Help! I Homeschool & My House is a Mess!
Homeschooling & Housework? How to Do Both!
Some days I feel like I have to make a decision: Will we get everything done with our homeschool work today or will I actually get my house clean? There doesn’t always seem to be a middle ground. It feels like it’s one or the other. Balancing homeschooling and house work is very hard work. Overwhelming work. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that one of the top questions I was asked this summer at the homeschool convention I spoke at was how I kept up with my house and homeschooling. It just showed me that other homeschool moms were thinking the same thing. Honestly, I don’t always get to my house work. My house definitely does not stay as clean as it did before I started homeschooling.
I should give myself some grace in that I now have five kids in the mix. I started our homeschool journey with three. I heard someone say the other day that trying to keep your house clean with kids is like trying to brush your teeth and eat Oreos at the same time! Ha! That was a perfect visual for me! We have a two year old in our house now, and we joke that she is our little tornado. She’s always looking for adventure and that usually includes climbing up on something and dumping out whatever she can find! I’m sure her little mind keeps thinking over and over, “Will there be treasure in this box? In this drawer? Over here? Over there?” I’ve been slowly learning to let it go. Not the house so much as my attitude of perfection. It probably helps that some little person is singing “Let It Go!” at some point in the day — almost as though to remind me. Please hear me in that you don’t have to completely let your house go when you start homeschooling.
There are ways to get things done that I’ll discuss in a moment. However, it is so important to remember your first priorities and know that it’s okay to not have a perfectly put together house all the time. It’s okay for your house to look lived in. I find that the less I stress about making my house look perfect before people come over, the more they feel relaxed to let their kids play and make themselves at home. I joke that my mess is to bless people. I made a YouTube video about “keeping it real” and showed my homeschool room at the end of the day. It looked like school happened. 🙂 So, how do I get it all done? Well, you’ve already probably guessed — I don’t! I don’t get it all done, but I do get what is most important done. It’s a matter of prioritizing — more on that below.
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Here are a few practical tips to help you survive the juggling act of homeschooling and housework!
1) Lower your expectations!
Know that something has got to give. You may not be able to keep the house as perfectly organized and tidy as you did before you started homeschooling. That’s okay. You have to give yourself some grace! Homeschooling is a full-time job! Mommyhood is a full-time job! Just make sure that you warn your spouse that you are lowering your expectations. He may not appreciate the surprise.
2) Prioritize!
As I already mentioned, I don’t get it all done. I’ve had to learn to let go of perfection! It’s a matter of prioritizing. Just like in life you make the most time for your priority relationships — with housework, you prioritize what is most important to you and your spouse to have done on a regular basis. Counters are important to my husband. Floors are important to me. So, we make those two things a priority to keep clean and tidy. Know that those are the two hardest things to keep clean and tidy in our home. But when it happens, usually at the end of the day, — Ahh! It feels so good!
3) Get help!
Hire a cleaner! This was recommended to me at the first homeschool conference I ever attended by two different speakers. I remember thinking that every woman in the room was probably wishing her husband was sitting next to her so she could elbow him. Truly, if you can find money in your budget to hire a cleaner to come every other week or even once a month for a deep clean, it will be so worth it. I literally told my cleaners what my budget was and asked them what they could get done for that amount. I thought through what was the most important thing that I wanted done and what would help me the most — and had them do that. I’ve been really amazed at how much they can get done on the budget I gave them. {Please trust me that my house does not stay clean for long, so we still have to do plenty of housework here. But for one hour the house looks amazing}
4) Train your kids to help!
We are a family and our kids are part of our family unit. House work is teamwork. It’s not just about mom running around trying to serve everyone else. Everyone needs to be pitching in. Even little kids can be a great help. I start training as young as 2 years old. This doesn’t mean that my toddler can vacuum a whole room by herself, but she can hand her sister the clean spoons from the dishw
asher to put away. Teamwork! Most little kids think that chores are fun anyway! {Here’s a cute video of my three year old daughter learning to hang her own laundry} I actually train my kids to do the chores I dislike the most: laundry, dishes, and trash. 🙂 My helpers definitely bless me tremendously (& they don’t even know how much)! By taking the time to teach them the most efficient way to do chores, and you will bless them for life! Don’t expect perfection as you are training them. It takes time. It took me over a year before I turned over the girls’ laundry to my older boys. There were so many dresses that couldn’t be put in the dryer, & I had a set way of hanging things. We just kept practicing and tweaking and eventually they were ready. I just tried to encourage them along the way. It’s always a great moment when they say, “Okay, Mom. I’ve got this.” Don’t forget to praise them! I still remember my mom telling me that I was the best sink cleaner and made the sink shine better than she could. 🙂 I always looked forward to cleaning the sink as a kid. I was so proud of my work. I asked her recently if she did that on purpose to get me to clean the sinks. She told me, “No, you actually were really good at making sinks shine.” Her words encouraged the best from me!
5) Make a list!
It’s important to figure out what is driving you the craziest! I literally go throughout the house and write down everything that needs to get done in each room. Pile of papers? Endless pile of laundry? Focus on getting the most important things done first. What areas are driving you the nuttiest? What would be the best plan of attack? I assign those things on my list to the family (& sometimes to the cleaners). Some jobs need to be broken down a bit into bite size pieces. I don’t just say, “Clean the family room.” We break it down into what specifically needs to get done, then we work together to make it “clean.” I love my white boards! I keep one in the kitchen so I can write down all the little things I see left out. I can’t tell you how much this reduces stress in our home (and in me). Instead of me blowing my top when I see things forgotten or missed (again!), like reminding my kiddos for the millionth time to put away their shoes in their shoe bins as I trip over them. I just add it to my list! Then I add a child’s name or initial next to it. This helps me remember to follow up, too. I often forget to check on beds or chores in another part of the house when I’m busy getting things done everywhere else. So, this board adds a bit of accountability. If you don’t have a white board, just use a piece of paper or a sticky. I should note that we have an “Extra Chores” list. These are the things like baseboards, grout, windows, etc. that don’t always get done. These projects are assigned to the child “needing” to have extra work.
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6) Get organized!
Assign days to get specific work done. Create a checklist for kids and family — things that need to get done daily. I actually wrote a blog post about how I split up our days and tasks. There is even a video from a Periscope I did on laundry tips on this post! Here is the link. Basically, we try to assign major tasks to certain days & daily tasks to certain times of the day. Keeping to this routine helps to ensure that things get done.
7) Meal Planning.
The question I get asked most often when I tell people that we have five kids — aside from “Are you crazy?”— is, “How do you feed everyone?” Meal planning is my secret to feeding everyone! Simple meal planning can make such a HUGE difference in your day and save you the headache of trying to decide what to make for dinner at 6pm when everyone is already hungry. I actually plan out my meals for the week and do one big shop to gather everything I need. Now when my kids ask me what is for dinner, I just direct them to the list. I’ve actually created a handy-dandy Menu Planner & Grocery List. You can see it at this link. This weekly meal planner is a subscriber freebie, so be sure to sign up. If you really want to make meal time easy, make your crockpot your best friend! I pulled every recipe I could find that was crockpot friendly and did searches online for good recipes. I also asked my friends for their favorite slow cooker recipes. I took this precious compilation of recipes and put them all in one place — my Easy Meals list! This is just a list that holds all my easy recipes in one place. It is a life saver for me!
Favorite Tools for Easy House Cleaning
Honestly, having the right tools makes all the difference. I find I'm much more likely to get on top of a mess or just get to the daily needs of my house when I have all the right tools in the right places. Let me run you through what I use and where I keep them.
Hoover Linx Cordless Vacuum: I hate lugging out my big vacuum constantly to get to messes on the floor. I use it for big vacuuming days, but for the day to day jobs I use my cordless vacuum. I keep mine in my kitchen area (right next to my trash can). Honestly, this is my favorite housekeeping tool! My floors would be VERY crunchy without it.
Swiffer Dusters: I love these handy-dandy dusters. The kids
LOVE these handy-dandy dusters! Dusting is another of my least favorite jobs. These dusters make it quick and easy.
Swiffer Mop: I promise I don't work for Swiffer. They just happen to make housekeeping tools that make my life easier. We don't always pull this mop out. I have a different mop I use for big jobs, but this one is great to use for quick jobs that need more than a little wipe with a paper towel. I keep mine in the pantry next to my big broom & hand broom and dustpan. I use the wall space to hang them.
Clorox Wipes: I have these wipes under every bathroom sink for quick easy clean ups. This is how I keep my sinks and toilets clean in a house of seven. I don’t like Kirkland wipes as well. They leave streaks. {I should note that I also keep a toilet brush and plunger in almost all the bathrooms}
Buckets with Basic Supplies: My “bucket list” is different than most. 🙂 I have a bucket with my basic cleaning supplies in my laundry room. I have everything my kids would need to clean around the house inside it. I try to keep my more all-natural products in it. I just started using essential oils, so I'll be doing a post soon with some of the cleaning supplies I created to use around the house. {You can click here & I'll send you a list of the ones that were suggested to me to create}* — for now I use Mrs. Meyers products.
Mirror and Glass Cleaner: It's hard to find a good glass cleaner that doesn't leave streaks. The one I've been using lately seems to work fairly well. I like that it is ammonia free so I don't have to worry about any natural stone in my house. I keep this cleaning product in a high cupboard in my laundry room with my other cleaning supplies. I'd love to keep it under every sink, but don't want my littles to get into it. {I guess I could put a child lock on a low cupboard, but I just don't want a lock on every bathroom cupboard}
So, there you have it!
Housework doesn’t have to go out the door when you are homeschooling — only your expectations of being perfect. Give yourself grace! Know that there will be a season when your kids are grown and out of the house. Your job as a homeschool mom will be done. Forced retirement. You can focus on keeping things in place then — even though my advice would be the same for you then, too: Grace! I hope my tips helped you to get a glimpse into how we do things in our home to keep our sanity. If you would like, you can check out my M.O.M. series — Master Organizers of Mayhem! It was a ten part series on some of the simple rules I created for our home that help me keep my head above the water.
Blessings and joy,
The “Help! I Homeschool!” Series
This post is part of my “Help! I Homeschool” series! There are more great posts coming that talk through the common homeschool challenges. I hope they all bless you in your homeschooling. Let me know in the comments if there is a challenge you are experiencing in your homeschool that you’d like to see covered! Be sure to check out my other posts:
I used to feel like I would be cheating or not that good of a mom/housewife if I hired help, felt like that would take away from the Wonder Woman image, but I surrendered all that to the Lord, I am only human, and my strength comrs from him alone. So if the house is a mess, so what, dishes need washing, so what. Is my family happy, yes? Then this is life!
Hi Noelani! I’m so glad you are letting go of your Wonder Woman goal. 🙂 Happy family is definitely the goal. It’s hard to stop trying to get things done in our own strength and rely on the Lord for strength. I catch myself all the time. Thanks so much for commenting. Blessings and joy, Kristi
Awesome post!! I especially love that “lower your expectations” is the number one tip – because often time’s we feel like we need to have higher expectations to make our lives more perfect! So not the case! So thank you for that!
Also, I wanted to let you know that I nominated you for the Blogger Recognition Award. Thank you for all of your inspiration and tips! I’m sure you’ve already been nominated for this a million times before but I wanted to make sure you knew how awesome I think you are 😉
You can read about the award and why I nominated you here: http://www.chaoticblisshomeschooling.com/06/blogger-recognition-award
Thanks so much, Jenn!! Thanks for the sweet comment and the nomination! I’m so blessed! I love what you wrote about me on your blog, too. I didn’t realize you were so new to blogging! You blog looks awesome for being so new!! It took me forever to get my blog looking the way it does now. Back to the topic of expectations — Yes! We so often set high expectations in our lives to look more perfect, not to bless our family. It’s hard to juggle homeschooling and housework. We really need to give ourselves grace. 🙂
Thanks again, Jenn! I really appreciate all the support!
Blessings and joy,
Kristi
I’m just now seeing this response. Oy! I apparently haven’t mastered the art of subscribing to reply comments. Ha! Thank you so much, you’re so sweet! It’s definitely a work in progress, but I’m so glad that it appears I know what I’m doing (maybe?)… hopefully I can continue to fake it until I “make it” .. haha!
I have to be honest. I’m smack in the middle of, “I don’t care that my house is a pig sty…ok, I really DO care, but I’m just so exhausted I don’t have it in me to do any cleaning, ever” season.
Part of the problem is that our house is very disorganized because there are parts of it that are still under construction and will remain under construction until our budget improves. That means they will probably always be under construction. My husband’s “garage” is located in our dining room, because our garage is partially collapsed. We have a bathroom that is completely unfinished. Some day, a big soaking tub is going in there. A big soaking tub that I will MAKE time to soak in every evening before bed.
We had such big plans when we bought this place…but the best laid plans…you get the point. The result is chaos. Still…the areas that ARE organized…never stay organized because I just can’t get any cooperation. Simple things like, put your laundry in the laundry room every single day. Where does it end up? Bedroom floor. Every.single.day. It isn’t like I cave and pick it up myself…I correct them every single time but still…the laundry lands on the floor every.single.day.
They are 9, 8, 7 and 6. They have been helping with chores since we moved here four years ago…all of them. We have an awesome behavior chart, points, chore system and we follow through! But as they get older, it seems like they are getting worse!
Every so often, the mess of the house gets to me…the chaos and disorganization breaks down my sanity and I end up ranting and raving for a good day. They all look at each other with these scared little looks, which makes me feel so guilty after. But organizing the way this house needs would require some financial contributions and that isn’t feasible right now. (side note…hiring help? HAH! If I hired a house cleaner to come in here, she’d run away scared).
My main priority is to get lessons done for four kids. It takes all day. Then dinner….then prepping for the next day. Animal chores. Bed. Repeat the next day. And the next. And the next.
I sound bitter…I know. But honestly, I’m really not. I’m just…tired. Adulting is hard work!
Anyways, I came across your article randomly on Pinterest. It was actually recommended to me by Pinterest…lol. Guess Pinterest knew I needed to read this tonight. Thanks for sharing!
These are great tips! I would also add decluttering and learning to live without certain things. The less junk you own, the less junk you have to organize, dust, put away, wash, etc!
Amen! I love gutting out the excess! I totally agree, the less you have, the less to keep organized! 🙂
What a helpful post… Thank you!!
I’ve found plain club soda in a spray bottle works really well on glass and other places you want to shine. AND it’s kid friendly. 😀
That’s awesome!! I’ll have to try that! I love getting tips to try! Thanks so much for sharing!
Hi Kristi! I’m in the same boat as you! I’ve even posted pictures: https://choosingcompassion.wordpress.com/18/my-house-is-a-mess/. 🙂 Thanks for your post!
Yay! I’m not alone! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Brilliant ideas! I am homeschooling my kids for a year now and I know very good how hard it is to keep the house clean and the homeschooling room organized. Since I am homeschooling I have changed my cleaning and organizing routine but I honestly not always have the time to clean. That is why I hire a cleaner from a local cleaning company (http://ovencleaningbermondsey.com/) to help me with it. Thank you for the great ideas. I agree that I planning everything is essential when being a homeschooling mom. Thank you for the post and meal planning ideas! 🙂
Thanks for the compliment! Yes, I really think moms shouldn’t ever feel guilty about hiring cleaners. I found some cleaners locally that take care of several homes in my neighborhood. They are wonderful. There is an added bit of trust since they do so many homes near by. Thanks again for commenting and the compliment. 🙂
So true! Having homeschooled for years we have gotten use to the lived in look. I wish the house was clean all the time but that is just not reality when school is our priority. I love the idea of a cordless vacuum. I will have to check that one out. I bet we would get more cleaning done, just because we don’t have to drag out a huge vacuum and plug it in all the time. Thanks! 🙂
We love our cordless vacuum!! Seriously, my best spent money!! I just like not having to pull a broom out everyday. I just vacuum our kitchen floors. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!! 🙂
Our house is almost never perfectly clean, but we’ve been doing a lot better with getting school and cleaning done. I’ve found that scheduling is the best way to make sure that they both get done. We use the Love My Schedule system (it’s a magnetic wet erase schedule and chore chart) and it’s been a blessing for our family. I just schedule a block of time for cleaning, and the kids check off their chores as they get them done 🙂 I got mine from their website lovemyschedule.com
We do have a little schedule for getting our house clean. Mostly, my kids know what day they need to do their chores–or what time of day things need to get done. Thanks for commenting.
I’m sure you’ve heard of Norwex before, but I thought I would leave this little gem out here in case others were interested. You can clean 90% of your house with just two cloths & WATER!! And it gets rid of germs. It saves me so much time because I can go from room to room with just two cloths versus an armload of products. My kids can use it because there are no chemicals or toxins. I can hang a pair of cloths in each bathroom (or for us the hall closet between the two) and in the kitchen, & everything is right where I need it when I need it. These cloths have helped me to keep up when life gets messy!!
Yes! I think I got my first Norwex rag at a fair years ago!! I mean, like 10+ years ago. I’m not even sure if it is officially a “Norwex” rag. I do love those. 🙂
For the all-natural glass cleaner, I use regular distilled vinegar with lemon essential oil and rose essential oil. No streaks!
Great tip! Thanks! I love essential oils! I don’t have the rose one yet. 🙂