How to Clean Your House With Kids

I saw a website recently that had printable instructions on how to clean your house. Like, a step-by-step checklist to get your house clean.

The first step was to "pick up everything in every room."

Clearly this author doesn't have small children. I nearly snorted coffee out of my nose reading her instructions. If I cleaned my house by that list it would NEVER be clean. Ever. There is no point in picking up toys. Children see a clean room not as a clean room but as an opportunity. A clean room is like a blank canvas.

Here are my rules for cleaning a house if you have small children:

Step One: Invite someone over. This step is crucial as it will give you a deadline and purpose.
Step Two: Clean the master bedroom. This should take about 5 minutes regardless of how messy it is. Put away any laundry stacked up on the dresser. Shove all shoes back into the closet. Make the bed. Vacuum. Dust. Done. Close the master bedroom door and forbid anyone from entering on penalty of death. Or worse, penalty of lost gummies.
Step Three: Clean the dining room. Put away the stacks of laundry covering the table. Wipe it down. Floors will be done later.
Step Four: Kitchen. Put away everything strewn all over the counters. Anything that doesn't have a home should be shoved into a basket for later organization. You know, the basket full of papers from 2014. Wipe the cabinets. Wipe the counters. Leave floors for later.
Step Five: Living room. Get out the vacuum and pick up as you go. The vacuum is essential to this process as children believe it will eat toys and they will screech and scream and run in front of you "saving their toys" aka cleaning up the living room.
Step Six: Floors. Vacuum the entire house with the Step Five method. Mop tile floors.
Step Seven: Twenty minutes before guests arrive remember you have not yet cleaned the bathroom. Run through that sucker as quickly as possible. Don't try to clean the bathroom before then... the kids will just go in and brush their teeth (how does so much toothpaste get on the counter?!). Always leave the bathroom for last.

Badda Bing Badda Boom. Clean house in 7 simple steps.

Optional Step 8: think to oneself "hm. perhaps I should dust..." (said the woman with a major dust allergy) and wander around the house with a damp cloth during that weird interim when waiting for guests to arrive. Remember that it's been a while since cleaning the master bathroom and make a mental note to do that at some point in the future.

Yes, this is really how our house gets clean. Stay tuned for tips on how to declutter.

Okay, here it is: one step to declutter...
Don't let empty diaper boxes leave your house unless they are full of stuff to drop off at Goodwill. I never recycle those big boxes. I put them on my dresser and slowly (or not so slowly) fill them with stuff to get rid of. Voila! Constantly decluttering.