Shorty asked,

"I can declutter with the best of them but I have a hard time keeping a 'clean' house. Please give me some helpful tips!! ...I have tried so many things but in the end I always go back to my old ways. Help would be great...especially with a growing family! When do you find time to clean with two little ones?"

I'm going to write about this in three different posts. First, I want to talk about some of the things I do to simplify my cleaning tasks in general. I like having a clean house, and I'm willing to invest the time each week to keep it clean.

However, I also want to be efficient and not spend needless hours cleaning. Here are some of the things that help make cleaning easier for me.

1. De-clutter first. De-cluttering (not just re-arranging!) will drastically cut your cleaning time. Imagine only having to move half as many rugs, toys, pieces of furniture, or nick nacks every time you clean.

Ideally, de-cluttering shouldn't take more time than your cleaning routines. If you start with a thoroughly de-cluttered home, you should be able to maintain that level of tidiness and spend most of your "housecleaning time" actually cleaning, with de-cluttering sessions once a month or less (depending on how much you shop!). Incorporate de-cluttering as a way of thinking rather than a task. One of the easiest ways to beat clutter is to be careful about what you purchase.

If you're married, be sure you have your husband's blessing before you do any major de-cluttering, and be sure that the things you're removing are things he won't mind not having! Seek to find a balance between practicality and beauty, and try to present a home that he will love and enjoy!

2. Don't allow shoes to be worn inside. We've done this ever since we were married, and it helps tremendously. Yes, my floors still get dirty. But I don't have to clean them daily, because most of the dirt stays by the door.

At our last home, we just had a rug inside the front door where we kept our shoes. Currently, we have an enclosed porch where there is a little shelf for our shoes. I have known others who store their shoes in their attached garage, on a shelf or bookshelf. The fewer pairs of shoes you own, the easier they will be to store.

We do wear slippers inside. We keep our slippers near our shoes, so when we come inside we can slip on our slippers (or I go barefoot inside a lot!). This is especially nice in the winter when it's cold and drafty.

3. Keep food in the kitchen. We haven't always done this, but now that we have children, this is our rule. We allow sippy cups of water in other rooms. All food has to be eaten at the kitchen table. This means that a lot of the mess stays on the table or on the floor near the table. Our kitchen has linoleum, so clean-up is easier.

4. Use a hand-held vacuum for small messes. My mother-in-law gave me a Dust Buster hand-held vacuum, and I use it daily. It's so convenient to use on the kitchen floor after each meal -- it takes just minutes, and the crumbs don't get dragged all over the room. I would never have the time or energy to pull out my large vacuum cleaner every day, so the hand-held one is my floor-saver! :)

5. Have children seated all the way up to the table (maybe even in a high chair if they're not too big!) and wearing bibs. My children's bibs are stained, but their shirts aren't, and it makes doing the laundry much easier!

6. Wash children's hands and face immediately after each meal. This prevents them from running around, touching things with sticky hands. :)

7. Soak dishes in cold water. If I have a pan or dish that will become difficult to clean by the time I'm ready to wash dishes, I take the couple minutes to run some cold water in it in the kitchen sink so it can soak. I don't always wash the dishes immediately after a meal, but it's much faster to wash them when they've been soaked!

8. Line trash cans with several bags at a time. This keeps the trash cans cleaner and makes it easier to take out the trash. It only takes a couple extra minutes to put the additional bags in when you're already getting one!

9. Allow your dishes to air dry instead of towel-drying them. My basic dish washing routine is to wash them all during the day (or right before bed) and stack them in the drainer. They stay there over night, and the next morning I have dry dishes to put away. I can fit quite a few in the drainer, but if there are really too many I will towel dry the big ones. :)

10. Keep things in handy locations. For example, paying bills is easier when the check book, pens, and stamps are all nearby. Cooking, cleaning, and anything else is easiest when the things you need for the job are accessible. Try to avoid running all over the house for things.

But this doesn't mean purchasing extras of everything. I try to keep the number of cleaning products I use to a minimum. If one product can do several "jobs" it's much better to just have that than to have 3 or 4 cleaning products in the cupboards. If you have multiple bathrooms or a large house, a cleaning-supply tote that can be carried from room to room could be useful.

These are just my ideas, things that work for our home. Does anyone else have any ideas to add to my list? I'd love for you to share them!

Read Part 2: Motivation ideas

Read Part 3: My personal cleaning routines