My husband and I both work full-time and get home pretty late. We are up before dawn to get ready for work. Then we dress and feed the kids and rush out the door to shuffle everyone to their respective schools and jobs. By the time we make dinner and go through the bedtime routine everyone is exhausted. Since our work weeks are so busy, we were spending a good chunk of our Saturday morning cleaning the house… which is a totally awesome way to spend the weekend. (*insert sarcastic tone*) We decided there had to be a better way to juggle our jobs & housework so we figured out a plan. It works for us, so maybe it will work for you!
4 working mom tips to help keep your house clean:
Divide and Conquer: Figure out how to split up chores, so you don’t have to do them all at once. My goal is to do at least two loads of laundry a day. I usually throw in a load in the morning so I can toss it in the dryer before I leave. It seems like a small thing, but those 5-8 loads or laundry done throughout the week make my life way easier by the time the weekend comes.
Keep Up with Daily Messes: You need to have certain things you do every single day, and you can’t let them slip. No matter how tired we are, one of us will do the dishes and wipe down the kitchen. I know that sounds like a given to most people, but when you are up at 5am and finally get to sit down again at 9pm… sometimes you just don’t want to do the freaking dishes. But, we know its a slippery slope to wait until morning, so we make ourselves do it. No excuses.
Take Advantage of Technology: I was recently sent a bObi Pet and I am obsessed with it. (if you follow me on Instagram or Snapchat you have seen my many videos of this awesome item) The bObiPet is a robotic sweeper, vacuum and mop. It has a HEPA filter to help purify the air and a UV light to sanitize the floor.
I was worried about setting it up, since it looks a little overwhelming when you open the box. However, the bObi Pet (or “bObi” as we now call it) is ready to go, you just put in batteries and charge it. It comes with spare HEPA filters and sweeping brushes. You can just let the bObi Pet go on its own or set a schedule with the remote control. It also comes with something called a bObi Block, for areas you want to avoid. You just set the block on the floor and “bObi” will not go past the “digital line.” I put the block near my dog’s food, so it doesn’t run into her food or water bowl.
Punky is the only one still on the fence about the bObiPet! 😉
Most of my house is tile, but this works on both tile and carpet which is great. The bObi Pet goes from room to room and the machine lifts itself up to get onto the carpet. It works awesome on tile and picks up all the pet hair, dust and debris on the ground. “bObi” easily picks up debris on carpet, but doesn’t grab all the hair. (but it does get most of it) It is not loud at all, I would say it sounds like a blowdryer on low.
The only issue I have is the bObi Pet doesn’t “see” dark furniture very well. It does a pretty good job sensing most of the items, but it doesn’t seem to be able to see my dining room chairs or table. I have seen “bObi” drag a chair a few feet! (she’s a strong little sucker!) However, since my dog eats in that area, the bObi Block has solved that issue.
I have noticed my floors are much cleaner on a day to day basis with help from our bObi Pet. It is really easy to use and has tons of awesome features. It costs much less than other robotic vacuums, making it an affordable options for busy families! I definitely recommend it! Check out the bObsweep website for more information.
Get Help: No one wants to spend money on household help… but time is money and sometimes it is worth it to outsource. It could be a laundry service, grocery delivery, lawn service or a cleaning person. I recently met my neighbors awesome cleaning lady and hired her to come to our house once every 2 weeks. Let me tell you, it has been amazing. My husband hates paying to do things that we can do ourselves, but this has been one of the best decisions we’ve made in a long time.
These tips have drastically cut down on our weekend cleaning time. My husband and I have also learned to give ourselves a break. Our house doesn’t have to be spotless. It is LIVED in. We welcome our kids friends inside, whenever they want to come over. Foam bullets from Nerf wars are scattered through the house. There is spilled water from tea parties and crayon marks on the tile. We will clean it all up, eventually. For now, we are living life and keeping the house tidy enough thanks to these tips.
What is your favorite household cleaning hack?
Good tips! I heard a story a while back about a robot vacuum that accidentally ram over some nasty stuff in the middle of the night and spread if everywhere. Still love those little vacuums though.
This was very helpful! I’ve always thought about getting one of those robo-vacuums!
The bobi pet looks pretty handy. I really struggle with keeping up with the cleaning during the work week. I try to keep up with daily messes but it doesn’t usually happen. I have to power clean on the weekend to make up for it!
I’m waiting for them to invent a little robot to clean the bathroom….
Yaaaassss! Especially an auto toilet scrubber!
I need this in my life!!! Sigh, someday. I agree with keeping up on the daily messes. I need to work on this so I’m not so overwhelmed when I need to clean!
I would love one of these! Thanks for the great tips.
I fear a robotic vacuum would just get stuck on my carpet. I love the idea of using technology to my advantage to keep an organized living space though. For me, I take pictures of paper I want to keep a record of with my cell phone and then recycle the page so I don’t have a bunch of cluttered paper everywhere.
Great advice! I really need to take care of the small things no matter how tired I feel
I completely relate to the long days and struggling to get things picked up when you finally have a free minute so late! We need to get in the habit of ALWAYS doing the dishes, no excuses.
I can’t believe one machine can do it all! A robotic sweeper, vacuum and mop?? YES PLEASE!
And we have a lawn guy. My husband works long hours and doesn’t want to use the weekend to do lawn work so we hired someone. It’s nice not having to tackle that come Saturday when we would rather be somewhere else.
I love the first tip of divide and conquer. It makes things much easier when you don’t have to tackle it all by yourself. 🙂
I have a Roomba. I’m not too crazy about it. Do you know how this one compares to that?
How I need one of those vacuums. Unfortunately we are remodeling right now and if we used it on the sanded walls then it would probably break. But after all this is done…oh I’m getting one!
Meghan | BeyondBasicBlog.com
I love all of your tips-I had a mint sweeper, and loved it. I am trying to talk myself into investing in an actual robotic vacuum instead of sweeper. I have never heard of the Bobi-I will be doing more research!
Great tips!!! I have been wanting a vacuum like this for awhile!
Thanks for sharing your tips! I like the laundry one — it’s probably our biggest cleaning problem!
Great tips!! Keeping a clean home gives me such anxiety! That vacuum looks amazing!! I might have to try that! It sure would save me some time! I vacuum at least every other day!! If not everyday!! :/
Amber | http://www.everydaydame.com
Great tips! I would love to have a robot that did my daily vacuuming for me! The Bobi sounds like the perfect solution!
The robot looks awesome! Sometimes it can be sooo hard to ask for help, but I have learned that people are, usually, always willing and it makes them feel good to know that they are needed.
Cleaning lady is a must! the best decision for us so far! It took me a while to figure it out, and my husband was totally against it because “we could to it ourselves”, as he was saying. Also we both were students when we were dating, and used to save the money, but then we both moved on working full-time & had a baby, so part of adjustment was changing a mentality.
doing dishes everyday will be a good idea, we should try that! for now if I cook, then he does the dishes the next day before i come from work. but i bet walking to the clean kitchen in the morning would make a huge difference :)))
I so, so need a BobI with the mess my kids make constantly.
We’re on the same schedule–except my husband works shift work (Navy) and so his hours are often opposite of mine. I’m nearing the third trimester of this pregnancy and, with a toddler, crazy work schedule and a long commute, things have totally gotten out of hand. I recently implemented some of the same things–pick up the toys every night, always clean the kitchen, do laundry during the week, meal prep on the weekends, and try to keep my house clean enough that I could make it guest-worthy in about ten minutes. It’s definitely helped my mood a lot, I hate being exhausted and coming home to a dirty house, so it’s worth the effort. And I do like the idea of a robot vacuum…:)
Great tips! I totally feel you about staying up late to do the dishes. Sometimes our little girl doesn’t go to bed until 10:00 and all we want to do is sit in front of the TV, but the dishes sit there and mock us. So we do them until about 10:30. But it feels so much better then waking up to a sink full of dirty dishes in the morning!
Oh, and that robot cleaner-genius! Gotta get one!
Awesome tips and ideas that everyone can follow and refer through. Thanks for sharing.