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Quick Tips For Getting Your Home Clean

A lot of people think that I just got super lucky with a husband who just loves to do all the things. He’s super systemized, he loves Google calendars, he loves cleaning, he loves cooking, and he loves to do all the things. But that is not the truth. Yes, he is a very tidy person, he is not the guy that leaves his shorts on the floor or outside the shower. He will keep himself and his things picked up, for the most part. 

Blaine does have certain things that he’ll leave out in random places, and he is not the person that picks up the children’s things. He doesn’t need a clean bathroom at all. I think he could go a really long time without cleaning toilets and showers based on what his bachelor pad looked like the first time I saw it. No, it was not dirty by any means, but it was not my definition of clean. 

Blaine has certain things, just like every person does, that he’s good at and that he’s not good at. But the truth of the matter is he is not the person that’s going to walk around and make sure that the house is well maintained. That truly does fall on me and we’ve had our fair share of conversations around it. 

I’m working all day long and so is he, so this is what has to happen at the end of the day and I can’t do it alone. I’m exhausted and there are times when I have to take into consideration my husband’s needs, just like you’re going to have to take into consideration your husband’s needs.

End Of Day Depletion

There are days when I know that I’m just completely depleted and I have nothing left, so I’m able to communicate the systems to him that he now understands. But we didn’t have that in the beginning, at that time I didn’t have a systemized life, home, marriage, motherhood, or home. 

We had to have conversations around this because there is no reason I am the only one that’s responsible for it all. Do I love to provide a clean space for him to come home from work to, absolutely? But with my husband’s job sometimes he’s had an easy shift so he’s got all the energy and he’s actually recharged from playing basketball and listening to all the podcasts. He went on two calls in 24 hours and that’s a little bit like a frat party at a firehouse. 

While I’m over here ready to pull my hair out because I’ve been with sick or fussy kids all day. Or I’ve had to take kids to 12,000 places plus try and get my work done. Plus, no one helped me with resetting the systems the day before like we’re supposed to. And so now the house is a mess. 

Get Your Husband On Board

These are the five things that I started doing to be able to help me get my husband on board. Really, it’s more of a conversation about what I have done to be able to get my husband on board on a more consistent basis. To where we’re not having these conversations over and over again about how I feel alone in the process. 

That is really what we struggle with, feeling like this is only on me. How can I get some help around here? Not only is it just a lot to manage on my own because I’m one person, but also because it just feels kind of lonely. 

Having support is going to look different for everybody. Sometimes you might have a tiny house and this is super easy for you. You might have a huge house and you have to actually outsource portions of it. You might be a little all over the place. 

So you’re going to have to take these five tips and you’re going to have to look at what of these five things am I not doing right now? What of these five things can I incorporate right now to be able to help my husband want to be on board with keeping the house cleaned and maintained? Those are the questions that I want you to ask yourself. 

Number One: Your Husband’s Strengths

I want you to know what your husband’s strengths are. When I sat down and I looked at Blaine in the beginning, I was constantly frustrated. He will dive in and help with the kitchen, we have an open floor plan where the kitchen, the dining, and the living are all completely open. So if we’re all just hanging out and there are dishes in the sink, he’ll go over and he’ll kind of start working at it because it’s one of his pet peeves.

But the thing is, I was always looking at other things that I needed him to do for me instead of using that strength right there. The strength he has is to get up and complete a task immediately when it bothers him. And I should be utilizing that, as the person that is trying to make sure that this whole entire house is maintained. 

So just knowing if your husband’s super good at completing something. Does he take out the trash or maintain the yard regularly? Does he vacuum in two seconds or even clean the toilets really well? Can he fold clothes or hang up clothes really quickly? What is his superpower, what can he do pretty easily? What does he do that he really doesn’t blink an eye at, if he’s doing absolutely nothing? 

Different Seasons Of Life

He works all day long, 12 hours a day, and he is only home on the weekends. That is where your life is right now, and that means you’re going to have to be working super hard all day long too, and that’s going to be the dynamic of your life until something changes. 

That is what it looks like in certain seasons of my life as well. There are times when Blaine is a hundred percent unavailable Monday through Friday, all day long from 3:30 in the morning until he goes to bed at night. So I am exhausted from doing everything with literally no help during the week. 

We’ve had these conversations about what that looks like for me to get a little bit of recharge on the weekends. I had to improvise, adapt, and overcome right now. So to do this I had to look at his strengths, and see where he can help you in. Get super creative. 

Number Two: Cleaning Rotation

You’ve got to make cleaning simple and visual. Your house should be broken down into zones. It should be unbelievably black and white. If it is confusing for you, he won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. His mind is not going to go there because this is not his domain. He does not have time to think about all the things. Head inside the Facebook group and check out the podcast vault. This step is all there for you to digest in a different episode.

Number Three: Get Him Involved

Ask when it would be a good time for him to help to clean and involve him in the process, right? Hey, what do you want to do? What would you like to clean? I noticed you’re really good at hanging up the girls’ laundry whenever it comes straight out of the dryer because you hate wrinkles and you hate static. When I finish washing clothes on Saturday morning, do you think you’d have 30 minutes to hang them up for me? Done. That’s it. 

We don’t need to talk about how you never help me or how exhausted you are. We don’t need to talk about all of those things. Trust me, I love to communicate my feelings, and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do that. What I’m saying is if you want to get your husband on board, you go to him, you compliment him, and you tell him what his strengths are. 

Then you say, Hey, would you mind doing that for me for 30 minutes? Give him a timestamp. Give him a specific date. Tell him exactly what you want from him and say, please, would you mind doing that for me? End a story. 

If he says no, okay, that stings. You could ask him another time if you would rather do that for me. Do you have anything else that you’d like to do? Just involve him in the process. Ask him when it would be a good time for him to help you. 

Speak With Respect

Speak to their pride, honor, and respect. Sometimes we get so lost and so frustrated in the things that we just want to word vomit and emotionally explode all over them. That’s what makes the results so yucky for us. It’s not actually a direct reflection of who or what he wants to be. It’s about how we’ve brought it to them. 

If you do it wrong just apologize, sorry, that is not how I mean meant to say that to you. I didn’t mean to offend you. I really intended to tell you what you’re doing well and let you know that I appreciate your help and that is the help that I could use more of. 

You just keep trying. I get it so wrong so often, but I’m getting better at it because I’m so committed to prioritizing respect and honor because it makes him feel like he should feel as well as the results that I want. And that’s the beauty of learning how to communicate the way that they need us to communicate.

Number Four: Leave Him Alone

Let him clean how he wants to and what he wants to. So this ties into number three. If he says, yeah, I don’t mind doing toilets. Let him clean the toilets. Don’t stand over his shoulder and tell him that he missed a spot. Don’t do anything. Just let him go clean the toilets and leave it alone. 

Now, there’s a disclaimer here. I work really, really hard to establish systems in my home, and still to this day, what we work through, I am working my tail off to establish systems. Sometimes it just gets completely ignored and full honest disclosure right here, this is my hardest thing. Just let him put the darn long sleeve shirts in the short sleeve shirt section in the girl’s closets and then just change them later. 

Just Say Thank You

It’s okay to just say, thank you so much for hanging these up and be done with it. I’m still really focused on making sure that the actual goal is to get help and let him do the work that he needs to do because I’ve done it so many times. 

When I go into that dark place of my personality and I start to panic because the long sleeve shirts are where the short sleeve shirts are, things don’t go well. So it is what it is. We all have parts of our personality that can be our superpowers and our kryptonite. That is clearly why I have The Systemized Life Academy, and it is a beautiful part of me. It’s not just my husband that had a hard time with this, it is my kids as well. 

Be so grateful that he helped in the way that he wanted to help because here’s what happens. If you are trying to constantly change the way that they’re doing it, or your kids are doing it, they’re going to want to stop. They’re not going to want to help you. 

Number Five: Have Fun!

Last but not least, make it fun. The best part of cleaning with my husband now is making it fun. I’m super flirtatious. I put music on, get excited, and give a smack on the bum. I love it. I’m so excited. The best parts of me come out now when we’re doing this together, and that is what we remember. When it comes time to do it again, and I want him on board with this whole process, of course, he’s going to want to do it. If it’s fun. 

“The best part of cleaning with my husband now is making it fun. I’m super flirtatious. I put music on, get excited, and give a smack on the bum. I love it. I’m so excited. The best parts of me come out now when we’re doing this together, and that is what we remember.”

Play the music that he wants, right? He doesn’t always want to listen to the music that I love to listen to. He loves a good classic rock that makes me want to scratch my eyeballs out. But we put it on and I get so excited and we find things to be excited about. 

Have A Dance Party

Even if the thought’s just for 20 minutes and it’s not always having a dance party, we’re not always doing that. But I really do try my best to make it fun, to bring out the best parts of my personality in a time when my worst parts typically shine. That part of me used to come out anytime we were working on a project, anytime we were trying to complete something, there was me with my grumpy face and my grumpy attitude, and was no fun for anybody. 

So making it fun has been one of the number one things that I think has really been such a game changer for getting my husband involved. And you know what? Sometimes it might not be music for your family. It might be that he pops in his own earbuds and he wants to listen to a podcast, or maybe he wants to have sports on, or watch something in the background while he’s vacuuming. 

But my recommendation is always music. We turn off everything and we pump the music and we just have a good time. Open up the windows. I’ll even put on his favorite oils without him even knowing it or mood-lifting ones. Just something super citrusy that gets everyone’s brain excited and they don’t even know why. It’s my little magic air sauce. 

Final Thoughts To Get Your House Clean With Help

That was part one of my quick tips for getting your home clean with your husband’s help. Those are my five tips. And if you are sitting there thinking, oh my goodness, those are some systems, I want to know how to communicate that effectively with my husband. I want to be able to involve him. I want to be able to have a cleaning rotation in your house. Where do I get all these things?  You get them over inside of The Systemize Your Life Academy. 

Head over for part two, quick tips for getting your home clean with your kids’ help. You can figure out all of my unbelievable five tips to be able to have your kids get involved and start helping you to keep your house clean and tidy.