How do people keep their houses so clean?

I feel like I am always playing catch up, or having to chose between cleaning and spending time with my family.My husband works insane hours. He works 3rd shift full time, and also goes to school full time. The effort he's putting in to school has already started paying off in his career. I'm so proud of him, and also don't expect him to do anything more than focus on work, school, and getting enough sleep.I work 30 hours a week. 3 ten hour shifts, the days rotate every week. I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that I can bring my son with.1 of my full days off, I dedicate to taking my son places and doing things with him. We go to the park, do big art projects, go to the library, bowling or the children's museum. Whatever sounds like fun that day we do. We have lunch out. Then we come home, make dinner, pick up a little bit, and it's time for him to head to bed, and time for me to do dishes, and clean anything that needs it.My second day off is for errands. Grocery shopping, appointments, any meal preps or baking that needs to be done, and then I usually try to get my son to the park in the late afternoon. By the time we get home, it's time for a bath, and night time routine.Weekends are our only family days. I'll usually spend 1 hour a day working on cleaning and keeping up with the house, but I don't want to miss out on too much time with my husband because we don't get to see him much.Once a month, I'll send the two of them out for an entire day, and I'll make our house sparkle. I deep clean everything. But it's back to being messy within the week, and I feel like I've wasted my time.All in all, our house is never a wreck. But it always seems cluttered. Last night I slept for less than 2 hours, today is supposed to be my cleaning and meal prep day, but I'm exhausted. I've dragged myself through the meal preps, and did the dishes, cleaned the mess, and now, I don't have the energy to deal with the rest. It's 5pm, I just want to rent a movie off Amazon, and cuddle up with my son on the couch until bedtime.The kitchen table is covered with art supplies that I haven't found a place for yet, there's laundry in the laundry room that needs to be done. More laundry that needs to be folded and put away. There's toys on the ground that I should take back upstairs to the playroom. (My son will usually do it, but he's suddenly in a new scared phase, and won't go upstairs without me right there.) We blew up a ton of balloons this morning to play with, and now they're all over. I need to find a place for them. I should probably vacuum too. And I really should swap out the hand towels, and empty the bathroom garbages.I'm so tired.I don't think any of this is getting done.How does everyone else keep up with all the mess? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2n7j1lY