I feel like my house is constantly a fucking mess. My wife and I work 80 hours between us and we have a 2 year old and I feel like it’s constantly a mess.
We do what we can and often spend a couple hours on a weekend tidying but it’s a losing battle.
How do you cope/keep on top of things?
My robot vacuum really helped with this. It runs every day while at work, which forces me to pick stuff up and make sure it won’t get stuck somewhere.
Got me into the habit and by now it’s second nature. Before I leave the house I do a quick check/clean, which takes a minute or two at most.
And then you have the obvious benefits in getting the apartment vacuumed.
A minute or two each day gos a long way.
I can certainly see there being a habit aspect to it, and once it’s tidy as you say it’s a minute or two to keep it that way.
Do you have different floors to your house?
I could see it helping with the ground floor but still neglecting the bedroom level, etc
Live in an apartment, so that definitely helps. It tidied the floor in every room. But honestly, it’s not so much the vacuum, more so the habit of cleaning a minute or two when I leave the home.
As well as picking stuff up when I’m done with them obviously.
You just need to master one rule: designate a place for each item and put them IMMEDIATELY back in their designated place after use.
OP can master that rule today, won’t make a damn bit of difference with a 2 year old around.
haha, yes, all hope is lost there…
Oh yes, this is the path to giving up.
If your 2 year old has access to so much shit then you have bigger issues.
Yeah, it really helps if you limit the amount of stuff you have in your house and put everything back where it belongs right away.
If you then clean 1/1.5 hours a week you can keep everything relatively clean.
Also like one of the others comments said a robot vacuum can really help limit the dust in your house.
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It’s very interesting indeed. A while ago I read Carl Popper’s Open Society and it’s Enemies. In that book he argues that Plato and to some extent Aristotle have developed underlying philosophical tools to support, for a lack of better term, “closed” societies. For example slaves rather remain slaves, farmers remain farmers, and rulers remain rulers. He argues that they contribute to a totalitarianism, and undermine democracy by discouraging being equal and in general “change”.
Take all this with a grain of salt, since it’s a while I’ve read the book, so can’t articulate it better. But your comment reminded me of all this, so I thought it might be interesting for you and other readers.
ps: I personally think there is no natural place for things, that’s us, sentient beings, who define that and give things meanings.
I don’t have kids and never will, I live alone in avarage european flat, yet I still struggle to keep it at least managable. I like having it clean, I just hate cleaning
I recently found out I had ADHD, which explained a lot imo.
BUT, you have a kid. Who has a kid and a tidy house? Rich MFers who get there home cleaned weekly ig
Preach.
It makes me wonder if anyone really has a clean house or I only really go to my parents/in-laws house and they have only themselves to clean up after
No. If my house is not tidy, it disturbs me. I have to clean up.
This is me. Except it’s still not enough to motivate me to do the cleaning. Adhd sucks sometimes.
probably try to change yourself? it’s so common case especially when you have a boy
I’m AuDHD. Other half is undiagnosed but probably ADHD. 8 year old is AuDHD. No idea about the three year old. But yeah… our house is either stripped bare if I’ve been on a hyperfocus clean or absolute chaos if neither of us have been
Deebot our robot vacuum has helped a lot. And we are trying to implement some routine but none of us are very good at routine so… 😂
We’ve got a robot hoover, herv but he’s been struggling recently because we’re remodeling our kitchen and the floor is a bit uneven. I’m hoping that he pulls his weight a bit more when the floor is tiled
My wife is someone who cannot relax unless they house is pristine. We have a two year old also, and it seems never ending.
Somewhere on a lifehacks post, posted that they set their phone for a 15 minute Timer each day.
I do it on my watch now, silently. Each day. My wife hasn’t caught on to what I’ve been doing. But I can say is I’m having far more sex than ever.
(It’s still never ending, and seems to just shift room to room, but just more manageable)
Look at Mr stud over here lasting a whole 15 minutes !
That’s living with a 2 year old. We had similar situation, but we were able to put little guy to sleep at about 6-7 pm every day. Still we were so tired, that we went to bed around 9-10. But we woke up at 5 am, and we were able to clean before work. Sometimes it was more effective than cup of coffee.
I have two kids who are 3 years old (they are twins). I accepted that my house can’t be as clean as it used to be without my kids…
I don’t have kids and live alone in Tokyo. Space is limited so keeping things neat and tidy is a must. Also idk I just can’t relax if I know there is still some small housework to be done (dishes, etc.).
If you have two year old I think you can be forgiven for a bit of chaos! Don’t stress.
I know what you mean. I have a 3 year old. I don’t really bother to pick up toys every day. Try to focus on just the space that you want clean for yourselves. For me, it was the kitchen counters and the living room where I like to relax. Also, having a bin in each room for toys helps a lot, just spend 2 minutes piling all the toys in the bin will go a long way to helping it look better.
I do! But having scheduled company over for dinner and an RPG session once a week has helped me get over the procrastination to do the bare minimum to keep the house presentable.
Thing is, you and your wife must make sure you share the same set of rules. For instance, here I saw someone suggesting that you should put things back to their designated place immediately after you used them. It’s a good advice, but both of you must commit to the same rule, orherwise you’ll end up like me, that is, tidying up after my parter almost all the time. 😆
I just try really hard to do the small things all the time. Whenever I leave a room, I try to bring something with me that shouldn’t be in that room. Whenever I go into the kitchen, I try to clean one thing in the kitchen whether it’s putting something in the dishwasher or throwing out an empty package.
Just do small things whenever you have a moment.
Our place still looks chaotic though so don’t expect miracles.
