwasher and then reload it as you cook. At the end of dinner, load it up and start it. START THE DISHWASHER. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t full. Getting the dishes done every single night makes a huge difference in the entire look of the kitchen. Bonus- when you wash half a load of dishes, you only have half a load to pick up. Something else to keep in mind: a dishwasher uses less water than when you hand wash your dishes. So don’t think about the waste. - Clean the kitchen. 4 minutes.
-Your kitchen is probably mostly clean now that all the dishes were put right into the dishwasher but use this time to wipe down the stove and the table. Just a quick wipe down. - Random chore. 3 minutes.
– What can you get done in 3 minutes, now? Maybe take the trash out? Do you see a spot on the floor you could mop really quick? Maybe your random chore could be to set the coffee pot for the next morning. Anything at all that you see that could be done, right now, go and do it. - Put laundry to wash. 3 minutes.
– After baths are done and everyone is about to get into bed, grab all the dirty laundry from the day and throw it in the washer. It’s not much clothes so it won’t take long to gather, at all. Doing laundry every day, this way, doesn’t allow the sweaty stank to sit on the clothes for a week, either. No more needing to rewash. And everyone has clean underwear.
Total time: 15 minutes
My Personal Daily Cleaning Routine
–4:30 AM– Alarm goes off. I crawl out of bed around 4:40 AM. I turn the coffee pot on, let the dogs out and switch the clothes from the night before into the dryer. I then get lunches in lunch bags.
–5:00 AM– Ember’s alarm goes off. I then spend the next fifteen or twenty minutes threatening to make her live outside in the chicken coop if she doesn’t get out of bed and get dressed for school. (Kidding, obviously. Mostly.) I do that while doing my own makeup, hair and getting dressed. I go brush my teeth and while brushing, I grab a rag and wipe down the counter tops in the bathroom and pick up anything that I might have missed on the floor from the night before.
–5:30-5:45 AM– I make my bed (takes a minute and a half) then head into the laundry room to start folding the clothes I switched over. This is done very quickly because it’s a very small load. My nightly loads are only the towels we use from bathing and the clothes we’ve worn that day. It takes me, literally, five minutes to fold and pick it all up. I then grab Pancake and tube feed her. That takes about three minutes. I spend more time chasing her down because she gets the zoomies in the morning and likes to play hide and seek. I usually have extra time to add in another little 5–10-minute chore here. So, one day, I’ll wipe down the kitchen counters and the table. Another day, I’ll sweep and spot mop the living room and kitchen. Whatever little chore I can squeeze in, I’ll do.
–6:00 AM- I go outside to let the chickens out of the coops. Tell them I love them and to have a good day. I get the dogs inside and put them into their kennels. I assure Lily that she isn’t going to be locked in the kennel forever and that we will come back home.
–6:15 AM– We are loading the car and rolling out.
When I get home at 5:00 PM I sit for a while with Leslie and Ember, go outside and spend time with the chickens, do homework and then get ready for dinner (that has been planned with my weekly meal plan.) We make sure, after dinner, that the dishes are loaded into the dish washer and the kitchen is cleaned. After everyone bathes, I throw the dirty laundry from the day into the washing machine and by 7:30-8:00, everyone is in bed and ready to sleep. We all like to go to bed early.
Pretty Simple Cleaning Routine, Right?
So, that’s it. 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening. This cleaning routine works for us. The house stays tidy and during the weekends I don’t have piles of laundry to do and I don’t have to deep clean anything at all. I’ll do big jobs like dusting, steam cleaning, washing sheets and rearranging on the weekends, but just doing the laundry every day during the week makes a huge impact on how the weekend will go. It’s absolutely mind blowing to me how much easier it is to do a little every day.
I choose to keep my most trafficked rooms as the ones that I will clean during my daily cleaning routine because seeing those rooms and not feeling anxiety over all of the things I need to do in it really puts me at ease. So, I save the laundry room where the dogs stay while we work and Ember’s room for the weekends.
Want a Freebie? Use my free morning and evening cleaning routine printable as a guide to get you started on your journey to a more peaceful home.
Want one you can fill in yourself? Here you go.
Give it a shot. You can take this cleaning routine and make it your own. You don’t have to do exactly as I do. Break down your minutes into things that you feel are necessary in your home on a daily basis. Simply seeing your cleaning routine broken down into minutes will change your perspective on things. It’s just 15 minutes. You’ve got this.
I do want to add- I have implemented ways of organization to help make cleaning easier and go a lot quicker.
Do you have a routine that works? Or an idea of how we can make this better? Let me know.