The secret to keeping a "clean" house

I was just thinking about posting about the topic of keeping a clean house and Simple Mom beat me to it. I am often told, "Your house always seems so clean..." but I never really know how to answer that because I don't spend much time cleaning. Really, I'm not neurotic. I'm not one of THOSE moms. But this post is the reason my house appears clean. (I'm not going to re-cap it, please go read it...it's worth your time!) Yes, I like a clean tidy house, but I don't like to clean, that's why I do things quickly to get them over with. I like the result, not the process. Believe me, I have piles of junk just like everyone else. Some of my piles just happened to be tucked away in drawers dedicated to piles of junk that need to be put away!

The reason I was going to post on this was because on Monday, I went to a neighbor's house who was not expecting me. She invited me in, but immediately said, "Sorry for the mess, I've been swamped with work." No need to apologize...you don't need to impress lil' old me! The house was pretty messy, but I didn't judge. What I did, however, was notice things that didn't need to be there. For instance, it was 8:15am and there were crumpled McDonald's bags and leftover food wrappers on the kitchen table. (I'm assuming from dinner the night before) There were empty containers of granola bars on the counter. And as she ran upstairs, she bent over to clear a path for herself by picking up scattered toys and stuffed animals and moving them to the side of the stairs.

In my mind, if you can pick it up to move it out of the way, why not continue holding it until you get to where it needs to go? Even by quickly tossing it onto her daughter's bedroom floor, she's up there anyway and at least the item is close(r) to it's "home." I was also confused about why, after dinner, the take-out-trash didn't make it into the garbage. What's a little sad to me is that she is (obviously) so overwhelmed with work and life, that the simplest of things (throwing a Big Mac wrapper into the trash bin 2 feet away) didn't seem possible. Or I suppose it just wasn't a priority for her. She is creating so much more work for herself by not taking the 25 seconds to do the "quick things" along the way. With her hectic schedule, she's now going to take a huge chunk of time this weekend to do a thorough pick-up job in her house when it wouldn't be that way in the first place if she would have done a few simple things along the way.

Great, now I sound like I'm judging. I don't feel judgemental, I just see an easier way and wish I knew her well enough to share my thoughts. I've been that busy. In fact, in a few weeks, I will be there again. I posted about "her side" of this issue a few months back (click here to peek at it) and on that day, I remember being furious with myself that I had lived among a pigsty for a week that was easily cleaned up one afternoon when the kids overslept from their nap by 30 minutes. I worked against the clock, knowing they'd wake up any minute, and everything was neat and back where it belonged in less than an hour.

It's all about priorities. For some, fresh flowers from the garden on the counter are a priority. Not for me. For others, finishing touches at dinner like a dollop of whipped cream or a sprinkle of fresh basil leaves make all the difference. That's not me, either. I even know people who iron their pillow cases. Not in a million years. As it is, I don't even iron my cloth napkins for fancy dinner parties.

I'm all about simplicity and efficiency. Lately, I've developed a "touch it once" rule. If I take time to read an email (or snail mail, for that matter), I do my best to "touch it" once. Read it and either file it, respond or delete it immediately. As it is, my emails pile up like crazy, I don't need to be reading and re-reading the same emails repeatedly. And the mail that Mike brings home after work gets sorted within minutes. Coupons are put with coupons (even if they need to sorted and put in proper envelopes later), magazines have a home, junk mail is put in the recycle bin, bills go in a pile to be brought upstairs to the office. Done. Things that make it to the abyss of the junk pile usually aren't seen for a month or two, so if it's important, needs to be paid or is going to expire, it needs to be handled right away.

One tip that I love is that I have baskets for stray toys in a few key places. The play room has open bins that the kids can toss their toys when they're picking up, both kids' rooms have a basket, and there's one in the family room. This is a huge time saver and makes each room FEEL clean because the smaller items are all containerized in a nice(ish) basket. Before I added a few baskets to the house, there were constantly toys sprinkled in the most random places. Now, if I see one lying on the floor, I throw it in a basket.

Wow - this was supposed to be a quick reference to Simple Mom's post about keeping a clean home! I just went off on a huge rant about me, me, me. Sorry about that. I hope something I've said will inspire you to simplify and declutter something this weekend. Don't we all need a little simplicity in our lives???