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Cleaning Motivation Tips to Help You Get a Handle on Your Home

If you’d rather have a tooth pulled than clean your house, this post is for you.

For a number of my clients, this challenge is an uphill battle. Still, they value having a home that is clean, tidy, and welcoming, just as much as anyone else.

But when a pocket of free time presents itself, they find themselves in the backyard pulling weeds instead of cleaning. They will do anything to avoid getting the one thing done that is really driving them crazy and making them feel frustrated just being in their own home.

If you can’t muster the ambition to clean, these house cleaning motivation tips will help you get there with as little pain as possible.

We’ll also talk about how to develop the habits needed to keep it that way once you get it there because, as you likely already know, that is half of the battle.

Overwhelmed by a Messy House? 16 Cleaning Motivation Tips:

1. Knock out the easy stuff first.

I got this tip from KC Davis, author of How to Keep House While Drowning. If your home has gotten entirely away from you and there is an overwhelming amount of work to do, start by just picking up the trash. Once that’s done, put all the dirty dishes in your kitchen sink, then take laundry to your laundry room.  

This is the low-hanging fruit that can be dealt with with little thought. Once these three things are done, the remaining work will feel less overwhelming.

2. Try making a to-do list.

I am motivated by a to-do list. I love to cross items off as I get tasks done; it makes my progress feel more tangible and gives me a little dopamine hit.  

If a to-do list does this for you, I would start here, because the list will also help you organize in your head what needs to get done before you jump in. A list may also help you stay focused.

3. Try doing small micro tasks to help you get started.

When I say small, I mean minuscule. For example, just take out your kitchen trash, spend 5 minutes tidying up the living room, or clean off just your bathroom countertop.

When there is a lot to do, convincing yourself to do just one small task has less friction than committing to a large job that feels insurmountable and never-ending.  

What completing a tiny task does is get you started, and getting started is the hardest part. According to the laws of physics…once an object gets going, it more easily stays in motion. Of course, you’re not an object; you’re a person, but you get the idea.

4. Harness the power of a 10-minute daily tidy session.

If clutter is taking over your home and making you crazy, try doing a 10-minute tidy session at the same time each day. This daily routine can be a real game changer and can make a big difference in how your home looks and feels from day to day.

If you get your family on board, you’ll be shocked at how much work will get done in a short amount of time!

To up your game, make it fun by turning on music while you all tidy. Warning: Don’t try to make your family work longer, or they (especially kiddos) may lose heart and stop cooperating altogether.

Be flexible; if doing it at the same time of day (right before dinner, for example) doesn’t work for you, try a different time of the day rather than giving up altogether.

5. Assess your home’s clutter threshold.

If your home seems to constantly need tidying, it may have exceeded its clutter threshold. If decluttering is your biggest issue, this should come before cleaning. Start by walking around your house and identifying any “no-brainer” items to donate. Get those items into a donation box or bag.  

This is a great way to make some rapid progress without any hard decision-making. Once you do this, the rest will seem less overwhelming

6. Use a reward system as house cleaning motivation.

Try motivating yourself to get a job done that you have been dreading by offering yourself a reward. This can be a nap, a cup of tea, 20 minutes of reading a good book, or grabbing a coffee from Starbucks. Whatever delights you.

Keeping your reward in mind while you work pushes you to finish the job and gives you something to look forward to when you’re done.

7. Find ways to make cleaning and decluttering tasks more enjoyable.

This is one of my favorites, and one I practice regularly. My friend and I talk on the phone once a week, and while we talk, we both clean or do laundry tasks. By the time we hang up, I have cleaned 1/3 of my house without even thinking about it!

As an alternative, you could listen to a Podcast, or audiobook. Three great motivational audiobook options are: How to Keep House While Drowning, How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, or Atomic Habits. You could also listen to music.  

8. Pay attention to how much time it takes you to complete a job you hate.  

Dana White, author of How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, offers this great tip: if you hate emptying the dishwasher (the chore I personally loathe most), time how long it takes you to get the job done. Once you realize that it takes less than 5 minutes to empty an entire dishwasher, it’s easier to decide to just do the dang thing and get it done already.

Once you time your most dreaded cleaning tasks, you will be surprised at how quickly some of those chores can get done, and like getting a flu shot, if you just do it and stop thinking about it, the pain is over before you know it.

9. Be mindful of your daily habits; they can pack a big punch, in a good or bad way.

I had a client a while back who had an enormous pile of change on his dining room table. Every single day he would come home from work and empty his pockets onto his dining room table. He wasn’t even fully aware that he was doing it.

After 365 days, you can imagine how much change he had lying on that table. This demonstrates the power of doing something daily, even if it takes 2 seconds and is mindless.

Pay attention to your habits. Do you have any sneaky ones that are hindering you? Can you create some helpful ones? If you develop the simple habit of taking 10 seconds to remove the trash from your car every day before you exit, this action will serve you well.

But dumping your mail on the counter daily without taking 10 seconds to get rid of the junk mail…not so much.

10. How to get unstuck from always having to face a giant undertaking.

Once a prolonged dreaded task has finally been completed, you feel great, right?  And the longer the mess has been there, the more elated you feel.

But here’s where you might get stuck: Let’s take doing the dishes as an example; the problem is that these types of tasks are never done; they are ONGOING and require daily maintenance.  

If you don’t take the time the very next day or even that night to deal with the dishes as they reaccumulate. Before you know it, the entire nightmare pile has returned, and the job has once again morphed into a two-hour undertaking.  

So the secret sauce to staying on top of the dishes lies in also creating the daily habit of taking 5-10 minutes to clear your sink.  So it’s the habit, not the completion of the project, that holds the power to get you unstuck.

11. Build tiny habits rather than expecting big changes all at once.

As they say…Rome wasn’t built in a day. You will only be setting yourself up for failure if you try to create too many habits too quickly. Instead, take habit building one step at a time.

If you want to master keeping your bedroom tidy, start with just picking up your laundry every day. Once you’ve mastered this, then build on that habit by adding one more thing. Start keeping your flat surfaces, like dressers and nightstands, clutter-free.

12. Try Habit Stacking.

James Clear states in his book Atomic Habits that “One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top.” 

For example, you are already efficient at remembering to make your bed every day, but you can’t remember to pick your dirty laundry up off the floor; add this task to your already established bed-making routine. If you do it daily, you should only be adding a minute or two to the task.

13. Don’t give up the first couple of times you attempt a new habit.

Mathew Kelly, author of Resisting Happiness, states, “Our life changes when our habits change, and new habits bring new life”. I love this statement; it holds so much truth and power.

That said, establishing a new habit is hard work, but don’t lose heart; each time you perform it, it WILL get easier. Many helpful habits die prematurely because they are given up on too soon.

Push through when you experience friction because it will get a little easier each time you do it. When you perform a task, you reinforce the habit; this is an important step in habit building.

Before you know it, the pain of performing the task will disappear, and you’ll be doing it without even thinking about it.

14. Get house cleaning tasks and decluttering jobs on your calendar to set them in stone.

The best way to solidify your resolution to getting a job done is to put it on your calendar. Often, tasks are forgotten because they haven’t been fully committed to.  This is especially true if it’s a job you don’t like doing.

Once it’s on your calendar, don’t forget to set an alarm as a reminder.

You can also sync your Google Calendar to your email, so you’ll also get a second email reminder as an additional nudge.  

15. Try doing cleaning or tidying tasks the same day/time to reinforce the habit.

Reduce decision fatigue and friction by creating routines that reduce how much energy you have to spend thinking about getting a job done. For example, Sunday and Monday are my laundry days; Tuesdays might be your vacuum-the-house day. Every other Weds. can be your bathroom cleaning day.

You can also establish daily routines that happen at the same time each day. The family tidying session that happens after dinner is a good example of this, along with emptying the dishwasher every morning.

Once these habits become automatic, they are much more likely to get done.

16. Stop sabotaging yourself with blame.

Beating yourself up over a messy home won’t motivate you—it will paralyze you. As author KC Davis emphasizes, care tasks are morally neutral: “A clean house is not ‘good’ or ‘right’… you’re not a bad person if your house is messy.”

It’s so important to remind yourself of this because you don’t deserve to feel like a lesser person just because your house isn’t clean or clutter-free.

Also, you can actually stop your progress in its tracks by sabotaging yourself with this kind of negative self-talk. A messy space reflects your current capacity, not your character.

Conclusion:

Since everyone is unique, some of these house cleaning motivation tips may work better for you than others. Just pick the ones that resonate with you and try them. Permit yourself to start small and keep taking one small step at a time. A peaceful space is built one tiny habit at a time, and every single step forward counts.