Money Saving Mom®

Many of us spend a lot of time cleaning — whether that involves scrubbing bathrooms, mopping floors, organizing rooms, picking up, washing dishes, doing laundry, or the host of other jobs that are part of running a home.

I’m always on the lookout for ways to savor life more and make the most of each day, so I’ve come up with various ways to make cleaning more fun. As it’s something that needs to be done, I figure I might as well make it fun!

I thought you might enjoy seeing my list:

1. Listen to audiobooks & podcasts.

I love audiobooks! They are not only a great way to “read” more books, but they are also so portable.

You can download them to your phone or device and bring it with you from room to room as you clean or do laundry. Or, if you’re working in the kitchen or staying in one area, you can listen to audiobooks right on your computer.

You can find a number of free audiobooks to download here. Or, check to see if your library offers free audiobooks you can download.

2. Watch Movies & Videos

Okay, can I confess? This is one of my favorites… and it’s an especially great way to tackle a huge laundry pile! 🙂

While I love great movies, I also like to watch educational/teaching videos — such as those from Amy Porterfield on using Facebook strategically. I have a few business development type email lists I’m subscribed to and as interesting videos/podcasts come into my inbox that I want to check out, I stick them in a file to save to watching while I’m working on something else — like cooking or cleaning.

3. Plan Blog Posts

This might seem weird, but when I’m working on a blog post idea, I often outline it while cleaning. In fact, this very post you’re reading started as an outline that I scribbled out while cleaning the kitchen! 🙂

I try to keep a notebook handy for jotting down these thoughts and ideas. Often, in the course of a 30-minute cleaning session, I can have the entire skeleton of a post completely outlined. I then just take this outline and type it up into a post draft to flesh out later when I have more time.

Sometimes these post drafts will sit in my drafts folder for a few weeks, but I love that it always means I have a few post ideas outlined and at my fingertips if I have a day when my creativity is running low or don’t have a lot of time to invest in blogging.

Psst! Short on blogging inspiration? Check my series on How to Never Run Out Of Blog Post Ideas.

4. Talk to a Friend

If you’re doing really simple cleaning or cooking, you can often accomplish it while talking to a friend on the phone. Or, to make it even more rewarding, invite a local friend to come work alongside you while you’re canning that huge batch of peaches, tackling that massive re-organization project, or painting your living room.

Make sure it’s a friend who has “gone the distance” with you already and (it might seem a little like you’re imposing or taking advantage of your friend if you just met her a few weeks ago!) also make sure that you offer to come help her with her next project, too.

5. Listen to a Child Read

If you have a child who is learning to read and needs some reading practice time, having them sit in the same room with you while you’re cleaning and read to you. This can be a great way to help them practice while also tackling that messy closet.

Note: Make sure you aren’t always multi-tasking when you’re with your children, as you can’t multi-task your presence. However, if it’s something they need to practice over and over again, cleaning while they are practicing might be a great option some of the time.

6. Work Alongside Your Kids

Even better than listening to your child practice their reading assignment while you’re cleaning is to ask them to join in with you while you clean. This helps your children learn how to do basic household chores (which is an invaluable gift you can give to your child!) and it also also can be a fun time spent together with your kids.

Yes, it may take longer and the job might not get done exactly as you would do it if you did it without their help, but it will be worth it for the time you invested in your child(ren) in the process. Plus, if you keep working alongside your child(ren), in the long-run, it will save you time as they’ll eventually be able to be a big help to you!

7. Think & Pray

I love to use cleaning time for thinking, processing, and praying. I always have various ideas I’m turning over in my brain and considering from various angles. The exercise of scrubbing and washing and shining seems to help my brain come alive — so it’s a great time to be thinking through things.

I also have many needs I want to pray for — both for my own family, in our community, and the needs of friends and others who live far away. Often, cleaning time is a great time for me to spend time praying for these needs. Many times, I’ll text a friend after I’ve prayed for her to let her know that she was on my heart that day. It’s a simple act that only takes 30 seconds or less, but I’ve found it’s a great way to foster deep friendships and to let people know you really care about them.

8. Memorize Scripture

If you are working on memorizing a passage of Scripture, listening to it aloud while cleaning or reciting it aloud while cleaning is a great time to review it. I like to play the passage on my phone with a free Bible app I downloaded that has audio versions of the Bible you can listen to.

9. Sing or Listen to Music

If you need to uplift your spirits, turning on some upbeat music (I love Pandora or iTunes radio stations for this!) and cleaning can be a lot of fun — and you’ll probably find you work faster, too! Want to step it up a notch sing and dance with the music while you clean. 🙂

10. Use a Timer

I LOVE timing myself when doing all sorts of different activities. I find that the timer keeps me on tasks, helps me to stay focused, and motivates me to work more quickly. Plus, I usually find that it takes less time than I expect to finish a project — which is always encouraging!

What are YOUR favorite ways to make cleaning more fun?

After four very full weeks, this week was a much slower-paced week. It was so nice… and I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more weeks like this in our future. 🙂

We spent Memorial Day at home catching up on random projects and then took dinner to some new friends of ours, Brent & Tammy, who were home-bound because Brent recently tore his Achilles and was waiting until the swelling went down so he could have surgery. (He ended up being able to have the surgery on Wednesday and it was successful — we’re so grateful!).

We had a blast and loved getting to know them better! (And sadly, I realized I didn’t get any pictures of our fun evening!)

Tuesday was a Lazy Day at our house. We slept in, did basic chores and homeschooling, made Cinnamon Rolls, and then watched movies, tackled a mountain of laundry together, and went to bed early. I love days like that!

And there was a reason we went to bed early… because I had a 5:30 a.m. flight to catch to Little Rock for some radio broadcast tapings and filming with Family Life. In order to be presentable for the day and get to the airport in a timely manner, I got up at 2:45 a.m. Not my favorite wake-up time, but since I’d gotten good sleep the three days before, it wasn’t bad.

I love the opportunity flying affords me to get in some quiet reading, focused writing, and sometimes just quiet praying and listening to music.

Here’s a picture of my travel companions on my trip to Family Life: my Bible, a Mark Batterson book that I loved reading, Fast Company magazine, and Starbucks!!

{I subscribed to Fast Company magazine as part of a promo not too long ago and it’s become one of my new favorite magazines. If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, I definitely recommend it. And this weekend, you can get it for just $4.50 for a one-year subscription!}

Thursday was another Lazy Day. Guess what we did? More laundry, homeschooling, a few projects and some movies. I love simple, quiet days at home!

Friday evening was Pool Night with our friends the Smiths and Acuffs. So much fun… especially when the guys had a sort of Diving Showdown. Hilarious! 🙂 (Photo from Angie’s instagram — because my phone was dead!)

Saturday afternoon we had a surprise party for our dear friend, Ann Voskamp, to celebrate the fact that her book, One Thousand Gifts has sold over a million copies. How incredible is that??

Ann inspires me so much with how she lives intentionally, loves well, and chooses gratitude. I’m so thankful for her life and her example!

While I was at Ann’s party, Jesse and the kids went to a birthday party for Tammy & Brent’s daughter, Kassidi. Silas and Kaitlynn had fun playing ping-pong for the first time.

And Kaitlynn got to hang out with Mrs. Tammy — these two had fun together, can’t you tell?!

So that was our week in a nutshell. How was YOUR week? Anything interesting or exciting happen? I’d love to hear!