Let's be honest: Keeping a house clean with a job (sometimes multiple jobs) feels impossible to do. So when Reddit user u/--Anonymus-- asked: "How do people have the strength to do the housework with a 40-plus hour job?" a lot of people had thoughts. Here's what they said below.
1. "Objects in motion stay in motion. Get home, do all the jobs you need to before sitting down. Plus, once you get on top of things, it's easier to keep up with than struggling to get on top of them."
2. "Clean as you go, and have a place for everything. If you don't have a place for it, then get rid of it. Clean dishes as you're cooking. Vacuum and sweep routinely. It only takes 20 minutes or so. Clean bathrooms and kitchens as soon as you notice a mess. The issue is people ignore the mess on purpose to get immediate satisfaction from avoiding the labor, but it's so much easier and less stressful to just take a minute or two to address the mess as you go."
"I clean as I go, but you still need to do a proper cleaning. Everyone who visits says they're surprised with how clean my place is for a single 40-year-old dude, but I really have trouble finding time to clean and balancing it with enough free time to not burn out from work (and feel lonely in general).
I wish I had someone to share my chores with. Not just for the obvious reason of not wanting to be alone all the time but simply because doing them together is both more enjoyable and less work."
3. "A robot vacuum cleaner helps a lot in keeping the floors clean. I found that vacuuming regularly helps a ton with reducing the dust built up on surfaces too. For other housework such as laundry, dishes, bathroom cleaning, etc, honestly, the best suggestion I can give you is to do them while listening to podcasts or audiobooks. I listen to A LOT of podcasts. I really love them, but I find it hard to listen to them while doing nothing. They pair wonderfully with manual, mindless, and repetitive work. I often genuinely look forward to some of the chores when I know a new episode of a podcast I follow just got published."
4. "1. Pass by cleaning — Have spray and wipe in each room. Each time you walk through the room, wipe a surface. As soon as you have to leave a room to find cleaning products, it feels too hard. There's no rule that says you can't have a bottle of spray in each room. Put your clean laundry basket in the walkway. Every time you walk out, put away three items of clothing. Clean one wall of the shower each day while you shower. It gives you an excuse to stay under the hot water for longer. By the 4th day, you're done."
"2. Set a timer — if you feel you only have two minutes of energy each day, set a 2-minute timer. That's enough time to vacuum or mop one room. By the end of the week, the floors will be done. Maybe some days you have more, maybe some days you have less.
3. Race the kettle, microwave, oven, etc. — Anytime you put the kettle on, race to get as much done in a single room as you can. Do the same with the microwave, oven, etc., and make sure you rotate rooms.
4. Sometimes, a room-by-room approach can feel less overwhelming. Clean one room every couple of days or so.
5. Don't put it down, put it away (this one is tough)
6. Clean as you go while cooking.
7. Invite a friend over — Suddenly, you'll have all the motivation in the world.
8. Body doubling — You can also invite a friend over to hang out with you while you do chores. Watch a movie while you fold clothes, chat while you clean the bathroom, etc. Time flies, and it doesn't feel as draining on your energy.
9. It's ok to ask for help — We've all been in this place before. If it's gotten to a point where it's overwhelming, reach out to a friend or family to help do a factory reset on the house. You'll find the techniques above work better if you start from a clean slate Source: unmedicated AuDHD."
5. "Give yourself a little more grace when it comes to having a dirty home. Now, obviously, you probably don’t want to live in filth and grime, so don’t let it get to that point, and this really only applies if you live alone. If you’re making this post because you have a significant other who is upset that you don’t clean as much as you should, let them know that you’re physically exhausted when you get home. Make a chore list where you can take a couple of smaller tasks like dishes or vacuuming. The comments saying to keep your house clean are good, but it doesn’t always work when you have kids or pets. Get the small stuff first; save the big cleaning jobs like cleaning the shower, scrubbing baseboards, and cleaning the gutters for the weekend. The sad reality is even when you work all day, every day, you still have responsibilities at home."
6. "I clean for ten-15 minutes in the morning before I go to work. Bathroom/kitchen, bedrooms, sweep the garage. I’ve found that over the years, it’s easier for me to clean in short bursts instead of dedicating a whole afternoon to it."
7. "Invite friends* over and panic clean in the 45 minutes before they arrive."
8. "Don't buy stuff. Find a nice spot in-between having enough stuff to make it feel like a home and having too much crap. The more crap you buy, the more you have to move to clean and/or dust. My stepmother has a basket of glittery fruit, and it pisses me off every time I see it. What a pointless decoration that is impossible to clean."
9. "Don't give your job 100%. Your job occupies fewer than half your waking hours; save some energy, investment, focus, etc., for the rest of your life. You don't have to convince your boss or fight them or whatever — just ramp down how much you're invested in this part of your life."
10. "From someone with chronic illness where fatigue is my main symptom:"
1. "I have a list of five must-do tasks each weekday when I finish work. Mine are making the bed, feeding my dogs, getting the mail, putting dishes from breakfast and lunch in the sink, and picking up dog toys (because they are trip hazards). I usually work from home and make this part of my routine when I get off work. The whole list takes about 10 minutes to do, with very easy steps, but represents things that make me feel very guilty if I am not able to do them. This wraps up the worst of the daily mess.
2. For everything else, I have found that focusing on what is really important to me in a clean house is critical to making the most of my cleaning time. I made a list of five general focus areas. For me, these are laundry, organization projects, dusting, procrastination, and de-cluttering. I set the timer for 15 minutes and focused on this task until the timer went off. Then, I got to a stopping point and could take my break. When I am sick, I aim for one round in a week. Obviously, for tasks like laundry, this can be hard to complete in a 15-minute block, but I've found I can get most of the work done, then dump a pile of clean clothes somewhere and deal with it later. If I have more energy, I might do a few rounds of these time blocks and do hourly general cleans on the weekend when I have more time."
11. "We have two small children with another on the way, so it's very hard to actually keep the house clean, toddlers see a clean room, and it wakes the devil up inside them for some damn reason and leads to total destruction. We gave up on their playroom; that thing is a sea of Thomas Trains, Paw Patrols, fire trucks, and police cars as far as the eye can see. You have to pick your battles when it comes to kids."
12. "A 26-year-old guy with a 37.5-hour job and 1.5 hours of daily transport. Combine it with something you enjoy. I listen to podcasts or music or call my parents to have a chat while doing it with a wireless headset in case it's been a few weeks since we last talked, or every once in a while, talking with a mate on Discord while doing the dishes. Also, you can buy what you need to do comfortably at your own pace. I have bought a load of T-shirts and recently bought six extra towels, alongside three bedsheet sets, to allow me to only do laundry once a month as I live in an apartment complex with shared laundry times. Others have robot vacuums, but I got a cordless vacuum at Christmas because it was clunky to drag around and empty the old one, which has allowed me to quickly get it done, empty and charge. I cook big batches of soup or food for four days and put the rest in the freezer to take for dinner when I don't feel like it, so I don't have to cook every day."
13. "I think about my partner resenting and leaving me if I don’t do my share of the housework. That’s where my strength comes from."
