In my endeavor to live life more fully and authentically, I’m always evaluating things I want to incorporate into my life and what things I DON’T want. I want to have a beautiful and organized home, but there are other things in life that are important to me too. So, how do I balance it all? I keep it simple.

When I was a younger mom, I was forever making up lists and methods to keep track of everything from organization to daily routines to holiday gift giving. The problem was, once I would get the systems all set up, I wouldn’t use them. Not very helpful! The reason for that was I made it more complicated than it needed to be. As my family grew and my responsibilities in the world compounded, I didn’t have time to maintain a lengthy and detailed system.

Over the years I’ve found a few simple homemaking routines that work for me, and I’m sticking to them. I can add other things, of course, but these are my tried and true basics for creating order every day.

1. Morning routines. I have found that having a regular morning routine works best for me. This involves at the very least: some quiet time, making the bed, taking a shower, putting on very simple makeup and getting dressed right down to my shoes. I find if I start out the day with those few things, I am ready for anything.

2. Clean sinks. I learned the Flylady system back when my son was born. I was taking care of him, my two grade school girls and during the day, I was watching my nephew who was born five weeks before my son. All that and working part-time. With four kids and a tiny house, I ran into frustration over having too much to handle. Flylady to the rescue! She broke it down for me and I listened. Clean and shiny sinks, always. Morning routines. Shoes. I could do that.

3. Cleaning frenzies. Since the beginning of our marriage, my hubby and I have utilized cleaning frenzies to give our home a quick clean up. A cleaning frenzy might last ten minutes or even up to a half hour. But everyone participates. We run around picking things up, putting things back, and generally tidying things up. Sometimes we focus on one room, sometimes it is a whole house frenzy. It works like a charm to make a big impact in a short period of time.

4. Nightly kitchen clean up. Every night, almost without fail, we clean the kitchen. We put away dishes, load the final dishwasher load of the day, wipe off counters, and polish up the sink. There is nothing like waking up to a clean kitchen to make your day feel less overwhelming.

If I can stick to these four basics, I feel I can keep some sort of order and sanity to my day!

photo: Coastal Living Tria Glovan