I have lived in a state of disarray for most of my life, much to my mother's dismay. Although, I try to be somewhat organized, I fail miserably often. My problem is I don't take the time to put things away where they belong. I tend to set things down with the intention of putting them away later. Three days pass and I can barely see my dining room table top. Then I get so overwhelmed that I don't know where to start to get it back to how it was.
   So my solution was to create (and stick to) a cleaning routine. Now, I don't live by a minute by minute scheduled day. I can't function that way. So I sat down and wrote down each room in my house and listed all the chores I have to do in each. Then I took some pretty colored pens and marked next to each task whether it was a daily, biweekly, weekly, monthly, or seasonal.

Laundry         Kitchen                         Living room           Bathrooms        Closets
 Towels          Dishes                          Toys                       Clean                Organize
 Bug               Counter tops                  Dust                       Sweep               Switch out clothes
 Ours             Stove/microwave           Vacuum                 Mop
 Sheets          Clear table

Daily
Biweekly
Weekly
Monthly
Annually/Seasonally

I try to stick to this list as much as possible. Since I created this list, I feel much more in control of my household. If something doesn't get completed that day, I don't stress about it. I just do it the next day. I try to get at least one load of laundry done a day. I keep this list posted where I see it every day. And over time as I get more into the routine, I can adjust it as needed. Needless to say, when Lady gets here my schedule while change again. But until then, this is working. Do you have a cleaning routine to help you get things accomplished?