Why I Don’t Keep a Clean House (And Neither Should You)
I may scare a few people off my confessing this but I’ll confess anyway: I don’t keep a clean house. It isn’t a goal I’m heading toward. In fact, having a perfectly clean house is not even on my radar. What? Isn’t that everyone’s goal? Isn’t that the role of a homemaker? The answer comes in the form of a big, fat, NO!
You’ll never be satisfied if you try to keep your entire home clean. It’s just not going to happen because you live here! Instead, focus on getting one area clean at a time. Some areas can be clean once per week (or month or year) and some areas can have a clean moment daily. My kitchen table is an area that I try to clean once a day. Sometimes it’s first thing in the morning and then the kids do puzzles or drive cars on it. Sometimes it’s right before supper so I can set the table for supper. Sometimes we eat at a table with last night’s rice still on it and I clean it after the kids have gone to bed. It is clean for probably 15 minutes per day maximum. But I’m okay with that.
You’ll never be satisfied if you try to keep your entire home clean. It’s just not going to happen because you live here! Instead, focus on getting one area clean at a time.
I try to clean my floors once per week. I don’t have a very big house and we don’t have a lot of toys so, if everyone (read: my husband, who pumps up the boys to help out) chips in, it only take about 15-30 minutes to tidy the floors enough so I can sweep. Sometimes I mop. And then the kids run in and out of the house with dirty feet. The next day the toys and sand are all over the floor again.
My sink has a dish brush, coffee grounds, and a few dishes in it. I try to clean it once per day but we use our sink. It is pretty much never empty because, as soon as I do clean it, it’s snack time and strawberry and banana covered knives and plates get put in there. Or my husband makes coffee and rinses out the reusable coffee filter. Or I find a cup of yesterday’s leftover milk to dump in there.
The goal is not to keep your home clean. The goal is to GET it that way. And then move on. Let it go. Know that it will be messy and dirty again. And that’s okay. So give yourself grace. Pick your area to focus on that can be cleaned right now. And accept that you are cleaning it up simply to be a clean canvas for your life. A clean slate for new creativity. Whether it be for supper, race tracks, or morning coffee. That’s just life. And life is messy and dirty.
If you really struggle, I highly recommend you check out my free 5 day email challenge. Instead of staying stuck in the messy and overwhelming, you can take a few simple actions each day to transform your home. You’ll get both action steps as well as scripture and prayer prompts to help you get motivated to actually follow through.Â
Comment below to let me know what one area you can stay focused on or how you’re planning to let go a bit and breath easier.
I love this post!! You are so right – it’s about the quality of life, not living for a showhome. I get antsy when there is too much mess or clutter and I have a 15min Tidy Up session every weekday and a major cleaning session (for about 2/3 hours) once in the week. The rest of the time, it just gets left so that we can get on with living our lives and I can be a present mother for my children. Whilst I wouldn’t criticise my mother, she was a perfectionist, who by her own admission spent far longer when I was a kid cleaning than ever playing with me, and I often felt in the way or guilty. I never want to make my kids feel like that and I hope that they will always know they are my no. 1 priority.
I couldn’t agree more, Tessa! My home is not a museum–it’s a place where we live and learn and play and sleep. As much as I would love to have it clean and tidy all the time, I can’t imagine driving myself and everybody else crazy trying to keep it in order. It’s just not worth it. I would far rather my home be messy and inviting than spotless and tense all the time!
Love this Tessa! It’s a lesson I have to continue to teach myself because the perfectionist in me always wants to immediately stop what I am doing and clean or pick up a little mess that catches my eye. But I love your perspective that we live in our homes and messes do happen.
I am a perfectionist as well but I grew up in a household where that was really frowned upon. I’m on the opposite side and learning that it’s okay to want things to be perfect (albeit not always reasonable for me to expect it). You’ve written some great blog posts on routine and it really helps to look at a mess and say, “I’ve got that on the list for Wednesday” and then give yourself the freedom to move on because it has been taken care of, even if not right at that moment.
Thanks Tessa, great advice.
Give yourself grace… Love it, can you tell my husband that!! This is exactly what I have been trying to get him to understand, we live here it’s not a magazine cover life happens. Now time to clean up the dinner dishes, lol 🙂 Thank you for sharing.
Perhaps you could ask him what his priorities are when it comes to a clean house. I know that my husband appreciates not having to cook dinner in the evening so, if it is between doing laundry, tidying floors, or cooking dinner, I skip all the other stuff and just make dinner. Or sometimes he will ask me to wash his farm clothes so I’ll pop pizzas in so I can get that laundry done. Then at least you guys can have the same focus. But yes, a lived in home is certainly not magazine-worthy!
Thanks for the encouragement in this area! Since having my second baby (who is 9 months now!) I’ve learned I simply can’t have a totally clean house. Well, there have been a few exceptions, like Easter, but for that to happen my husband had a day out with the boys while I cleaned all day. We hosted Easter and then it all went back to the normal lived in state again. And I’m learning that that’s ok. I would much rather spend the time with the boys than spend all my time keeping everything perfectly clean.
Mothering is way more fun than housekeeping, isn’t it? And wayv more important. Your kids will remember how you made them feel more than how your house looked.
Yes, I’m learning to let go of the “mommy guilt” that I don’t measure up to someone else’s standards of how clean the house is. We homeschool. We live here. There’re messes. That’s life.
Homeschool mess is the best kind, isnt it? I love being able to look over my house at the day’s end and see what my kids have been learning.
So where I live everyone’s home is always clean any time, no matter how many kids…I am the only one. I used to vent about this and that is when ppl let me in on the reality of the situation…if you want your house to be spotless you have to give up spending time with your kids, and if you want to spend time with your kids you have to accept that your house will often be far less than picked up. I have stopped looking at their houses because I feel bad every time. Instead I just focus on what I am doing for my children. I truly believe that in the long run, everyone will see why they should have spent more time with their children…if they are not blinded by the perfection of a clean home.
That is so true. Perhaps you need a friend who have the same cleanliness standards as you. It is tough when everyone around you prioritizes differently. And some people are natural housekeepers so that helps too. But it is nice to visit a friend and let the kids make messes and have fun while you sit and enjoy a cup or lemonade with you friend and can comppletely ignore the counter of dishes and full laundry basekts.
I’d choose a lived-in house, with all its messiness, over a non-lived-in house any day!!! I try to remember that if I didn’t have time to clean, it’s because I was doing something else that had to take priority, be it working on my writing or being present for my toddler. Many days the messy home is well worth it!
Visiting from the Babies & Beyond link-up!
Sounds like you really have your priorities figured out. Thanks for stopping by!
I hear you on this. For me, there’s a fine line between acceptable clutter from a home that is lived in ….and overwhelming and stressful clutter that detracts from a peaceful environment. Finding that balance is tough!
I have found huge freedom in doing some serious decluttering. I highly recommend it! But then I’m a bit of a minimalist. I have found, though, that balance is a bit of an illusion. Life is more like juggling: keeping the most important balls in the air. If it drops, it probably wasn’t important enough to catch 😉
I love this! You made me feel so much better! My house is always “lived in” not clean. Thanks for making me feel better about my lived in house!
Glad you’re encouraged. A lived in home is filled with love 🙂
That makes me feel better! I’ve been trying for years, and it’s never ALL clean at the same time unless we’re getting ready for a homestudy visit from an adoption social worker, lol.
Homestudy visits sound like they require a special cleaning-frenzy. And then give yourself the freedom to relax once it’s done 🙂