Changing Your Family's Messiness Culture/Habit

[umsami]

I am messy.  Always have been.  Having four kids has forced me to improve a lot, but it's still a struggle.

Two of my kids take after me.  Two do not.

I'm thinking of trying to implement daily check lists for all of us, to help us keep things more under control.  

What do you think these should look like?

For example, I have:

Bedrooms:

1) Beds made

2) Clean, rewareable clothes either hung up, or folded neatly and put in drawers

3) Dirty clothes in hamper

4) Books on bookshelf or on nightstand (limit 3-4 books on nightstand).

5) Toys/art supplies in appropriate bins/places

Drawer inspection will occur on Sundays.

Sweep bedrooms Tuesday night.

 

 

Bathroom:
1) Towels hung up.  If dirty, place in hamper and put a new towel.

2) Sink rinsed of toothpaste.  Toothpaste cap on toothpaste.  Fluoride rinse cap on fluoride rinse. 

3) No toilet paper rolls, toilet paper, kleenex, etc. on floor.

4) X kid wipes lid and around toilet daily

5) Shampoo/conditioner neatly lined up along shower wall

Sweep bathroom on Mondays and Thursdays.

 

Main Room:
1) Homeschooling materials either neatly on bookshelf or desk.  Corrected papers in appropriate folders.

2) All paper/trash/wrappers picked up and in trash bin

3) Pillows arranged neatly on couches.  Blankets folded neatly.

4) TV remotes on TV stand.  Phone in charger.

5) All electronics is charging area by 9 pm.

6) Toys picked up and put away

7) Any clean clothes either hung up or put away neatly in drawers

8 ) Books on bookshelves

9) Shoes neatly arranged by shoe rack.  Dirty socks in dirty sock bin.

Sweep front entry way and area under computer table daily.

 

Kitchen:
When you finish eating.  Please put your trash in the trash can.  Please rinse off your plate/bowl/silverware/glass and place in the dishwasher.  If the dishwasher is full, please stack neatly in the sink.  If we are low on something, let Mom know.

Every night, X must move the table/chairs out of the way, and sleep the dining area.   Y must sweep the kitchen area.

Every morning, it is X's responsibility to empty the dishwasher.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2019 by umsami

[Valley Girl]

I'm neat by nature, so to me the list sounds reasonable. My kids are not neat by nature. It drives me up a wall. I think your list is a lot for one person to monitor and keep track of. Would it help to put a different kid in charge of each area? I don't mean making them responsible for keeping it clean--that should be everybody's job. But responsible for giving each area the final once over, say, before school starts or before whatever pleasant before-bed activity they do? Then everybody tackles the remaining items together so nobody feels dumped on? You might need to be in charge of checking bedrooms so nobody complains about siblings snooping or whatever.

[sassenach]

The list is too much, IMO. Things like drawer inspections are, IMO, demeaning and hard to keep up with. 

Honestly, I would focus on the public areas and let their rooms be what they’ll be. Give each kid an area of responsibility and designate a tidying hour. Rotate as desired. 

[Farrar]

Put things left out in jail and make a cost (money, a chore, etc.) to spring them. That's the only thing that has ever worked here.

I agree that the list is way too long. Also, some of that stuff... I mean, does it really matter if your bed is made if it's just your bed? Rooms can't get so out of control that you can't walk in them, but I just don't have it in me to fight about that level of tidy in another person's room. Close the door instead.

[katilac]

I like the idea of giving each kid a common room to be in charge of, and then each has their own bedroom. This could rotate and the person in charge needs to be able to say, Sibling1, please come and hang your towel, and so on. I would have set times each day to do this so everyone is working at the same time. We used to do a pickup several times a day when my kids were younger and dragging toys out: before lunch, before supper, before going to the park, whatever. I tried to tie cleanup time to something positive, like eating or going outside, lol. "As soon as we clean up we can have snack!" 

Don't take on too much at once. I would not be worrying about stuff like inspecting clothes in drawers; as long as the drawer shuts and nothing is hanging out, call it good. 

It's great to have times when you check these things and get everything back in place, but what you really want is to not have everything out of place to begin with! I'm trying to think of a way to remind everyone to put the books up as they are done with them, put the remotes back as they are done with them, and so on. idk, maybe running through the list several times a day will begin cementing that? 

[katilac]

More musings . . . I wonder if you should focus on one room at a time? Once you have the kitchen under control and those habits are becoming automatic, then the kitchen is fairly easy and you can add another room. You won't get as overwhelmed and success is very motivating. 

[Valley Girl]

3 minutes ago, sassenach said:

The list is too much, IMO. Things like drawer inspections are, IMO, demeaning and hard to keep up with. 

Honestly, I would focus on the public areas and let their rooms be what they’ll be. Give each kid an area of responsibility and designate a tidying hour. Rotate as desired. 

Rethinking it, yeah, drawer inspections may be a bit much unless you're talking about kids who still need training on how to fold and keep things neat.

The only problem I have with leaving bedrooms what they'll be is that you can end up with real disaster areas. I know there's a lot of disagreement on this board about how much control parents should exert on a kid's space. I think each family needs to figure out what's acceptable for them because I don't think there's an absolute right or wrong. In our case, when I can't get to the window to open it (or close it if it's raining) because there is stuff all over and I'm literally having to step over piles ... when the room smells... when there's food (which is not allowed in bedrooms in our house  because...ants)... when I have to listen repeatedly to a kid carrying on and making accusations because he or she can't find something in the mess... then I'm going to enforce some standards because that room is still part of the house. So, my inclination is to let the rooms be what they'll be within reason. But reasonable goes both ways and kids need to be respectful of household standards as well.

[barnwife]

I think the lists are great things to work up to. But trying to implement all of that at once would go over like a lead balloon around here. Frankly, I would choose one room/area to work on keeping tidy at once. And then I'd choose one or two specific things to work on within that area at a time.

I am more neat and organized than the rest of my family. So I pick and choose my battles. For example, we have a corner of the living room where we keep blankets and extra throw pillows. I'd love the pillows to be in the basket in the corner, and the blankets to be folded. But our kids are little (oldest is almost 9) and they play with them constantly. It's just not worth my time and energy to enforce folding them in this stage of life. So while they know to return blankets to that corner, they are a jumbled mess.

I also think giving them more leeway in the bedroom is a good idea. As for making beds, I hated doing it every day as a kid. Hated it. I hated it so much I once asked to be allowed to skip it as my birthday present. I didn't ask to skip that chore for a week or even a month. I asked for one day off. (To me it was win-win: I get the day off and it cost no money.) My mom freaked out.

And I decided then and there that as soon as I moved out I would only make my bed when I wanted to.  After moving out, it was..a long time before I made my bed again! So I really suggest not making that a battle.

I hope you find something that works for you and your family.

[Carol in Cal.]

Some of this has to do with how easy it is to clean up, and I would start there.  Set yourself up for success by making sure that the results you want are reasonably doable.

For instance, when I was a kid I had a cheap synthetic one piece of cloth bedspread, and it was EXTREMELY hard to have it not end up looking like there was wrinkled stuff beneath it no matter what.  As soon as I went out on my own I bought a comforter that could disguise tiny wrinkles and never looked back.  I have friends who have more books than bookshelf space, so no matter how neat and orderly their home is, it doesn’t really look that way because they have stacks of books all over.  If they don’t get more bookshelves or (horrors) get rid of some books, their home will always look messy.  

I have noticed that people with orderly homes have at least one blank surface in each room.  Everything is not crowded 6 ways from Sunday.  

So I would suggest asking yourself whether you have to start by containerizing your stuff, or by lightening your load of possessions.

[HomeAgain]

It was easiest for us to start with small checklists.

Toy cleanup was always part of the bedtime checklist.  I consider them a fire hazard, but I won't stop a kid from playing first thing in the morning.  So I check that at night. 
Every kid starts with the same basic morning chores: make bed, get dressed, brush teeth.  Only one of those is really tidying, but it's quick, easy goals.  Night is: put clothes in hamper, brush teeth, pick up toys.  Again, easy and quick.  We also do clean ups before meals, so the mess never gets out of hand.

As kids get older or more capable, they take on more.  A kid will first be responsible for stripping their bed and vacuuming/sweeping their bedroom floor weekly.  Mom & dad still remake the bed and dust.  Then they take over wiping down their bathroom counter after brushing teeth.  Then weekly cleaning of the bathroom.  As long as it's all added at a slow pace, it's not that big of a deal.  It becomes me quickly checking over established habits and being more critical of the new one being learned.

ETA: I am not a naturally neat person.  I did not have chores growing up and had way too many things, as did the rest of the people in my house. It took Flylady and knowing I could do one small thing for a month or spend 10 minutes and be done, even if it wasn't perfect, for me to get over the hump of trying to start a whole new routine and then failing at it a week in.  If I could spend a month focused only on making sure my kitchen sink was empty at night, I could keep that up even after.  It's the same method I'm using with new year's resolutions.  I can do one thing for 30 days.  Sometimes they last, sometimes they don't, but I have developed a habit I know I can go back to or tweak easily.

Edited March 24, 2019 by HomeAgain

[Random]

I like your list, umsami, but I tend towards compulsive and obsessive on the cleaning spectrum.

My  list for my kids' rooms consists of three things: Put away your clothes. Put away your toys.  Throw away the trash.  When they do these three things, the rooms stay somewhat tidy.   Ideally they do this at some point every day, but it happens consistently right before a friend comes over to play.  (ha!) 

We have a chore wheel. I have four kids, so the wheel has four sections.  Someone takes out the trash and recycling (easiest).  Someone vacuums the floors.  Someone cleans the kitchen after dinner (hardest).  Someone wipes down the bathrooms.  We rotate once a week.  We do these chores after dinner, but not more often. 

I worked with them until they could do the chores on their own.  I still do chores with them (they are ages 10-17) to show them how to clean.  If one of the kids is out of the house in the evening, I typically do his or her chore.  I also had very, very low expectations when my kids were younger.

Maybe something like that would simplify the process for your family, too?  I have two kids who are messy and two who tend towards neatness.  The neater kids end up carrying more than their fair share of the work since the messy kids don't do as good of a job.  But, that's kind of a life lesson that comes with living with other people.  The neater kids have other weaknesses that the messy kids don't have, so we work together and help each other out.

[Jaz]

One of the things that helped my children when they were younger was to pay to train them in the work around the home. I explained that in training, I would teach them something then have them correct anything that wasn't done properly. They were fine with the correction because they wanted the money! Some of the skills (bedroom organization and clean-up) became their own chores. Others stayed paid positions instead of allowances.

[AK_Mom4]

I am a naturally messy person who learned to be neat.  DH is a naturally uber-neat person who has relaxed his standard as over time, lol.

My two cents - mess happens because of out-of-sight, out-of-mind.  Mess stays around because it’s more overwhelming to clean it up than to ignore it.   I had to force myself into new habits of Right Noe - get up from a chair and put my dishes in the sink Right Now. Take off clothes and put them into the hamper or hang them up Right Now..  When I clean a room, I break it up into physical small pieces and do one small piece at a time.  But learning this stuff was HARD.

Pick one thing.  Maybe dishes - work on it together with the whole family.   Build one habit together and when a whole day goes with no dirty dishes left out, then have a celebration.  Start Small and build on it.

[marbel]

2 hours ago, sassenach said:

The list is too much, IMO. Things like drawer inspections are, IMO, demeaning and hard to keep up with. 

Honestly, I would focus on the public areas and let their rooms be what they’ll be. Give each kid an area of responsibility and designate a tidying hour. Rotate as desired. 

This is where I'm at.  Unless a kid has a real problem with their drawers, or has expressed a desire for help with keeping their drawers neat, I see no need for this.  I don't care if beds are made or not.  But that might be a reaction to some people in my life who annoy the heck out of me with their sanctimonious air about making their bed every day. 

In my house, the public rooms take precedence over the private.  One exception is bathrooms that are not "public" (used by guests).  We have a problem with kids leaving water on the counter which gets next to the wall, which can cause water damage.  So I am a bit manic about that. 

I don't know what age kids you are talking about, so this may be irrelevant, feel free to ignore!  I have developed a tolerance for certain messiness when it comes to long-term projects.  One of my kids is studying art, and because of our house setup, has her work table in the living room.  It's a mess, but no way am I going to demand that it be cleaned up every day. She needs a place to sit down and work whenever, and it's not her fault it's in a public room.   We deal with it the best we can under the circumstances.

[almondbutterandjelly]

For bedrooms, I would do 2 and 3 and call it good for now.

[*Jessica*]

I love a tidy house, but I really have struggled with getting it that way over the years.  Just this school year we have finally hit on a routine that works to keep our house under control.  My oldest kid is 15, so that’s a lot of years of relative chaos.  We always, always panicked if unexpected guests came, or took days to clean the house before expected guests arrived.  Now I don’t worry if someone drops by and that is so, so, so freeing!  

What we did was to assign a specific room or set of rooms for every day of the week.  But I do not have written checklists because in the past that would just stress me out when we didn’t finish them.  We do basically what you are talking about, without the written lists.  The biggest change over everything I have tried in the past is that if we get behind I don’t let myself say, “Well that failed.” and give up.  We Just...Keep...Going.  We miss a week, oh well, we’ll catch up next week.  

The only room this once a week method doesn’t work well for is the kitchen, since that is really an every day job.  We do, however, only bother mopping (and sometimes even sweeping)  on kitchen cleaning day.  If we miss a day, for whatever reason, we live with the chaos in that area for another week unless we just can’t.  Over time everything has gotten so much more clean and organized that missing a week isn’t such a big deal.  And I always inspect the kids’ work if I can, and have them re-do things if needed.  I want them to learn how to do things properly, so not letting them get away with sloppy work is important!  While things like toothpaste caps left off and towels on the floor used to be a huge problem, after 7 months they are finally seeming to notice those types of things and take care of them without needing reminders.  

In our house this looks like.....

Monday ~ Kitchen 15yo unloads and reloads dishwasher and empties recycling into outdoor can, 13yo empties garbage and sweeps and swiffers floor, 7yo uses natural stainless steel cleaner on appliances and wipes down counters

Tuesday ~ Music & Mud Rooms 7yo does the shoe & jacket tidying, 13yo vacuums doormat and empties garbage we keep there for when we are emptying the car, 15yo dusts music room and swiffers floors of both rooms

Wednesday ~ Living Room 7yo cleans up the mountains of paper crafting she has made and rearranges throw blankets and pillows and waters plants, 13yo makes sure all books are put away properly and vacuums, 15yo dusts surfaces and for cobwebs and washes dog nose prints off of windows if needed 

Thursday ~ Dining Room/Hallway/Stairs/Library 7yo washes table and buffet and sweeps library, 15yo swiffers dining room and makes sure library shelves are tidy, 13yo vacuums stairs and runners

Friday ~ rest day! If possible we do not chores this day aside from keeping kitchen liveable.

Saturday ~ Bedrooms/wash laundry Each kid cleans their own room.  Older two carry down dirty laundry and sort into hot wash/cold wash for me.  I wash laundry.  

Sunday ~ Bathrooms/fold laundry & put away We have 2.5 baths, so 15yo cleans master bath because he usually use that one, 13yo cleans kids’ bathroom since he is the primary user, and 7yo cleans half bath/laundry room with a bit of help from me for the toilet.  I sort laundry if I didn’t take care of it yesterday when I was washing, and fold everything that isn’t one of the kids’.  They generally fold and put away their own.

In the beginning I had to help them, especially with bathrooms, but now I can generally just let them at it and then inspect.  Having to re-do a job you thought you were done with before you can have screen time is a really effective method for making sure they learn how to do it to Mom’s standard the first try!

My main chore is inspecting their work daily, and helping with anything they need help with. I also try to do one bigger thing, or thing that needs done but not as frequently as weekly, in that days’ zone if I have the chance; like vacuuming inside the couches, or organizing desk drawers, or cleaning the washing machine or coffee pot, or emptying and washing the fridge, or pulling out all of the clothes from a dresser and donating outgrown things.  

It took time to get here, but slow and steady has been the only thing that has worked for me.

 

 

[Pen]

I’ve been reading Atomic Habits and from that think one habit established may be better to start with and then add to it— that is, that maybe that list, while excellent, is likely to lead to failure.

 I have personally not made anything in personal kid bedroom space required unless it’s a health hazard...  

[umsami]

The issue with the drawers are that they shove the clothes in them in such a way that everything becomes extremely wrinkled.  I have zero desire to iron, but I am not comfortable with how bad the clothes look if they are not ironed.  (Note: I'm not a picky person, but this is beyond even my level.)

[Pen]

The clothes bother you personally just to look at while homeschooling ?  Or your feelings of others response in public? Or...?

 

if former I’d try to change my feelings about it. 

For going out / dressing up we have a very few items kept hung up...   reasonably low in wrinkles...    

Ds takes care of own laundry almost entirely , started age 7 and has been on it in full since 9 or 10. ... if rumpled doesn’t bother him, it doesn’t bother me

Edited March 24, 2019 by Pen

[fairfarmhand]

Rule for our house is : bedrooms must be neat enough to walk through in the dark without hurting oneself. 

If you don’t have all your laundry together on laundry day and your socks are all dirty on sunday morning, you may have to wear your sisters pink socks to church. (That only happened once.)

for your list, I’d tie each thing to a timeline. Like dinner is served when the dining room is tidied from school stuff and the living room is tidy.

dessert comes after kitchen is clean. 

Afternoon movie starts when bathroom is tidy...

see the pattern there? Something fun follows normal tidying.

[fairfarmhand]

50 minutes ago, umsami said:

The issue with the drawers are that they shove the clothes in them in such a way that everything becomes extremely wrinkled.  I have zero desire to iron, but I am not comfortable with how bad the clothes look if they are not ironed.  (Note: I'm not a picky person, but this is beyond even my level.)

Honestly, when my kids do this it’s because they have too many clothes. Is this the case? Can some tings be hung up? Can seasonal stuff go somewhere else?

[Guest]

I’m a naturally neat person who lives with not-naturally-neat people and I think that list is too long and too nit-picky. I don’t do anything about my son’s room. He can’t have things unsanitary in there and I do implore him to return clean clothes to drawers every once in a while, but as far as the way he leaves his bed or the i sides of his drawers - *shrug* I can’t be bothered. 

Same with dh’s mail area. It bugs me but if I nit-pick him about it every day I only upset myself. 

I concentrate on the kitchen and dining room. And the public bathroom. Those are the only things that get daily attention and those are built in to our normal routines. 

[cjzimmer1]

 

I've struggled with this for years.  Last fall things reached the point where I was constantly stressed and realized I needed to make changes.  I also realized changes wouldn't go over well with big swooping lists of things for everyone else to do.  So I started with me.  My goal for this year is to change my habits for the better.  At almost 3 months in, the house is in much better shape and I am less stressed trying to figure out how to reclaim the house. First I had to figure out what I was doing well at and what were the biggest struggles for me.  I manage to stay on top of the dishes because every single dish I own goes in the dishwasher and I run it 2-3 times a day.  I make everyone pile dishes in the sink which makes it a constant reminder to keep up with the dishwasher throughout the day.  For some reason long ago, I made of habit of running a load of laundry whenever I loaded the dishwasher so I mange to stay on top of washing clothes quite well (folding/putting away is a problem however).

My daily list is very short and my weekly list is very general because some days I can face tasks like emptying out a cupboard and sorting the contents, and other days all I can manage is picking up a rag and washing the smudges off the light covers and cabinets.  

My daily chores are wipe off the kitchen counter and table (yes this necessitates cleaning the surfaces in the first place which goes a really long way towards making things look presentable but when I do it every day, it's a 5-10 minute task), wipe down the bathroom sink.  put away my own clothes (which also inspires me to make sure the kids get all theirs done as well).

I've divided my house into 5 areas.  Each area gets 15 minutes of work a week.  The catch is the work can't be part of my daily chores.  So I can't double dip wiping the counters and my 15 minutes of work in the kitchen.  But for those 15 minutes I have to find SOMETHING to  deep clean/declutter.  But I get to pick, do I feel like sorting through papers that have piled up, do I feel like cleaning the oven, maybe I'll wash down the appliances, or sort through a cabinet etc.  Things don't get spotless but over the months, things get noticably better. It also frees the brain space of trying to think about what to clean.  I just go to my list(it's an app on my phone so I  never have to think about the list, I check off when I do things and it displays whatever tasks need to be done in the near future), and work on whatever tasks show up (I do have some specific ones besides the general ones, like once a year to wash the windows, once a month clean the ceiling fan, every 6 weeks change the furnace filter etc).  So my biggest challenge is to make sure I check my list each day and work on it.  It gives me structure because I'm not good about thinking about chores but it gives me flexibility because not every day do I have time to work much on chores.

But the kids are noticing and it's helping them too.  They know I vacuum every weekend and so the floors need to be picked up.  If I pick up stuff that's not mine I throw it away (not really but I let them think that and it really gets them moving), so they know when I say I'm vacuuming in 30 minutes and it's time to pick up, they better hustle.  But doing this regularly has made such a difference.  I use to be the let's do a crazy massive cleaning for hours/days because someone's coming over and now we can have things presentable in 30 minutes.

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, Pen said:

The clothes bother you personally just to look at while homeschooling ?  Or your feelings of others response in public? Or...?

I’m not sure how old your kids are but one of mine did way better with hanging space when he was young.

my youngest had drawers and we have the same problem you describe.  Also is it possible there’s too much in them?

[umsami]

There are too many clothes--so we are going through them/decluttering.

Thanks for all of the tips/feedback.  Now to figure out what to do next.

[Pen]

2 hours ago, Pen said:

The clothes bother you personally just to look at while homeschooling ?  Or your feelings of others response in public? Or...?

 

if former I’d try to change my feelings about it. 

For going out / dressing up we have a very few items kept hung up...   reasonably low in wrinkles...    

Ds takes care of own laundry almost entirely , started age 7 and has been on it in full since 9 or 10. ... if rumpled doesn’t bother him, it doesn’t bother me

 

Wtm site weird for me today...

[MeaganS]

For us, one thing that has been huge is getting a Roomba, and not just for the vacuuming. Every night, in order for the Roomba to run without getting stuck, we have to "Roomba Ready" the house. So for the last year and a half, we straighten up the house as part of our bedtime routine, which is keeping everything so much tidier. Vacuuming is a perk at this point compared to general straightening up. Slowly I've added a few other things to that time, like folding a load of laundry or random other little tasks. The general state of cleanliness in our house has gone up a lot.

Edited March 24, 2019 by MeaganS

[umsami]

57 minutes ago, MeaganS said:

For us, one thing that has been huge is getting a Roomba, and not just for the vacuuming. Every night, in order for the Roomba to run without getting stuck, we have to "Roomba Ready" the house. So for the last year and a half, we straighten up the house as part of our bedtime routine, which is keeping everything so much tidier. Vacuuming is a perk at this point compared to general straightening up. Slowly I've added a few other things to that time, like folding a load of laundry or random other little tasks. The general state of cleanliness in our house has gone up a lot.

Oh that's a good idea.  We have a fake Roomba.  We rarely use it because she gets stuck on too many things. 

[Junie]

I am not a naturally neat person, but I do know what my threshold is.

I would concentrate on the kitchen and bathrooms first, as those are the ones that get dirty (not just messy).

We do require that things be put away at night so as not to be a fire hazard in the middle of the night.  "Clean up time" happens at 8 pm here.  We have snack and devotions at 8:30 (usually).  If the clean up takes longer than 45 minutes (rarely anymore) then we just shove all the toys/books/whatever to the side of the room so the main part of the floor is clean.  The kids who failed to clean up their items will lose screen privileges until the clean up is completed.

Several times a week (ideally, I would love to do this every day), we have "15 minutes of cleaning".  We set a timer for 15 minutes and everyone works to clean *something*.  Sometimes I will assign a specific chore like putting away laundry or sweeping.  Other times the kids choose what they want to do.  At the end of the 15 minutes everyone is rewarded with a small piece of candy (like Hershey's miniatures).  If the house is really messy or if we are expecting guests, we often do double and re-set the timer.

Each of the older 4 kids at home is assigned a chore.  These chores are rotated weekly.

Dining Room -- set and clear the table for each meal.  Clean the table and sweep.

Dishes -- all of the dishes, all week (we have a dishwasher)

Laundry -- Wash and dry all of the kids' laundry.  Each person puts away her own.

Meal Helper -- Help me make lunch/dinner.  Older kids are sometimes responsible for simple meals on their own.

 

My system isn't perfect, and some people would still call my house "messy", but it's a work in progress.

 

[PeterPan]

Fwiw, if you want it to be a long-term change, you might try making *small* changes and chain them to routines so they feel natural and happen more automatically. If you make just one change a month this way, you'll have 12 changes in a year that will actually be durable and feel good. And that will also give you the chance to work out the kinks with each change. I would start with beds, because everyone gets out of bed at some point. I have a pet peeve about drawers open, so that could be a different month. I got a roomba so it's now easy to enforce a "once a week we pick up the floor so the roomba can run" routine. But each change is tied to routine so it occurs very naturally at its time.

You may find you need to buy tools to make things happen. Like for keeping baths tidy, you can install paper towel holders. 

I think you're unlikely to get things as neat as you'd like them, just because you are home all day doing things. Decluttering goes a long way and makes it easier to put things away. That's usually the real trouble. And if things can't be put away, you can rotate them out so there's less. But even that, I wouldn't worry about. Just make one small change a month but make it real and solid, something that will stick.

[Katy]

I would start with decluttering before trying to clean. It's too hard to clean clutter.

Then I would verbally tell them what to do.  "When we've done everything on Mom's list today we'll go....(something fun)."  Then verbally give these instructions.  Don't give instructions for the next step until they're done with the current step.

1. Make your bed.
2. If last night's pajamas are clean enough to wear again, fold them and put them under your pillow.  If they need to be washed, put them in your hamper.
3. Put all the clean clothes on your floor on top of your bed.  Put all the dirty clothes on your floor in the hamper.
4. Hang up or fold and put away all your clean clothes.
5. Take your dirty clothes to the laundry room, sort them, and put the hamper back in your room.
6. Put away all the toys (if their room is covered in toys, break this down into categories- IE: put all the Barbies away.  Put all the Legos away.  Put all the American girl dolls away. Put all the books away, etc).
7. When that's done, you inspect and see what else needs decluttering.  You'll figure out if you need to rotate out some toys or add some more storage or what you need to do.  Then give instructions on how to clean one step at a time.  (Take everything off your nightstand and wipe it with this microfiber cloth; Dust everything that belongs on your nightstand and then put it back, etc).

In this way work on keeping rooms clean daily for one week.  Then add other areas, like bathrooms, slowly.

I think drawer inspections are too much too, but it's your family.  If you're established how a drawer is supposed to look in the past you absolutely have the right to keep it up. I think it's much easier to hang clothes than fold and stuff them in drawers so anyone over 8 has most clothes hanging here.