The Johnson Crew!

Homeschool is back in full swing and our houses can quickly become a dumping ground if we do not stay on top of things so if you are feeling overwhelmed by the tornado of children tearing through your house all day long you're not alone let's look at some simple habits that we can adopt in order to keep our house tidy without getting burnt out the first thing we have to talk about is our mindset I know you're coming here for some practical tips and I promise I've got some good ones for you

But first and foremost the most important thing that we can do is change our mindset that is going to be the key to actually sticking to these habits I'm going to share with you we've got to have a reason that is going to motivate us to actually keep our house tidy or else when we feel lazy or have other things to do which is always right then our house is always going to be on the back burner so we've got to change our mindset about that

So first I want you to think about why it's important to you to keep your house tidy which may sound like a pretty simple duh answer but we probably all have some varying responses to this so I'll share with you my reasons mess makes me feel chaotic trying to do homeschool in a space that is disheveled and unorganized and cluttered really really distracts me and raises my anxiety level nothing dramatic but you get it it definitely increases that that level of stress there and even outside of our home school time of the day I still have four kids running around the house

And so if I have that on top of the huge mess of a house my stress level is gonna like keep going up and up and up um it definitely increases my stress level to have my house be a mess and yes I know that kids make messes and in order to have a good time and play probably some messes are going to have to be had there's just no getting around that and I've accepted that my oldest is 10 I have four I've accepted that

But it doesn't mean that the mess has to remain there all day long you know if they're done playing something or playing with something then they can clean that up and move on to the next thing we don't need to just make a mess here and then go over here and make a mess here and destroy this and do that doesn't need to happen just in general I feel so much more calm when my house is tidy the chaos really contributes to my level of calm or stress

And I don't think kids would necessarily be able to verbalize this feeling but I think that they also are affected by the state of the house I think that they feel better and can think clearer when the space is at least somewhat clean especially when we're doing homeschool and I know my husband appreciates it another reason that it's important to me to keep a tidy house is that taking care of our home and modeling that for our kids and imparting that on them I think is really really important

And I'm not talking about being clean freaks and making our kids these anxious clean freaks but just simply treating our house with gratitude being thankful for the space that we have to live in and having that result and taking good care of it a nasty run-down house really shows a lack of ownership and a lack of caring but on the flip side taking care of our home really gives us a sense of pride in our home and in ourselves and that goes for our kids as

Well the state of our home can affect how we feel and how we feel about ourselves so those are some of my reasons that keep me motivated day in and day out even when I'm tired and don't really feel like it but they keep me motivated to keep the house tidy I can still muster up enough energy to get things done one thing that I have to say to myself is don't be lazy now this comes with a caveat if you have a health issue going on if you're pregnant have a newborn whatever the case may be there are some caveats in there where if you're tired then maybe you really do just need to rest

And that's okay but on the norm on an on a normal day at least for myself I do have to remind myself to to not give in to the laziness that I might feel there have been times where I feel like everybody in our house is in a competition to see who the chump will be that finally picks up that piece of paper that's been on the floor like we all can just walk by the same piece of trash and just leave it there that jump is normally me

And this is where our mindset shift comes into play and saves the day because if we remember how much better we feel when our house is tidy that's going to motivate us to just go ahead and pick up that piece of trash when we see it and throw it away or grab that thing that's sitting on the dining room table or on top of the dryer perhaps that doesn't belong there and put it where it belongs instead of just letting things pile up because then eventually at some point you're going to have to clean up maybe you have somebody coming over to hang out you're going to have to clean up

And it's going to be so much harder it's going to be so much work because we've just let things pile up and now it really is like a big chore to clean the house so a good motivator to keep the house tidy each day is you know you're saving yourself from that horrible awful chore of like oh my goodness someone's coming to visit and I've got so much I've got to clean up and part of that mindset shift is thinking how long will this really take me to do normally the answer is like a minute 30 seconds like it's not a long thing

But for some reason we take a look at that thing that needs to get done and we're like we don't have time for that right now or I don't feel like doing that right now when in reality it's a really quick thing to get done so if you can remember that and just remind yourself this is only going to take me a minute just do it don't be lazy just do it that is going to save us in the long run so here are some practical easy habits that you can start implementing today to keep your house tidy on a daily

And weekly basis with not a lot of effort each time you brush your teeth or wash your hands in your kid's bathroom or something rinse off that bathroom faucet with your hand rinse the sink out with your hand it's such a quick and easy way to get that bathroom sparkling again after using the restroom wipe off the toilet once a day maybe you're using a different bathroom each time and that way you're keeping the toilet fairly clean in between the times where you actually get out your cleaning products

And give the toilet a good clean make your bed as soon as you get up I'm sure you've heard this a million times it took us like really far into our marriage to actually start doing this I don't know why but now that we do it I realize that it is a very quick thing to do and it makes such a huge difference in how clean the bedroom looks follow the one day rule only let things sit somewhere that they don't belong for one day then you must find a place for them to live get baskets

And bins for things that don't currently have a home or things that need a structured container to live in like extra cords video game controllers things like that start the dishwasher every night and unload it every morning if you missed the video from last week where I talked about my kids chores they load the dishwasher after dinner and we run it every single night it's just the best routine to keep your kitchen clean tidy up the kitchen after every meal because a lighter load of work is easier to accomplish again the kids have chores after every meal to help keep the kitchen tidy

And so there's really not that much that I have to tend to and this helps big time if laundry has been piling up in your house and that's a big issue um yeah that was me like just a couple months ago I put out a video just recently about our laundry system check that out if you need a laundry system this one will change your life go and check that out but doing laundry every day really helps to keep that mountain from building up and it's just a more manageable way to tackle laundry

So you never have piles of laundry sitting around your house again and lastly put your kids to work honestly this is such an important thing to do especially if you are a homeschooling family because you're at home all the time and making messes all the time so you got to get the kids to help out pitch in go and check out last week's video where I shared all the chores that our kids do you know sharing what ages they do different tasks at and how we split that up throughout the day throughout the week

But it can be so key in helping to keep the house tidy it really helps to take things off of our plate which is really huge and in addition to their regular chores the rule is when you're done playing with a game or whatever it is they might be like building a fort in the living room it's my favorite game when they're done they gotta clean it all up before they move on to the next thing we'll get somebody to clean that up we're the ones that got to clean that up

So that does help to try to minimize the messes just building up and building up in your house as the day goes on and then before bed you're like I am exhausted and don't feel like cleaning all of this or fighting with my kids to get them to clean it all up because at that point it's like oh it's so much so just taking those small steps all throughout the day makes keeping the house tidy so much easier small steps for you small steps for your kids just all throughout the day

And then it doesn't feel hard or burdensome because it's all very easy and quick to do and so if you continue your day like that it keeps things from piling up and becoming so much harder and time consuming to get accomplished I'm sure that y'all have even more ideas on simple ways to just be keeping your house tidy as you go on throughout the day so please drop those in the comments below I love reading those things and the great thing about this community is that we can all share with each other

And learn from each other so definitely leave those in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up and if you are new here most of my channel is about homeschooling and just life is a family of six so if that interests you go ahead and hit that subscribe button below and I'd love to have you join us here every week thank you so much guys for joining me today and I will catch you in the next video thanks bye