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How to Clean a Home Without Getting Distracted



I live in a fairly wealthy neighborhood.  When I enter houses around me I sometimes feel that I am being escorted into Buckingham Palace.  Perfectly shined floors.  Clutter-free countertops.  White baseboards.  It’s intimidating, to say the least.


And, while I may never have things that clean, I want my house to be healthy and manageable.  I want to be able to find things and have some order.


Unfortunately, my cleaning style for much of my life could have been summed up in the title of one of my favorite children’s books: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  I would start in the kitchen in the morning.  I would have unloaded approximately two cups from the dishes in the dishwasher when I would get a telephone call.  While talking on the telephone I would decide to work on folding laundry.  When I walked into the laundry room I would notice that the laundry room garbage had not been emptied.  I would take out the laundry room garbage sack and hang it on the front door handle because I would notice coats scattered on the entry floor – you get the picture.


Finally, I started having people recommend cleaning books and offering to help me organize my home.  It was getting embarrassing.  But, in my defense, let me tell you that housecleaning with seven kids is no walk in the park.  When you head into one room all the kids scatter to the next, leaving a trail of toys, crumbs, woodchips, and crayon drawings (not just confined to paper)  behind them.  And so it goes all day long - in a circle around the house.  They mess, you clean, they mess, you clean.  


Because I have been driven to the depths of humility in my housecleaning I have also been taught and led to a couple of super simple strategies for keeping the house clean if you are as easily distracted as I am:


Around the Clock Cleaning:  This is a system for picking up that helps me not get distracted as I pick up.  Otherwise, each item takes me on a memory journey that spans into the deep recesses of time.  I start in one part of the room and work my way around the room in a clockwise circle putting things away.  Often I will put things in piles for the different floors, rooms, or areas - one for the basement, one for the living areas, one for the bedrooms.  Then I put those piles away.


Housecleaning Plans:  There are two of these that I really like.  One is a cleaning flow chart.  Another is a photo holder that combines daily and weekly jobs.  I bought the photo holder at the Dollar Tree and then just wrote on index cards that I inserted into the sleeves.  I use the photo holder every week because it consumes less time.  But when I get in a grind I turn to my flow chart which allows me to really clean house in a few hours.  I traded housecleaning for piano lessons at one point and I used the flow chart to do a good clean of that house in the time allotted.   I have included a link to the flow chart here and also some pictures of the photo holder below.  I sometimes use a dry erase marker with the photo holder.  That way I can cross off jobs as I do them.  As you can see I also have a day for each child and sometimes switch things around if it’s not working well.



I hope that these ideas are as helpful to you as they have been to me. And I am always open to new ideas so don't be afraid to share in comments if you have something that has worked really well for you.

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