How to Easily Maintain a Beautiful Home

In my burnout days, sometimes doing the dishes felt like too much of a chore. Here's how I learned to keep a simple and consistent routine to maintain a beautiful and calming living space.

I grew up in a household where we would let things pile up all week and then exhaust ourselves on the weekend trying to tackle it all at once. Dishes would sit in the sink, mail would linger on the counter, school bags and homework would be left lying around, and floors would go un-swept or vacuumed. My parents both worked full time and my brothers and I were all very involved in school sports, clubs, and teams. Everyone was always coming and going, on their own schedules, and my parents were exhausted every night from their jobs, so often tidying up would be left undone until they had a day off. I always loved it, though, when my whole family would be home at the same time, and we would clean the house together. There was something so calming and rewarding about having a sparkling, clean space, where everything smelled like lemons and fresh laundry.

It’s no surprise then, that now in my adulthood, having a clean, calming space is my gold standard. As I was learning to be an adult in my early 20’s, I kept a very busy (too busy, actually) schedule and often slipped into the same routines that were modeled to me as a child. I held a schedule that didn’t allow me to be home for more than a couple of hours before heading to bed, and in that few hours, I was way too exhausted to go on a cleaning kick. I did as my parents did, and waited until weekends to marathon-clean.

In my burnout days, I also found myself slipping into this sort of routine. I was literally too exhausted to put dishes in the dishwasher, but found all the time in the world to scroll social media. What I now know is that my nervous system was incredibly dysregulated, and my brain was trying to find any hit of dopamine it could to relax me. Ugh, I don’t miss those days!!

Now free and clear of burnout (every day I am so thankful for my new job!), I have established a really simple and easy-to-stick to house maintenance routine that keeps my home clean, calm, and sparkling.

A photo of my living room, featuring our velvet house hippo, Diesel.

Here are my household maintenance “rules” that I created for myself. When I created these “rules” I also told my husband that I really wanted to try to keep a really nice, clean home, and he quickly and easily obliged. When everyone in your whole household is on the same page, it makes things a lot easier.

1. We follow the adage: “Don’t put it down. Put it away.”
   You can really eliminate 90% of your home’s mess by putting things away instead of putting them down. For example: You just made a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Instead of putting the peanut butter down on the counter when you’re finished using it, walk the three extra feet to the pantry, and put it away. Instead of putting the knife down on the edge of the sink (you know, just in case you want another sandwich in five minutes), just put the knife directly in the dishwasher. Don’t put it down. Put it away. To be very honest, it took my husband some extra time to get really good at this. He is the king of “I’m not done with that yet, hold on!” I never want to nag him, so I just got really good at asking him, “Are you finished with this?” when I saw that he left something lying around. He got the hint, and now he’s much better at not putting it down, but putting it away. Having said this, everything in your household needs a “home” to go to. When we purchase something new, we always ask ourselves out loud, “Where do we want this to live?” and figure out a good spot for it. Things have to have a home to go to.
   

2. We purged a ton of clutter.
   The fewer things you have, the less there is to clean. If my husband is the king of not being done with something yet, I’m the queen of purging things. Organizing, cleaning out junk drawers, purging closets… it’s like my crack. I’ve learned a few things about myself as an adult and one of them is that I really, really like things to look aesthetically pleasing. Am I Type A? Yes. A Virgo Rising? Yep. A little OCD? Most likely. There’s something in me that loves order (exhibit A: see childhood memories above). Purging clutter is another surefire way to keep your home clean. In this world of over-consumption, it feels really good to have some room in your house to breathe. If every nook and cranny is filled with something, it can not only feel confining, but spike your stress levels, as well. A good clutter-clearing is actually magical. Recent research even backs it up!
   

3. We clean a little every day, so we don’t ever have to clean a lot at once.
   Instead of letting things pile up for a big weekend cleanup, we clean just a little bit every day. I find this practice to also feel incredibly magical. There’s just something about coming home every day to a clean house that makes you feel like you actually have the energy to walk the dog, work out, and make a nice dinner. When I say that we clean a little every day, I truly mean a little. I’m not talking about 30-minute shower-scrubbing sessions. Here’s what we do:
   
   Every Morning:
   - quickly tidy the bathroom when finished getting ready
   - make the bed*
   - put any breakfast dishes in the dishwasher (and start it if it’s full)
   - start the robot vacuum on my way out the door
   I will say here, that making the bed has to be so easy that it would feel silly not to make it. It takes about 30 seconds to make my bed each morning, because it consists of straightening and pulling the quilt up to cover our sleeping pillows, adding two big shams that we don’t sleep on, and one throw pillow in the middle. Boom, done. That’s it.
   
   Every Evening, upon Returning Home from Work:
   - empty the dishwasher, if needed
   - empty the robot vacuum
   - follow the adage: “Don’t put it down. Put it away.”
   - “close” the kitchen after dinner
   
   Closing the kitchen after dinner includes:
   - load the dishwasher
   - wash, dry, and put away all pots and pans
   - sanitize the sink (just wash it down with a soapy scrubber and/or disinfecting spray)
   - wipe down the counters
   - wipe down the stove
   - quickly vacuum or sweep the kitchen floor
   - change out the dish towel
   - light a beeswax candle to remove any lingering food odors
   While this may look like a lot, it truly takes under 15 minutes. Because we do this small checklist every night after dinner, it never feels like a huge undertaking. The kitchen is already pretty clean from performing the list all week. It’s just maintenance.
   
   Every Night, before Heading to Bed:
   - clear out any mess magnets
   - tidy the living space (fold blankets, put pillows back in their spots)
   - load the dishwasher with any random dishes from the evening’s relax session
   Mess magnets are what I like to call the little areas in the house that seem to gather clutter more than others. We all have them. My mom calls them “nests” and the Fly Lady calls them “hot spots.” It’s the areas where we hang out and relax that accumulate things like drinking glasses, reading glasses, books, phone cords, pads of paper, pens, etc. You get the idea. In my own home, our mess magnets were located throughout the house: one corner of the kitchen counter (mail, pads of paper, random things from my husband’s pockets, loose change, etc.), side tables in the living room (drinking glasses, reading glasses, phone chargers, books), and our primary bedroom nightstands (water bottles, tubes of chapstick, hand lotion, more phone chargers, tags from new clothing, more books). Clearing out these mess magnets every night before bed takes just a couple of minutes and make a huge difference. Once you experience the magic of a 2-minute mess magnets clearing, you will never look back.
   

4. We do a weekly reset.
   Once a week (for us, it’s on Sundays), we do a weekly reset, which involves a deeper cleaning. The good news is that the house is already very tidy from the daily habits that are set in place, so a weekly reset just takes an hour or two and doesn’t exhaust us. My personal weekly reset looks like this:
   - check the calendar for next week and plan out next week’s meals and workouts
   - run errands (grocery shop, get gas, run the car through the car wash)
   - post-grocery shop, clean out any old food from last week and put away the new groceries
   - vacuum and mop all of the hard-surfaced floors (we have a cat who sheds and a dog who loves to track in all sorts of muddy footprints from his dog walks in the woods, so this is a must for us)
   - wash, dry, and put away primary bedroom bedding and living room blankets (again, due to the pets, this is a must for us)
   - wash, dry, and put away any dirty laundry from the week
   - do a deep cleaning of our choice
   
   The deep cleaning of our choice include:
   - primary bedroom and bathroom deep clean
   - primary closet deep clean
   - guest bathroom deep clean
   - kitchen deep clean
   - living, dining, and foyer area deep clean
   - home gym deep clean
   - laundry room deep clean
   - office space deep clean
   
   And “deep cleaning” means:
   - clear all mess magnets and declutter as needed
   - dust all surface
   - sanitize all high-traffic areas
   - vacuum and mop floor
   - launder all soft surfaces (curtains, pillow covers, etc.)
   - clean all windows and mirrors
   - dust all light fixtures
   - open windows to air out the room (if possible)
   
   Because we deep clean just one space at a time, on a rotating schedule, it never feels overwhelming. Additionally, because there is little clutter and cleared mess magnets, it never seems like a huge chore to tackle.
   

5. We have monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual task lists.
   There are a few things that we don’t have to do on a super-regular basis, and choose to do in less-frequent intervals. We break these into monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual tasks.
   
   Monthly:
   - sweep, tidy, and wipe down outdoor spaces
   - sanitize the kitchen trash bin (it is a huge source of odor if not cleaned regularly!)
   - deep clean our pet spaces (dog bed area, food bowl areas, etc.)
   
   Quarterly or Semi-Annually:
   - pressure-wash outdoor spaces (spring, summer, and fall)
   - deep clean car interiors
   - clean out kitchen pantry
   - deep clean refrigerator
   - clean out closet and donate unused items
   - move all furniture and clean all rugs and floors

As we begin a new year, you may be looking for ideas to declutter your space or get into a regular cleaning routine. I highly encourage you to find a system that works for you; I truly believe in its power to make us feel good.

If you’re reading this and find yourself saying “Whoa, there’s no way I would have time to do any of this” I’m going to give you a big-sister-tough-love moment and ask you… do you think maybe you’re doing too much? If your life is so chaotic that something has to always be put off to do later, maybe it’s time to give your schedule a second look. We spend a lot of money to live in our homes… shouldn’t we enjoy spending time there? And listen, if someone had said that to me during my most busy and chaotic times, I would have been extremely annoyed and given a retort along the lines of “But I like being busy! I like doing things all the time!” … but now, on the other side of burnout, I can gently tell you that being busy and chaotic all the time led to some serious issues. Just my two cents, bb!

If you are feeling inspired to get a solid routine going and would like to see my whole home maintenance plan at a glance, here it is, all laid out:

And here it is in PDF form, if you’d like, as well: All Systems Glow Home Management System.

To your glowing and beautiful home,
- L