I like a clean house. Unfortunately, that desire is often eclipsed by my many obligations as a mom of four with multiple part-time jobs. I do what I can with the time I have, and always make sure the bathrooms and kitchen are clean, because germs. However, the rest of the house often looks like it was ransacked by a pack of rabid raccoons (four very adorable rabid raccoons). The playroom is a sea of plastic stuff. The laundry gets washed, but rarely folded and put away within a reasonable amount of time. Bookbags, coats, lunch boxes, and a literal mountain of shoes create an obstacle course that rivals Ninja Warrior in our foyer. I look back on how clean my house was before I had kids and smile. Eight years later I’ve learned to be kind to myself and accept the lowered standards as an act of love for my kids. Could I have an immaculate house? Sure. But it would mean less stories, less time pushing a swing, less glittery crafts, and less snuggles. I once heard someone say that you can have kids, a job, and a clean house, but you can’t have all three. 

However, and this is a big However, there are times when you really need or want your house to be presentable, am I right? I will be honest and admit that the list of people I feel the need to be “picked up” for is very short, but it exists. There are also cases of absolute necessity like when you are trying to sell your house while living with said rabid raccoons. If you’ve been through this process you know that you often get very little notice that potential buyers are coming over to see your house. A severe case of lego-in-the-foot or a game of “what liquid did I just step in?” are not great selling points. Breast pump parts littering the house may cause the uninitiated to question whether or not there are illegal activities going on. With this in mind, I want to share some pro-tips from my real estate agent who is an expert at making a house look tidy in a flash. 

Create a Staging Area

This is real estate agent language for “find a place to stash all your clutter temporarily”. It may be a guest room, a laundry room, or the garage. This is not a good habit to create long-term, because that room will eventually become the house dumping ground, but we are only talking about urgent situations right now. 

Have the Right Tools

This is a requirement for following tip number one because you’re going to need a way to move all the clutter to the staging area. Laundry baskets do well here and are easily brought back out when it’s time to actually put things away. 

Have Available Space

This is an alternative to the staging area tip. If you have an empty space available in each room, you can quickly put all the clutter in that space until you have more time to put your things back where they live. Think: closets, empty drawers, and under the bed. I am an expert at this technique already because this is how I “cleaned” my room from age eight to eighteen, only I never quite got around to the second phase of actually putting things away (sorry, mom). Who knew this would be a useful skill later in life? 

Focus on One Area

Are you hosting your mom’s group in twenty minutes and you haven’t had time to pick up all week? Think small and just focus on the one or two areas where people will be hanging out. It’s amazing how one tidy and uncluttered room will lower the volume on the rest of the mess. 

Spot Clean

If your house is like mine, your kitchen table will invariably have a sticky area (coincidentally it’s probably where your youngest rabid raccoon sits). This could also be true for the floor, walls, ceiling, etc. (what, you’ve never scraped an unknown substance off your ceiling?) Look around the room and identify what really jumps out at you as looking messy. Wipe that one spot and move on. Your sweet mother-in-law who is also a professional house cleaner is on her way over and you don’t have time to polish an entire table. 

Is this advice going to win me a “tidying up” spinoff on HGTV? Not likely. But this season of life, my fellow moms, are filled with love but void of time. Who says we can’t cut some corners here and there to be able to spend more time with our babies? 

Do you have some tips and tricks for cleaning up at warp speed?