How To Make Your Home Run Smoothly: 11 Simple Tips

 If you’re looking for ways to make your home run smoothly, I want to ask you if you can relate to this?

You’ve had a long, hard day of running errands. Everything took longer than expected. You got less than half of the things you planned accomplished and you’re exhausted. It was one of THOSE days!

Finally, it’s time to go home and get dinner going. You arrive home, open the front door and all you see is a mess. Socks and shoes are scattered all over the floor. Empty cups and dishes cover the coffee table and piles of paper are spread out on the countertops. 

Instead of feeling relief to finally be home after a really hard day, your home is making you feel worse.

This was a friend of mine describing her day. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there.

At this point, all my friend just wanted to know was what she should do to have her home run more smoothly.

I thought about it and without a doubt decluttering was my number one answer! But truthfully she already knew that and wanted more immediate results. As we talked, it had me looking back on some of the changes I had made and where I began to see big results. The kind of results that motivated me to simplify even more.

I came up with a list of 11 changes, that helped me fall in love with my home and make it run more smoothly! I’m sharing that list with you because I want you to be genuinely happy to walk in the door of your home every day.

Tops Ways to Make Your Home Run Smoothly

Your home can actually make you feel BETTER after a long hard day. Often it’s just about making a few small changes. You can implement some of these changes right away and some will take a little more effort. But they will all make a big impact on helping your home to run smoothly.

Getting Rid of Toys

No, not all toys! But yes, most toys. I know it sounds a little extreme and maybe even a little scary. However, I promise your kids will be fine, in fact, they’ll be better off with fewer toys!

When it came to helping my home run smoothly, one of the first things I did was to reduce the number of toys my kids had. Now in all honesty my kids were older, but they still had a ton of things that they never used or played with.

By limiting toys cleaning up is so much easier and there’s never a disaster that looks insurmountable.

I recommend you involve your kids in this process. For my kids, the hardest thing to get them to part with was the stuffed animals. Their beds were covered in stuffed animals, which always ended up on the floor. So I made a deal with my kids where they could keep their stuffed animals, as long as they keep them picked up off of the floor.

In a short time, the floor was covered so I packed most of them up and put them in the garage. They were allowed to earn them back. But guess what, once they were out of sight they were also out of mind eventually they all went to the goodwill and were never even missed

For the remaining toys, we started a toy rotation. I invested in some fabric boxes like these and organized the toys in the boxes. The boxes went on the top shelf and we rotated them out. This way I knew exactly what they were playing with and it prevented messes from taking over the house.

Use a Homework Caddy

Speaking of the kids, helping them stay organized is crucial to making the home run more smoothly.

Your child has an insane amount of stuff, especially when they reach the school years. With everything, your kids need to complete their work (pencils, markers, paper clips, calculators, counters, etc.) and the never-ending piles of papers coming into your home, homework tasks can quickly take over.

Having all of these items in a central location is huge! A homework caddy allows your kids to easily access the supplies they need. And the best part is, it’s easy for them to put them away when they’re done.

I invested in one of these portable rolling carts. Everything in the caddy is just for their school and art supplies. It’s a definite game-changer.

I also created individual folders for everyone’s paperwork and kept those in a little magazine holder like this one. It sat on the top shelf of the caddy and makes finding the correct papers much simpler.

You will have to be a bit of a stickler in the beginning as far as enforcing keeping everything in the caddy. But it really doesn’t take long before it becomes a habit for them to keep things in the caddy.

Asking for Help

As moms, we tend to feel like we should be doing it all. And as long as we have that attitude our family will happily let us do it all. We seriously need to stop that way of thinking.

There’s no reason the whole family cannot pitch in on household tasks. This took me a little while to learn but I promise it will help your home run smoothly as you ask for help.

Communication is key to success here. Explain to your family how hard you are working. Also, make sure they know how much less stress you feel when the house is tidy.

Next, make sure you show each family member how your organizing systems work and where things go.

Because I love baskets for organizing, each of my kids and my husband have their own designated basket. As I come across things left out, those items get placed in the respective person’s basket. As the beginning part of our evening routine, we do a 15 minute tidy-up. This is where everyone pitches in and helps to tidy up. At this point, I set the timer on my phone for 15 minutes, whatever is in the baskets is put away by the owner, and the house is quickly tidied.

After that everyone is free to enjoy their evening before bedtime.

This little 15-minute habit keeps the house from becoming overwhelming. Everyone is responsible for pitching in and helps me to feel much more relaxed in the evening!! 

Reducing Extracurricular Activities

It’s rather difficult to have your home run smoothly if you’re never in it. Making sure your home is running smoothly requires being intentional with your schedule.

There are seasons of life that are busier than others. If you are an empty nester you will have a lot more flexibility in your schedule. On the other hand, if you have school-aged children involved in many activities things will be much busier.

I remember spending a ridiculous amount of time running both kids to various sports practices, church activities, school choir practice, and countless other activities all while I was teaching Sunday school, attending bible studies volunteering as team mom, and on and on. I felt like we were never home, and we were not!

Once again, your home will never run smoothly if you’re never in it. This is why limiting the number of extracurricular activities everyone commits to will help to simplify both your home and your life.

Start by slowing down your own volunteer work. Consider having your kids pick just one club or sports activity to join for the year. You can add in special events that come up, or ones that don’t require weekly commitments.

The point is to be intentional with your schedule and making time together at home a priority!

Making Routines/Rhythms a Priority

Routines and rhythms are essential to making a home run smoothly. These do not have to be complicated or exhaustive routines. Just basic rhythms that you put in place for those daily must-do’s will go a long way towards simplifying your home.

Consider setting up a simple cleaning routine to help you stay on top of household tasks. You can see my simple schedule here. Once you figure out a routine that works for you, make it a priority to stick to it!

I am a firm believer that an evening routine is vital to helping your entire day run smoothly.

Our evening routine always starts with 15 minutes tidy-up of the house. When you do this, you’ll wake up to the house being in some order instead of messes everywhere.

It’s also extremely helpful to check your calendar each evening. This allows you to make note of any important appointments or errands that need to be run. You can then, start preparing the things you will need for the next day. You can set out clothing you will wear for the next day, and pack all lunches.  Finally, make sure things like backpacks, keys, and other items are set out and ready to go.

By doing these things as part of a regular evening routine your mornings will go so much smoother because everything is ready to go! It is so nice to not have to run around or rush to do those things and sets a better tone for the rest of our day.

Make Your Bed 

There’s a lot of talk about making the bed each day, being a waste of time and unnecessary. I have to tell you that I could not disagree more!

Getting into the habit of making my bed first thing every morning has an immediate impact on how the rest of my day goes. You see there is not a lot we actually have control over in how our day goes. It’s so easy to plan out our day and then have it go completely haywire. Even on those days when this happens and I feel like I accomplished nothing on my to-do list, I did make my bed!

I can walk into my bedroom and have an immediate sense of order to what was an otherwise very chaotic day.

Changing All Linens to a Single Color

Keeping up the laundry is always a challenge. Changing out all bath towels, hand towels, face cloths, dishcloths, and bedsheets to a single color makes keeping up on the laundry much easier. No sorting or waiting for a full load. They can all go into one load together at any time.

All of my linens are white. However, white may not work for your family, just pick one color. Even having a single shade of linens that can all go into a single load of laundry will be helpful!

Decluttering One Room at a Time!

You know there was no way I could write a post on making your home run smoothly without talking about the importance of decluttering. This is because without a doubt decluttering is my number one for creating a home you love!

At the same time, I realize that when our home is out of sorts we need things that will bring an immediate impact. And depending on the size and nature of your clutter, a whole-house decluttering may take a lot of time and work.

But without question, decluttering your home is the number one thing you can do to make your home run more smoothly.

My best advice when it comes to decluttering is not to allow the amount of clutter you have to continue to overwhelm you or prevent you from taking action. I promise you can declutter small areas in short sessions and still receive big results!

When I first started my decluttering journey I was working full time outside of the home, I had two school-age children involved in many extracurricular activities. As well, I taught Sunday school and volunteered in most of the activities my kids were doing. Through all of that, I continued decluttering in small steps getting rid of a few bags at a time.

By decluttering what you do not use or love a little at a time, you’ll see a huge difference in how smoothly your house will run! No matter how busy you are, you can still declutter your home even when you feel you don’t have the time.

Assigning a Home For Everything

After decluttering it’s still vital to have a designated space for all the things that remain in your home.

Everything you own needs a designated spot where it gets put away when not in use. If your stuff doesn’t have a place to live it’s going to sit out and contribute to your home looking cluttered. Before you know it your entire house begins to look cluttered.

Another benefit is that as you come across items that don’t have a specific space to live or a specific purpose they serve, it’s surprisingly easy to recognize that item as clutter.

But perhaps one of the greatest benefits of having a spot for the stuff you have is that it really does make your home run more smoothly. Not only are things easier for the whole family to pick up and put away, but everyone will be able to find whatever it is that’s needed!

Weekly Planning Sessions

If I had to name the top two things that will make your home run smoothly, this would be number two, right after decluttering!

Having a weekly planning session has been a big one for me! Without regular planning, chaos is pretty much guaranteed to ensue.

Every Sunday I set aside time to plan out the upcoming week. I use my planner to list out any events or activities that must be attended. Based upon our schedule for the week I next plan out our meals so that we have quick easy meals on busy nights.

As part of my planning, I like to list my top three priorities for the week. If I only accomplish those three things, I know I’ve done enough.

Having all the essentials for your week planned out ahead of time will make everything run so much smoother!

Focusing on Your Health

Far too often when we think of ways to make our homes run smoothly we completely ignore the importance of taking care of ourselves.

Staying healthy, eating well, and working out are all key components to a well-run home! After all, if you are not feeling well, either physically or emotionally, things are going to be more difficult. On the other hand, by taking care of yourself you’ll have more energy and motivation to do all this is required in running a home. 

All this means it’s time to make taking care of yourself a priority. Schedule regular time for exercise, even if it’s just a walk around the block it will help. Monitor your water intake, get to bed at a decent hour and plan healthy meals.

If you burn yourself out in trying to do it all and fail to take the time for those things that matter to you, your home will never feel like it’s running smoothly.

Making Your Home Run Smoothly is Not Complicated

No matter where you are at in your home life, starting today you can fall in love with your home and make it run smoothly. It doesn’t have to be complicated a few simple changes will put you on your way to having a home you never want to leave.

Choose one of the habits above to start today. Continue working on it until it becomes routine, then add another. As you do you will see an immediate impact on the way your home runs and feels!