Simple, realistic ways for busy moms to maintain daily cleaning and organizing habits, even in chaos
Creating a new home routine is exciting—you feel motivated and ready to make a change. But as the days go on, life gets busy, and sticking to those routines can feel overwhelming. Before you know it, the excitement fades, and old habits creep back in. If you’ve ever struggled to stay consistent, you’re not alone! The good news? Here are a few simple strategies I have used so you can build routines that actually stick—even on the busiest days.
Ask me how many times I have tried to restart a workout routine or anything else, for that matter.
Having kids around and trying to follow a home routine is a perfect storm for consistent distractions, interruptions, and well, like trying to swim upstream.
Lack of sleep, last-minute schedule changes, solo parenting, last-minute work projects, or changes, the list goes on.
It’s exhausting and sometimes can feel defeating.
We’ve got this, though, and here are my best tips to sticking to home routines.
Identify Your Roadblocks
If your past struggles to stick to routines haunt you. I want you to think about what typically derails your routines. (e.g., distractions, lack of energy, unexpected events).
I know that when my husband travels and I am solo parenting, it can be harder to tackle all the routines in a day. But I remember when I was a single mom with one kid working in the corporate world. A simple after-school activity meant we got home late and nothing could get done except bedtime routine, and so I had to get up early in the morning to do a home reset instead.
But I learned that routines don’t mean perfection, and that’s when I can fall back on what I like to call my non-negotiable tasks.
Sometimes, just being a woman and living within the fluctuating energy levels of the human body limitations as a woman can throw me off if you know what I mean.
Luckily, we women have superpowers. But working within our cycle times and knowing when this is can help you deal with those hard days.
Typically, cooking is not one of the things I want to do during this time of the month, so having premade meals or easy-to-grab ones is what I can lean back on. Also, there is nothing wrong with using recyclable paper plates to reduce the dish load. I’m just saying it’s okay to make things easy.
Because it’s so important to take care of ourselves too.
Sick kids or anyone else can throw things for a loop. Now, the normal routine seems like double duty as you are trying to do a disinfection routine while nursing people.
So here is where I will again stick to non-negotiables.
Identify your non-negotiables
As I mentioned above, sticking to a routine doesn’t mean perfection.
But having some non-negotiables can help you maintain some sense of order when you experience a lack of time, interruptions, or anything else life throws your way.
My Non-negotiable list includes the following.
- Dishes done daily
- 15/30 minute daily reset
- Daily kitchen floor cleanup, vacuum/sweep using the robot
- One load of laundry
- Weekly vacuum
- Weekly bathroom cleaning
5 best tips on keeping your home tidy when short on time.
- Invest in a robot vacuum and a floor mop. I have a Shark Robot vacuum, and its name is Lightning.
- Keep a spray bottle of disinfectant cleaner around to wipe surfaces, such as bathroom counters and toilets quickly. My favorite one is Force of Nature. This way, you can just wipe and go, even if you don’t have time to clean entire rooms.
- Reduce the dish load: limit the number of dishes you own and use disposable options on hectic days.
- Set a timer and have everyone in the household find something that is not where it belongs to reset.
- Give yourself grace and know that it’s more important to tackle three out of the five non-negotiables and pick them up the following week. Because sometimes life happens.
- Invest in an upright vacuum mop. I don’t personally own one, but I think they are awesome. The top two I recommend are the Shark and the Tineco.
- Use the bin method: Keep bins in each room. Toss everything in a bin and then put everything away later. Also, use bins to store things to make cleaning easy. I have some in my living room for my kids’ tablets and headphones. Easy for them to toss it in, and they hide the mess.
Make It Easier to Stick With Your Routine
Use checklists, planners, or habit-tracking apps if they help. If you are a checklist person, try my home management planner, where I share a basic daily cleaning plan. Create your own checklist or follow the ones that I have created. Habit-tracking apps are great, too, as they can send you reminders, gamify things, and earn points. They may even get the kids excited to join in.
Create a family chore chart
When it comes to keeping a tidy house, I believe it’s a family effort. Creating a family chore chart together could be a great idea for getting everyone on board with home routine consistency. Make it fun and let the kids choose the things they want to do to help them keep up with things.
My kids fight over who is going to refill the toilet paper in the bathrooms because it’s easier to do. For me, it’s one less thing on my mind and something I haven’t done in about four years at this point. I have our toilet paper on auto-shipment from Amazon. It’s the most cost-effective and delivers every six months.
When that huge box arrives, my kids already know what it is and where to put it all. Every week, I just remind them that it’s Thursday’s toilet paper restock day.
Automate Everything you can
One thing that can derail my efforts in maintaining a routine is all the little tasks that need to be done, like shopping, buying products, paying bills, etc.
I have tried to automate things as much as possible so I can free my time, my brain, and mundane tasks that need to be done.
As I mentioned above, I have toilet paper on auto-shipment, as are 99% of my bills and other household needs. Heck, I even have our routine automated with Google. I will have to share this in another blog post soon, but I made a short video on social media.
Remember how I mentioned the Shark Robot for cleaning your floors fast above. Well, you can even schedule the cleaning with the Shark app. He will turn on automatically.
I even use the delay wash option on my washer.
In short, you can use every tool at your disposal to take things off your plate by automation.
Habit stack so things stick
Habit stacking is like a superpower once you learn how to do it. This post explains more about it.
Use Visual Reminders
I mentioned in a previous blog post that my oldest has ADHD. To aid her, I created visual reminders of the daily routine on her door. So each morning, she woke up and could look back at the routine. I saw another idea on TikTok using stickable puck lights underneath a daily task to help keep you on task. As you complete each task, you turn off the light. Genius right! (It was one of those why did I not think of that moments)
@sprinkleinlearning Light Routine💡Game. Changer. We went from morning chaos to organized and independent. I’m so glad we tried this! My youngest loves her new routine reminder and so do I! No more morning struggles! 🔗 Dm me for lights link! 🔗 #sprinkleinlearning #morningroutine #morningroutines #visualschedule #lights #visualsupports #asd #bcba #behavioranalysis #schedule #independence #momhack #momhacks #momtips #momtipsandtricks #parentinghacks #parenting #parentingtips #parenthood #parentwin #momsupport #momwin #morningmotivation #routines #momof3 #morningvibes #gettingready #kidslearning #letsgo ♬ Pretty Woman – Soundtrack Orchestra
This could work for both kids and adults, and I have a visual aid printable pack, too, that my kids follow. They are older now and use it less, but they loved it when they were younger. You can check that out below. The best part is that I created the cards so that you can create your own routine.
Simplify your life with daily themes
Some people like to clean specific rooms or areas on certain assigned days. This can help keep you on task and know in advance how to schedule or plan your day. Knowing how much time a certain task takes can also help you assign the best day to set it to.
Keep the thought of the theme going even in the kitchen for meal preps.
I enjoy planning meals 365 days a year, said no one ever!! But theme days work.
I mean, Taco Tuesday is a real thing, so use it. Doesn’t mean each Taco Tuesday is the same meat choice. It could be chicken one week, beef fajitas the next.
But taking that pressure off of trying to meal plan by using a theme can help you focus on other areas of the home and reduce time spent meal planning, which can be shifted into time resetting or cleaning the house. Also, Friday Pizza nights are like a universal thing, right?!
Assigned laundry days can work too. Assign a laundry day for each person.
This is the method I use, as each person has their own laundry basket.
Check out my video for more tips.
Clean as you go
Sometimes, we think we don’t have time to stick to routines, because it needs to be all-or-nothing time blocks.
But there are pockets of time that we all miss out on that can help us tackle mini tasks and allow us to stick to regular routines better.
These are the things I do
- Standing is in a car rider line. Clean out your car or purse while waiting.
- Standing in front of the microwave, wipe the outside of the fridge and dishwasher. Or race the clock and sort through the daily mail.
- The kids are playing in the bath, and you’re sitting watching. Grab your spray bottle and cloth and wipe down the toilet or sink. Declutter a few items in the drawer.
- When my husband drives, I use the time to wipe down the car, sometimes on one side, or I will declutter my inbox.
- Use TV time to your advantage. While the kids are occupied, sneak in something to get done. You can watch TV, fold laundry, or use commercial breaks to do something quick.
- While my kids brush their teeth I will tidy their closet
I just look for opportunities, and it helps me stay on top of housework.
Adjust routines as needed
Sometimes, seasons of life start to shift our activities. This is when you need to consider how your routines support this.
For example, when my littles were young and I took advantage of nap times to get things done, it all came to a halt when they suddenly no longer napped. It forces you to adjust.
As kids get older, maybe you are drowning in extracurricular activities now on weekends and after school.
So maybe weekend cleanings are now more of a regular thing.
It’s important to take note of the time you have and create your cleaning routine to it.
Lastly, simplify your life
If you do nothing of what I mentioned above, the foundation of a tider home with less effort is simply having less. This allows more time to stick to routines.
Simplifying everything you own frees up time. Your home stays tidier simply by things being less invasive.
Fewer toys mean faster tidying.
Fewer cups mean fewer dishes daily.
Fewer clothing options mean smaller laundry loads.
5 best tips for embracing less
- Reduce everyone down to two towels each- here is my Youtube video on that
- Reduce all your linens to two each per bed
- You should reduce your total number of cups to four: four coffee mugs, four kid cups, and four regular daily cups. You can also pick the number based on the number of people in your household.
- Adopt a capsule wardrobe
- For every new item you bring in, you need to adopt one item that must leave
Decluttering is an ongoing process, and you must treat it that way. I call it editing your life. Editing your life to ensure it represents who you are currently helps you let go of the items you accumulate.
If you found this post helpful, share your comments below, and if there is something you want me to expand on, share your request below as well.