Goodness Jenn, quit trying to do it ALL!

See about getting a schedule. Mondays is one item (vacuming), Tuesdays the next (dusting)and so on, and just keep picking up stuff in the meantime. Might be time, to teach the kids to pick up their own toys?

Good Luck.
Moni

"I'm trying to dig my way out of this hole of hectic disorganization, clutter and neglected cleaning, but I'm frustrated."

My Mom also worked, and did all that, but I distinctly remember that she DELEGATED ... we shared chores like dishes, vacuuming, LAUNDRY, etc. as soon as we were old enough to handle the equipment.

Try the Organizing forum. And for now, forget about dirt and concentrate on de-cluttering.

On the toy front: announce a NEW RULE! All toys (electronics, book bags, etc.) must be in their owner's room by bedtime or they will vanish when the evil house witch sees them. Then just pick them up and dump them into a storage box somewhere. Eventually they will either learn or run out of toys. Periodically, as a reward, the good housekeeping fairy can restore a toy by leaving it on the owner's bed while they are away. When asked where a toy is, ask this right back "Did you leave it in your room where it belongs?"

On the chore front, kids learn REAL FAST that if they goof off or do a bad job that an adult will take over for them ... don't let them pull that stunt. They stick with it until it is done, to the standards you gave them, and nothing else happens. If you want to see a fast, thorough bathroom cleaning, make gping to the movies something that happen AFTER chores are done to standards.

Give clear, DETAILED instructions, not open-ended instructions that do not have concrete ways to decide if the job is done. "Clean the bathroom" gets you one thing. "Clean the bathroom by ... insert detailed list of tasks here including product and utensil to use ..." gets much better results. If they know that the shower tiles have to be clean, floor mopped, toilet bowl clean, all surfaces dust and spill-free, all clutter returned to the right spot (not just shoved into a drawer or cabinet) and towels laundered and replaced, the chances they will do it all are improved.

Here is a link that might be useful: age-appropriate chore lists

As Flylady says, it didn't get that way in a day- it won't get clean again in a day. Follow her advice (baby-steps) and don't be a perfectionist- your home will be organized!

All the above and don't be so hard on yourself. Being a wife, mom, chief cook and bottlewasher is the most difficult profession in the world. Besides all the above, your their nurse, budget(bookkeeper) and the list goes on & on. Take it easy and do what you can, but be sure to start delegating some of those chores.

Thanks for your supportive suggestions. I was able to get the first floor fairly straightened today. I swept the floors, but can't mop right now. Overall it looks pretty good - for now. The older two kids watched the younger two while I worked around here and they each did their regular chores like dishes and trash, etc as well. (I have plans to add to that list once I get organized enough to know what system to put into place and make things so that the kids can actually do the things I assign to them) The thing that is specifically bothering me right now is that even though I've worked hard most of the day I had to go back over a few places several times and even now I feel stuff on the floor. It's really deflating. I have no idea how to do it any better. Another concern I have is that by the time I'm able to get back to it and put some more time in I'll be back at square one and have to start all over. I would like to straighten and clean and organize, but it seems like I can't get ahead. Then I feel like "why bother" (and then it gets really bad again, etc) Have any of you experienced these problems before? How do you deal with it?

You can save yourself a huge amount of aggravation if you make the kitchen and dining room the only eating areas in your house.If the children want a cookie,they have to sit down at the table.it ends the sloshing with the glass of chocolate milk,and it ends the crumbs that get ground into carpet and furniture.Be firm about this rule and many other things will fall into place.After each meal an older child can sweep or vaccuum and a smaller child can run a swiffer or damp mop.Everynight after they are in bed,you can spend five or ten minutes vaccuuming and mopping the kitchen.
Actually I share your frustration.As a professional housecleaner who's only daughter is away at college,I come home to chaos on a steady basis.DH was raised with an entirely different set of values,and has trained the boys to avoid much of the housework.I do have one son who will run a vaccuum if he is allowed to have friends over,and they are getting better about clearing up their own dishes.My children always eat at the table with me at meal times.DH still sits in a recliner in front of the t.v.. Over the years the kids have realized that they are one of the only families we know that sit down for a rel meal at dinnertime every night.There are tons of people who live in very clean houses that eat takeout every night of the week that they don't go out to dinner.I know bcause I wipe through their perfect kitchens every day.Your house won't measure up to theirs because they are cheating.In my mind,I divide the houses I clean into those that actually live in their houses(cook every day,spend off work hours doing things at home),and those that don't(every meal from takeout,kids that get chauffered to two activities each day after school and arrive home at bedtime,and grownups that spend every spare moment shopping or visiting friends when they aren't working).At any time of the night or day their houses are perfect.I don't really envy them their houses.They don't do any practical living in them,and it would be foolish to judge their housekeeping skills against mine.
On the other hand,it is a luxury worth having tohire someone to come through and clean the house all the way through while you and the children go to the library,swing by the park,and arrive home sleepy and happy.If you can't afford a cleaning service,consider trading services with a friend.
If you are rotating chores on a steady basis,your house is fundimentally clean,and it's really just the daily clutter that can be annoying.Having a place for everything is going to help.Hooks for backpacks,ashoebox by the entry,bookcases for books,shelves for games,etc.BTW ...the idiot that invented legos should be shot and hung.After stepping on a number of these,and picking up a kazillion in my vaccuum,I now avoid buying toys with that many pieces.Some much better substitutes are basketball hoops,frisbees,nerf baseball,and anything else that keeps them in the yard.My brother makes each of his children plant a garden every year.They are allowed to plant whatever they want,but they must plant,weed ,water and harvest themselves during family garden time.
When all else fails,remember that having an immaculate house is not going to make you any more of a perfect parent in your child's eyes.

"The thing that is specifically bothering me right now is that even though I've worked hard most of the day I had to go back over a few places several times and even now I feel stuff on the floor."

Rule one: Don't look back! Once a day is often enough to sweep or mop, and once a day is often enough to de-clutter any given area.

Jenn-

you really need to take a week off, and shake the June Cleaver nightmares off.

you did the floor, and still 'feel' things?

are you sure that's not the grit on your shoes you're hearing?

really...you're going to make yourself sick with the spiral you're setting yourself up for. like seriously sick.

and you're jumping from topic to topic faster than even I can keep up...

the rug is a good example...

you don't give any indication what you think is WRONG with the rug, except that it's not living up to your vision of a clean carpet...

they're there to get walked on, love-short of moving the family out, there is not a darned thing you can do to get the cute little vacuuming patterns to stay in the rug...

it could be that the rug is old. it could be that the vacuum is dying...until recently, the only way I could get my (30 years old, at least) carpet (in the hundred year old house we managed to buy cheap) to spruce up was to take the broom to it- worked MUCH better than the vacuum, actually.

on a practical note, the 'microfiber' cloths have been a lifesaver for me- they shine windows and mirrors (and get mung off the inside of my windshield that I haven't found a chemical yet that will touch) and really do trap dust...

put the kids to work- even if it's just separating the laundry (one pile for terry, one pile for denim, one pile for whites, one pile for everything else)... every minute they spend helping out not only is a minute they're not strewing toys all over- but it's a minute they get to spend with their mom, doing something grownup...and it's a minute you get to instill a sense of responsibility in them, which is something someone obviously did TOO good a job in you (by model, or by absence) and something that kids seem to be lacking in nowadays in record numbers.

at least you know when to scream for help!

Thanks for your support and helpful advice. It's all in the hopper together and will come out as an ideal plan for us here I'm sure. While I haven't had a chance to progress with what needs to be done here, we have managed to maintain what has been done and the kids (at least the older ones) notice and love the changes and are motivated to help keep it that way. (DH has always been supportive and contributes every way he can - he just has lower expectations than me I think. lol) We have to go out of town tomorrow for a week, but for once I'll be coming home to a peaceful home instead of the chaos I left behind in my departure - always a nice feeling huh? It's amazing how much more clearly one can think when the surroundings are at least semi - orderly. Thanks again for everyone's support during my meltdown!

Coming into this late, but I feel your pain. I'm currently a SAHM with two kids (three and seven) and I'm drowning. But this is what I've learned in the past 8 years with two kids and a DH who didn't know the right end of a vacuum when I married him...

Decrease your clutter. I know that this is terribly hard to do, but decrease it. Get what you can, OUT of your house. Bags, boxes, you name it...pack and it and dump it. Goodwill, friends, wherever. As long as it's OUT!

Now is the perfect time to weed toys before Christmas. Get a couple of big boxes and have the kids at the same time, put in there things that they do not want. Do not watch them do this.

AFTER they go to bed, then YOU go through it, bagging the truly unwanted stuff, and salvaging the precious "I'm saving this for you when you're grown" stuff. Put the latter in a box and stick it in an attic or garage, LABELED. Do not wait or it will turn into another annoying pile. Be tough with yourself about that part. Something from each kid, if ykwim? The rest GOES! Load it into the back of the car, van or truck. Get it immediately out of your house. The next time you pass Goodwill, dump it. Better yet, stick it in your DH's car and make him dump it on his way home from work. He's more likely to do it to get that annoying stuff out of his vehicle.

Do this in each room of your house. The kitchen pans you never use. The crap in the garage that has been there for years. Keep dumping.

If you are like me, you can fill a box yourself in about 20 minutes. The point of it is, the less you have in your home, the less that you hvae to clean, pick up, wash, dust, clean or pick up.

Get large and small stackable plastic bins from Home Depot or wherever. Big ones for the trains...medium ones for the Barbies...are you with me?

For frequently used toys used by preschoolers and younger, Home Depot has these big round rubbermaid buckets with white rope handles stick at least one in every room of your home. This is for the little people dumping. A three year old cannot put things away in bins...But a three year old can follow the dirction "grab all of your little trucks and throw them into the big blue bucket in the corner". It's also good for big items like that play weedwhacker, the stick pony, balls, dressup crap that never has a home (unless you have an estate). I can dejunk a floor in that matter (exluding things like board games and other stuff that actualy have to be put back together) in about 10 minutes. Even if it's a large room and trashed. I have a big home. I have three of them near my kitchen, two in the living room, four in the upstiars loft and one in every bedroom, even mine. (Their crap gets in my room too). If you get the kids to dump stuff into the buckets, you can follow behind with the vacuum. Once I figured this out, I had a lot less crap sticking to my feet. When it takes you all day to pick up, you run out of time to do the floors.

And then you call Merry Maids or some other service and have them do a ONE TIME deep cleaning. Yes, spend the money. Have them knock the cobwebs, scrub your toilets, strip your beds. Kill the soap scum. While they do this, bang the dirty sheets in the laundry.

In about 2 hours YOUR ENTIRE HOUSE WILL BE CLEAN!

A clean house is easier to keep relatively clean then the depressing sight of a completely trashed home where you don't know where to start and you don't want to think about how long it's going to take for you to do it.

If you really fall in love with this, have them do it every two weeks and maintain it yourself.

And get your DH involved. One of the best presents that my DH can do for me at the end of a terrible day is wash my kitchen floor. I hate floors with a total passion. If he does it after I go to bed, I don't even have to watch! LOL And there is nothing better than to wake up to a clean floor...c'mon, you know how cool that would be? Forget roses, scrub something baby!

If you really can't swing the Merry Maids, then do the decluttering and have it timed to be finished by Friday. Have your DH take ALL of the kids out for most of the day. I'm talking out to breakfast..then to a discovery museum..then out to lunch...then on errands. Keep them gone as long as possible.

The pour the coffee and start banging.

This is what I do, because I can't swing the MMs right now. But as soon as our budget will allow it again, I'm going for it.

I, too, was raised by one of those 'do it all mothers', but the truth be told, we didn't have a third of the crap back then as our kids and families have now. We used to run the neighborhood because it was safe to do so. Spend most of the day toodling around town on bikes or at the public pool. We didn't have playdates or classes or whatever. We were out having a blast and Mom was ALONE banging the house all day. I had a Barbie and a Ken and a few items of clothing that fit in one tiny box. She drove a Kleenex box, not a covertible. My dd's BarbieS (all zillion of them) has a bus, a car, and a dreamhouse. Are you wtih me? So cut yourself some slack here.

She was also powered on two pots of coffee, two packs of cigarettes and hardly slept. She got it done, but beat the everloving out of herself. Hardly a personal goal, if ykwim?

So dump the stuff, enlist some help. Get the older kids to take out the garbage, pick up the nitpicky toys or entertain the little ones. Start dumping, and I will tell you a secret....dumping becomes addictive. Eventually you will get frustrated when there is nothing left to dump.

And keep up with the Flylady. I'm doing it myslef with varying degress of success. Start from where you are, kwim? And don't have perfect be your everyday goal. You can be perfect or spend time with your children. You can't do both.

Better some toys on teh floor and a Mommy that just played dressup, then a Mommy that never has the time.

JMO, but words I live by.

So cool smom - I'm all over it. Before I read your post I started thinking about having a huge bin in the basement(or somewhere out of sight) where I will throw anything that's not put away at the end of the day. If they come looking for it they know where to find it; if it sits there for longer than a month (or some specified period of time) they must not need it and it can go bye-bye. Or is that just creating more work for myself?

Jenn -
The bin in the basement is an excellent idea. BUT ... don't let them decide to rummage through it at will. If they don't have a penalty beyond having to go to the basement, and you still are cleaning up after them, they don't learn.

Use the "if it's left out, it vanishes" rule and they will begin to pick up after themselves.

I wouldn't do it. If they do it every day for awhile? EEK! Then now all you've done is transfer it to the basement.

Step one, declutter. Weed those closets and weed those drawers. Weed weed weed. (I can't say this enough) Sheesh, even if you never bought a toy until the next birthday, they still collect junk. School papers...happy meal toys, something from a friend. It's flipping endless. You'll know that you've hit nirvana when there really isn't much to weed except the stuff that is coming in. Btw, my sister gave me a great idea for kid papers. Get a cheap art porfolio from a craft store. One for each kid. Art goes in there. Wait about six months then go through it WITH the kid, saving only what they think is the good stuff. Stores flat against a wall in a closet.

Step two, find a home for everything with bins. I was going insane with little boy trains until I started doing this. The box always gets dead and can't stack anyway. Bins saved my life. And it's much easier to do this once you've decluttered some.

The reason why I say this is that it's unfair to a kid to say "put this away" if you don't even know where to put it.

BUT if you have a system in place, if everything has a home (eventually) it's far more likely they will be put away. And you can say, put the stuff in the X box and then you can have consequences...

I also don't know the ages of your kids. If your kids are teens, I'd be cracking a whip. If they're under the age of five...well, the bin in the basement won't work no matter what you do. They can do specific tasks with direction, sometimes. But you can't send them into a room and say "clean it".

Because if you do, then what you will have is a big pile of stuff in the basement, and unhappy kids.

Btw, that is also the reason why I said when you declutter, it's removed from your home. If you put in the basement until whenever, what will happen is thatyou have a basement full of junk (I did this in my old house but with closets. It was bad. You will run out of room.). Then you will forget what is in the box or in that bag and now you have to go through it again. And you might be more sentimental then, and then rethink the tossing...and then there you are, stuck with the stuff. That's why it must leave.

Take a room. Make three piles. Save and put away....Toss in the garbage...Goodwill. I usually add a few bags like "give to X friend for her kids" but only do that if you're going to give it to her! Kwim?

Anything going into another room in a PARTICULAR PLACE, use older children as 'runners'. Like I'll say "Put that up in the bin in the loft' to my daughter..and then she can run up and down the stairs, while I'm sorting.

Buy bookcases even if you have enough for your books. They work well for stacking games, small bins of toys, videos, puzzles. Or put up shelving for that purpose. I put the board games with all of those annoying little pieces on the top shelves so that someone has to ASK me to play with it. Keep total control of all craft materials on top shelves of a closet or something. All that glitter, paper,paint, playdoh, blahblahblah. Those are activities that they have to do with MOMMA supervising. I leave down a big bag of watercolor markers and paper that they can get to. Everything else like that goes through me. Funny, but the bag came from some bed linens that I bought (do you know what I'm talking about?). Those zipper bags that sheets/pillowcases come in? GREAT bag for markers. Don't have to fit them into little slots in the original case, just shove the tops on and into the bag. Zip. Done. So save those bags when you get them. The big ones are also good for storing extra blankets, bed pillows. They stay clean and the bags last a long time. With something like that, they can even go under beds and you can save closets for other stuff. And the stuff stays clean as the day you put it in.

And FTR, those round rubbermaid bins are something like 5.98 at Home Depot. They're not expensive and can take a beating.

But again, start with the decluttering. And put up the stuff that makes massive messes immediately. Get that going. Start getting containers and start filling and stacking. Find a home for things. Have your DH do the garage so that you have more storage. If you don't have shelving out there, have him create it. Little or rarely used keepers can go out there. Makes more room in the house...Do it simultaneously.

I want you to know that I found Jesus with this process at the beginning of last summer. My DH got a job offer out of state and we had 2 1/2 weeks to get our house ready to sell, throw a three year old's birthday party, go on a three day vacation to Disneyland, and pack up ALL of our personal items except furniture.

I'm not kidding. I tossed more crap than Carter has liver pills. I cannot even tell you what I found in closets, the garage.. We had two spontaneous garage sales (not the perfect kind, the kind where you throw a blanket on the lawn and one person is packing with kids, while the other one is selling) and made quite a bit of cash.

Oh, and then we drove across country for four days with two small kids. @@ Let me just tell you that I was deader than a doornail because of this. I paid for every 'do it later' moment that I had since I started having kids.
Every box that sat in a closet. Every bucket o'kid junk that no one every played with.

I now walk around my house and think NEVER AGAIN. No, I'm not turning into the type that walks around picking lint off the area rug with my fingers...but I certainly have paid the price for owning stuff that no one uses.

So start the dumping. Get some bins and start dumping. You really don't need that set of Ginzu knives your MIL got you five years ago, eh? Pass it on to someone else...

Here's a link to the incredible Flylady!

Here is a link that might be useful: Flylady's Website

Consider getting rid of the carpets, since they are never actually clean, once installed. I cannot tell how much of your home is carpet versus hard flooring, but hard flooring is easier to clean and when you clean it - it gets clean, you are not just moving stains or dust mites from one area to the other.

Good luck. I have a high stress corporate job, travel a great deal, and only have a hubby to deal with. No kids or pets, and I am overwhelmed. I cannot imagine how all of you moms do it - hats off to you! Then there is all the cooking and helping with homework. I hope your kids appreciate you!

My mom had back trouble so dad hired a housecleaning service that came once a week for 30 years, and then paired them back to once every other week. The house always looked spotless, even with my tracking in dirt from the horses and barn every day. Even today, with the house being 40+ years old and still having the original throw rugs, carpets, and hardwood floors - it looks perfect, other than some fading and light wear. But the house is not prissy or unlived in. You can go in, flop around and feel comfortable, but it never ceases to amaze me just how really clean it is. I have never seen anything like it--certainly NOT my house.

I wish I could get a service too, but our house is way too cluttered - they would have nothing to clean - plus hubby does "not want strangers in the house." Dang.

I am thinking about finding a cleaning service to come in once or twice a year for a major spring cleaning and detailing - like the RE agents do when staging a home. You know, move the furniture out in the yard, deep clean and shampoo carpets (if applicable - we only have tile), mop flooring, do windows, everything. Might be well worth it, if I can get hubby out of the house for a day.

Lynne

Don't despair - if you're focusing on your kids and family, you've got your priorities straight. I've worked FT for 28 years and it took me that many years to realize that even though my house was frequently too messy to allow any non-family higher primate in, it still was home for us, with home-cooked dinner on the table every night. It took an extensive remodeling situation to make me realize that I could at least control clutter - we had 2 months to slash and burn to get the house ready and I realized that there were piles of things I hadn't used for 10 years. After we moved in, DH and sons were so thrilled at how nice it was (even though we still aren't finished unpacking) that I decided to bite the bullet and get in weekly cleaning help to provide a "deadline" and incentive for me to keep things at bay, and to allow me to focus non-family time on keeping things organized while not worrying about mopping, scrubbing, etc. DH and sons used to help but their standards were pretty college dorm-y. I had previously reached the stage where our house was too cluttered to permit anyone else to actually clean but now have the best of both worlds. So my advice is to take on one area at a time to de-clutter and organize. Good luck!!!