The first issue is stuff. How much stuff do you have. It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to clean, organize, and move stuff. Every time I see the giant plastic tubs at stores like
Walmart, Target, etc I think of all the money spent on stuff. If you can keep your stuff to a minimum, it will make cleaning easier and make your living space seem larger.
Second and incredibly important, shoes are NEVER worn in our home. Shoes are dirty, they walk in public bathrooms, I don't want those germs or dirt in my home.
Also I expect no help from my husband, but when he chips in it is a nice surprise. This is not a gender inequality thing, just a recognition of how much he has going on at work. He works longer, has a longer commute, and often does work at home on the dining room table--he also makes more money so I don't complain about his schedule. It is my choice not to have a housecleaning service--I just don't like people in the house if I can manage myself.
Next, I do laundry nearly every day--6 days a week. Now I have laundry machines in our house. If I went to a laundry room/mat I would only do this once a week and use a ton of washers. I even post a schedule of what will be washed on each day of the week. This allows my husband to also place his items for washing, and I don't have to hunt/sort his clothes. I do, easy loads towards the beginning of the week--towels, whites, things that only have to go in the washer, then in the dryer. Anything that I am concerned about or have to iron, I do later in the week, when we have more time. I never let the ironing pile up--or it never gets done. A 30 minute TV show allows me to iron a weeks worth of khaki pants, more or less. (**A couple years ago we purchased a new washer with a timer. I will frequently load the washer at night to start super early so I can just put the clothes in the dryer before work and then fold during a TV show. Conversely if it is clothing that needs more attention I will load it in the morning to be finishing up approximately when I am arriving home from work).
I vacuum 2 times a week upstairs, and 2 times downstairs. Since I do it so often it doesn't have to be perfect each time, and takes me less than 15 minutes--less stuff, less stuff to vacuum around. I do even vacuum my kitchen, hallways, and bathrooms with the wand to pick up an stray debris--or cat hair. Those floors only get washed once a month.
I keep the "decorator items" to a minimum and will dust while I watch a TV show in the TV rooms, or during commercials in non TV rooms. Not even kidding I once cleaned the bathroom in 7-8 minute commercial breaks during a movie of the week.
Dishwasher is run 3 times a week--counters wiped daily.
Bathrooms get a quick clean once a week, and once a month a super heavy clean.
Cats bathed once a month also, that is a two hour affair with blow drying so that is normally a Saturday activity---unless they have done something stupid.
I bought a ton of mulch so I barely have weeds in the flower beds, but I tend to spend an hour on Saturday morning weeding. Also if I have to water--you may find me bent over pulling a few.
I also mow the lawn. Currently I don't have to mow--too dry. Throughout June I was mowing two times a week. On nights I had to mow we either had dinner out or my husband grilled, depended if we defrosted. If I started mowing about 30 minutes after I got home from work, I was done around our normal dinner time.
Mail gets sorted daily at the recycling bin, so most never makes it inside to add clutter. Also many bills are electronically received.
I never worry about people stopping over. I find my house to be more organized and cleaner than most even when we have a planned invitation.
My system would probably drive others nuts, it works pretty well for us.
so that helps as well!
Timer went off and I quit with the top of my dryer clean. Now, the perfectionist in me was critizing the fact that I didn't wipe down both the washer and dryer to get the cob webs off nor did I sweep underneath and around them. But, the joy for me came the next morning. Everyone in my family noticed and commented on it, "Wow, I can see the dryer." 
