Boy oh boy do I feel your angst on this one! (Brace yourself...I'm about to get really longwinded).
When my kids were younger, I had to give up a lot of control. I worked full time, went to school full time, and was also raising young kiddos.
Some stuff just simply did not get done.
When we moved into our house 5 years ago, I was overwhelmed (big house, yard, etc) and had to do something to get my sanity back. Initially I had a list with the days of the week and each day had a room/area of the house that was to be cleaned. I made EVERYONE stop and help or face the Wrath of Mom (and while I'm normally very mild mannered, you do NOT want to piss me off).
That worked reasonably well to get everyone in the "we all live here, so we all have to contribute" mindset.
Now, I no longer have any minor kids, so there are only adults in my home. Add to that, we have 4 dogs and 2 cats. I DEFINITELY do not like coming home to a mess that I'm "expected" to clean up. I don't expect (and will likely never have) perfect neatness, but clutter drives me batty.
Mail gets sorted once. Like a previous poster said, most of it goes into the trash/recycle bins outside and never make it into the house. For bills, I have them sent to me via email or I simply login to their site and pay as needed.
I'm do 95% of the cooking in my household. If I come home to a sinkful of dirty dishes and/or a dirty kitchen, I will not start cooking until it has been cleaned up. My family knows this (and I've only been "tested" once
). When I walk in the door most evenings after work, the kids are either just finishing up putting away clean dishes or the dishwasher is running. Either way, the counters, etc are clean and I can jump in and cook.
With the number of animals in our home, if we don't vacuum at least every other day, my carpets would resemble the snow banks currently seen on the East Coast. I usually do this chore myself since I am a stickler for certain things.
Bathrooms stuff you can try cleaning as you go.
Sometimes, I'll clean the sink as I'm brushing my teeth. If you have to wait for the shower to warm up, take that minute to scrub the toilet.
I've cleaned the shower while I'm in it getting ready for the day. (Multi-tasking at its best, my husband usually jokes).
My husband does car maintenance, handyman stuff around the house, and the yard work that our lawn service does not take care of.
Every evening before we go to bed, I (or hubby) do the rounds to lock up and turn off lights. That's a great time to do quick tidying up (5-10 minutes tops). I haven't done my teens (now adults) laundry since they were around 10-11yrs old when they were taught how to do it. At this point, if they want clean clothes, they wash their own. Likewise with "their" bathroom and bedrooms. If they complain that something is dirty, I hand them a broom. We don't allow food in the bedrooms, so the risk of pests due to food crumbs isn't an issue.
I don't stress over putting laundry away. We have enough baskets that I sometimes live out of the laundry basket for a week before it all gets put away.
Based on my "hate" of clutter, I just try to head off the usual sources of instant clutter before they become bigger issues.
It ISN'T easy, but you just need to choose your battles (or learn to love messy)!
[This message edited by GabyBaby at 5:51 PM, April 2nd (Wednesday)]