How to Overcome the Morning Blues by Doing This Chore

Have you ever had that feeling when you wake up in the morning and you just automatically know you’re going to have a bad day? You feel the stress creeping in and you can already feel the tension in your shoulders. This was totally me. Especially, on the weekends when we are home all day.

In a household with 6 people + 2 dogs, our house can get a little so chaotic and messy. Many parents know that when you have any kids in the household the kids seem to destroy it in half the time it takes you to pick up. It really does feel like a losing battle.

There is one chore that we do every single night to make the next day get off without a hitch and run more smoothly.

Cleaning the kitchen

Were you like us and left dishes in the sink overnight? If so, let me tell you there is nothing more frustrating than waking up on Saturday morning to make the family breakfast and there are last night’s dishes in the sink. There are two types of people:

1. The person that cleans and picks up while they cook.
2. The person that focuses solely on cooking and not anything else.

I clean and pick up the kitchen as I’m cooking. This helps us not have as many dishes and pots to wash after dinner when 6 people are done eating and I have to start bathing all the kids.

The following items are the things you should do every night:

• Wash all dishes – Hand wash or load all dishes, cups, and utensils in the dishwasher.
• Wash all pots and pans – Many people put pots and pans in the dishwasher. I personally like to just hand wash them, because I want to make sure they last as long as possible. They also take up a lot of room in the dishwasher.
• Wash miscellaneous items – Got any misc. items? Bottles, sippy cups, lunch boxes from earlier in the day, etc? Now is the time to wash those items. We sometimes always have sippy cups and bottles to wash. We normally run the dishwasher every other day. On the nights we run the dishwasher, I put as many of these into the wash as possible.
• Wipe down counters – I, Gretchen Dauzat, am obsessed with Clorox wipes. I absolutely love them. I wipe all counter tops and table with a Clorox wipe. Then, I spray our table, that is glass, with Windex. At this stage, we also wash high chair trays and wipe down the seats.
• Sweep Floor in Kitchen – Ok, this is one I’ve been trying to implement in our daily routine. We have so much foot traffic in the kitchen and the twins tend to drop a lot of food on the ground. We do have dogs that eat all the dropped food, but nonetheless, this should be done on a daily basis.

Cleaning the kitchen every night has absolutely changed my daily routine. Our mornings run as smoothly as they can possibly go. On the weekends when we wake up I can go straight into the kitchen and start breakfast and not have to worry about picking up or washing anything from the night before.

Question: Do you have the morning blues? Do you think that picking up the kitchen would make your day start off on the right foot? Please comment below and let me know your thoughts.