What Do You Do for Your Home Each Day?

Have you ever considered that not all cleaning is alike? Sometimes you need to straighten things up. Other times, deep thorough cleaning is necessary. Still other times you’ll need to declutter your home, and other moments things will need organized.

If your home has a lot of stuff and the surfaces, cupboards, and drawers in your home are filled with things, you’ll need to focus on decluttering and purging before you start cleaning. (Very simply, decluttering means you’ll take time to get rid of what you don’t absolutely love or need.)

Once your home is decluttered and only contains what you love and need, then you can get down to the work of actually cleaning your home: scrubbing, dusting, mopping, sweeping, and so on.

As you realize the difference between cleaning and decluttering, it’s important to remember that you’ll have daily chores to do every day around your home. I call mine Non-Negotiable Daily Chores, because I need to do them every single day to make sure my home is running smoothly.

What’s a Non-Negotiable Daily Chore?

One day when I was a mom of two children under the age of two, I realized just how exhausted I felt feeding and caring for my young family. And I realized my home was quite possibly the dirtiest it had ever been.

With the natural interruptions that babies bring, I didn’t have time to scrub. When my kiddos outgrew their newborn and infant stages, baby food and toys were thrown everywhere. Even though I had a chance to accomplish something during naptime, I was so physically tired and terrified to make noise and wake them that I didn’t want to start into big cleaning projects. (In fact, I started blogging during those quiet nap times instead of cleaning!)

Even though life felt horrendously messy, I discovered my own surprising solution to daily homemaking success: If I just could accomplish two or three basic housekeeping tasks each and every day, I was successful.

At the time, if I could just do three things – make my bed in the morning, complete a load of laundry, and make sure any dirty dishes were cleaned up by the time I went to bed – my housekeeping for the day was a huge success. Believe me, there’s nothing like waking up and walking into a kitchen where dirty dishes aren’t overflowing in your sink!

This revolutionized my thinking. And it transformed my perspective from living in defeat to confidently knowing I accomplished something in my day. It might seem like the bare minimum, but I was keeping up with chores in my home.

My babies are now in high school, but the simple solution of creating Non-Negotiable Daily Chores still is the foundation of my homemaking. By knowing what three to four daily chores I need to accomplish each and every day, I can go to bed each night feeling like all is well in the world.

If deep cleaning gets put off for a later day, it’s OK. I don’t keep unrealistic expectations and mentally beat myself up if I can’t fit deep cleaning into my days. For my current season of life, maintenance cleaning works well.

Today, my Non-Negotiable Daily Chores are the same as the beginning (making my bed, doing a load of laundry and washing dishes) – but I’ve added a late afternoon pick-up, so the main living areas of my home are presentable. Some rooms tend to stay messy (like my kids’ rooms!) but I don’t worry about it – I know I can tackle those messes on another day.

What could YOUR Non-Negotiable Daily Chores Be?

It’s important to note that Non-Negotiable Daily Chores are perfect when you’re living through a taxing, busy season of life. Deep cleaning will need to be done at some point. You’ll still need to make time for decluttering and purging. But by accomplishing just a few key chores every day, you know you’re keeping up with your home. And you know you’re actually finishing something.

As you consider what tasks you’d like to choose as your Non-Negotiable Daily Chores, it’s vital that you stick to a maximum of three or four. Don’t overdo it! Many more than that and you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Think about the areas in your home you really want to make sure are clean. Then focus on those simple chores every day. If you find yourself not being able to complete a chore every day, it’s possible that it’s a negotiable chore and you don’t truly need to do it daily.

As you work on your own Non-Negotiable Daily Chores in your home, enjoy the consistency that comes in knowing that you actually accomplish something in your home each and every day. And enjoy the peace that will come knowing that you have daily homemaking success.

For more homemaking help, grab my free 7-Day Strategy to Tidy Your Home.

What could your Non-Negotiable Daily Chores possibly be?

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Hilary

Hilary Bernstein is a Christ follower, wife, homeschooling mama, and writer who believes every Christian woman can live with peace and purpose. She's happiest when she's hosting friends and family for dinner, going on date nights with her husband, singing along to the radio, traveling with her family, and spending cozy nights at home. The author of fifteen books,Hilary also is Women's Ministry Director at The Chapel in Green, Ohio.