Put away as much as you can before you start to clean. Ordered worktops look great and are more likely to stay clean. It's no hassle to wipe over a clear worktop, whereas lifting jars, cups, and yesterday's post is too much effort to bother with. Get it off the worktop with hooks. Use self-adhesive ones for lightweight things such as aprons, towels, plastic bags, and so on. Screw metal hooks into the wall or cupboard to hang cups and utensils.
Only some people are born neat. But everyone can cheat by creating both a clutter drawer and a clutter cupboard in the kitchen. Having a holding space for paperwork and action figures and the other stuff that gets left on the table, and a cupboard for hard-to-store-away dishes and equipment you plan to use again later (in a heat-wave, the blender that crushes ice qualifies!), is a simple way to a visually tidy the kitchen. Each time you clean the kitchen, start at a different place, then go steadily round in a full circle. Everyone cleans their first section to perfection, then runs out of time to whip along the final stretch of worktop. This approach evens things out.
