By: Susan Fox

Morning Cleaning Routine. The idea here is not to get caught up doing a major cleaning of any one room, but to just make your house presentable should someone come over. Really more important is just getting things tidy enough that you can tolerate it. So make your priority list and quickly get a handle on a few major things. Then you will feel like you can go on with your day and your house is not a disaster. Then if you have more time and energy you can go back and do other things.

My morning cleaning routine goes like this:* Important note, I usually don’t attempt all this ‘till all the kids have headed off to school. But you will have to adjust this to what works for you in your life.

1. Clean up kitchen and breakfast dishes. I try to have a head start the night before by always cleaning up after dinner and hopefully running and emptying the dishwasher, so that I’m ready to go in the morning and no one has an excuse for not putting their own dishes in the dishwasher.

2. Quickly straighten up front room or whatever room is most visible to unannounced visitors, just in case. You never know and if you’re like me you hate to be embarrassed. Also easily done the night before since kids may not be in that room in the morning.

3. Make each bed, but don’t get trapped trying to clean an entire room.

4. Do a quick pick up and wipe down of the bathrooms that get used in the morning. Each of my teen girls has a plastic carrying bin that holds their necessities and this fits under the bathroom sink. So even if they don’t pick up after themselves I can quickly scoop it all into their bin and stow it away

5. Go back to each room and pick up dirty laundry.

Now sit back and relax with a cup of ‘hot something’ and ponder the rest of your day!