Daily Habits to Help Keep Your Home Clean And Tidy
Keeping your home clean and tidy might feel like a chore, but it’s the cornerstone to being comfortable and relaxed in your most precious and safe space. It basically all comes down to daily habits – something you do that becomes part of your daily routine like brushing your teeth, making your bed, never leaving a room empty-handed, folding your clothes a certain way, or only buying or keeping items that “spark joy” in your life (KonMari method), just to name few. Some people say it takes 21 days to build a habit, while others claim it can take up to 66 days. Everyone is different, but the key to building a new habit is to carve some time out every day to practice it until it no longer feels like a chore.
Here’s a list of habits borrowed from people who have clean and tidy homes that you can practice until they become a part of your own routine:
Declutter & purge
This one is less of a habit and more of a starting point. No matter how you choose to start, getting past the declutter and purge stage will allow you to keep less stuff in your home, which means less clutter overall to have to clean and organize. Keep, donate, sell, or move to another location in the home. This is what the KonMari method is based on.
In her #1 New York Times bestselling book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” Marie took tidying to a whole new level, teaching that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Start with all clothing, make decisions about each piece of clothing, then move on to another category when done. Then move on to books, papers, misc. (kitchen, bathroom, electronics, etc.), then sentimental items.
Start your day by making the bed
If there’s one thing you can control in the day’s chaos that lies ahead, it’s your bed. It doesn’t take but a few minutes, but this easy habit sets your day up for success. Even if it’s just smoothing out of the comforter, making your bed helps you start your day with a sense of productivity and order that’s likely to carry through to the next thing you do.
In a commencement speech at the University of Texas, Admiral William H. McRaven, who authored the book “Make Your Bed: Little Things Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World,” told students that the importance of making your bed every day was one of the most powerful lessons he learned during his time as a Navy SEAL.“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day,″ he said. “It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”
Give every item a designated place
As you declutter your home, there are several secrets that will help you keep it looking spotless long after you have finished your task. Once you have decluttered, donated, recycled, and thrown out many items, the next step is to organize the stuff you’ve decided to keep, giving every item a place to live. In her book, Marie Kondo states “Clutter is caused by a failure to return things to where they belong. Therefore, storage should reduce the effort needed to put things away, not the effort needed to get them out.’’
If something is not in its place, you will know immediately. For example, dirty clothes go in the hamper, not on the floor. Clean clothes belong in your dresser and closet, not left in the laundry room or piled on the bed. The same goes for other items such as pens, scissors, and all those other wayward objects that tend to end up all over the house. “The reason every item must have a designated place is because the existence of an item without a home multiplies the chances that your space will become cluttered again,” says Marie Kondo.
Don’t leave a room empty-handed
This one goes hand in hand with giving every item a home. Preventative action is what helps keep clutter from accumulating without taking a lot of extra time or effort on our part. After all, what’s easier? Grabbing one or two items as we’re leaving a room and taking a minute or two to put them away, or letting a towering pile accumulate and having to spend 10 minutes or more just sorting everything, let alone actually putting it all away.
This isn’t to say that you won’t ever have times when you need to do a more thorough clutter pick-up, but you can save a lot of time in the long run with habits like putting things away right away and never leaving a room empty-handed. If you’re going upstairs, take something with you to put away, whether it’s a stack of clean laundry or toilet paper refills. If you’re heading from the living room to the kitchen, grab that magazine that needs to be recycled and the water glass destined for your empty dishwasher.
Keep cleaning supplies in a handy place
Having to search for replacement sponges, glass cleaner or microfiber cloths is a waste of time and energy. If you have to search for everything each time before cleaning, you can quickly lose the already slight desire to clean your house. Instead, keep the most frequently used cleaning products, cleaning cloths, and sponges in a container or basket that you can carry with you during the cleaning. Extra cleaning products can be stored in a designated cabinet in your home or in the garage. Order is also important in the cleaning cabinet because this not only saves you time but also keeps track of the cleaning products you have on hand or need to restock.
Clean the shower while you’re in it
Ready to get one thing off your list of chores? One time-saving habit is to give the shower a little scrub while you’re already showering. It can be a huge pain to scrub down all of the soap scum at once, so why not do a quick once-over of the shower walls and floor while you’re rinsing your hair? Steam and hot water soften soap scum and other residues so you don’t have to scrub so hard, and you can reach every last inch of the walls because you’re standing right there. The whole process takes maybe five minutes, so you’re more likely to do it often enough to keep your shower and tub clean. A soap-filled dish wand makes shower cleaning even easier, but you don’t need one. Just bring some surface cleaner and a sponge or cloth in with you, then go to town.
Do a load of laundry every day
If you are easily overwhelmed by laundry, embracing a load of laundry every day is really the most efficient way to go. Make it a habit to spend 10 minutes or so folding and putting away a single load every day rather than trying to do a household of laundry all in one day. The key to making this daily process work is to take one load of laundry from dirty to folded to put away every day. That way, laundry won’t ever pile up and everything will be clean when you need it.
Empty the Kitchen sink
Nothing makes a home look more untidy than a sink full of dirty dishes. Get into the habit of rinsing dishes off and putting them straight into the dishwasher after using them. If the dishwasher is full, empty it or hand wash your dish and put it away. Make this a rule for the whole family. Nothing should be left in the kitchen sink, period.
Keep horizontal surfaces clutter-free
Horizontal surfaces around the house are magnets for clutter. Flat surfaces are also what you see as you scan the room. When you have clutter taking over those surfaces, it seems like every space in your home is in disarray. Make it a habit to keep countertops, tables, floors, beds, and dressers clear of clutter and these areas will look tidier and more spacious. They will also be easier and faster to clean because you won’t’ have to remove all the clutter beforehand.
Keep paper from piling up
The biggest culprit of clutter is paper, so don’t let it pile up. Mail, bills, notes from school, take out menus – paper piles up quickly. Keep your counters and home office clutter-free by establishing designated places for paper. Make a drawer for takeout menus and coupons. Create folders for bills, school memos, and other important printouts. Put these items in their place as soon as you get them. Try using clear, transparent folders, bins, plastic sleeves, or even magazine files for organizing papers. And don’t forget to label each one. Clear containers offer a natural and simple visual reminder of where papers live.
Take your shoes off at the door
Removing your shoes as you enter the home is an easy way to keep your carpet and floors free of dirt, grime, mud, bacteria, and other substances that can be found on the soles of shoes. This can translate to less time spent cleaning and vacuuming floors and could mean a longer life for your carpets. Removing your shoes inside also cuts down on the possible transmission of disease-carrying bacteria, which can attach to shoes when you’ve been walking outdoors, in public restrooms, and other places with high concentrations of pathogens (organisms that cause disease).In a University of Arizona study, E. coli was one of the most common kinds of bacteria found on the bottoms of shoes. The bacteria can cause intestinal and urinary tract infections.
A study in the journal Anaerobe found that the potential for shoe-related home contamination with C. diff is high, particularly in urban settings. C. diff bacteria cause diarrhea and can trigger colitis, an inflammation of the colon. Studies have found that Staphylococcus aureus bacteria have been most commonly found on the shoes of people working in healthcare facilities and in food services. The bacteria can cause intestinal and urinary tract infections.
Get your whole family into the habit of removing their shoes at the door. That way, your floors will stay cleaner for longer and your home will be healthier without any extra work on your part. Establish a shoe area just inside the door. You can keep slippers or house shoes near your designated shoe area. That way, it’s quick and easy to switch to them. If you have pets, be sure to also wipe their paws before they come inside; Make it super easy by leaving wet wipes for pets by the door.
Finish the day with a 10-minute clean-up
For all of those things that got left behind, make a nightly pick-up part of your every day routine. Set aside 10 to 15 minutes every night and return everything to its rightful spot, from toys to magazines. Fold the blanket on the couch, tuck away any stray shoes and put dirty clothes in the hamper before hitting the hay. If you have a few minutes left over, run a cleaning cloth over counters, or do a quick sweep, while devoting five minutes to a different area every night. You will love waking up in the morning to a clean and tidy home.
The takeaway
Please don’t ever feel ashamed about less than perfect housekeeping. Domestic chores – overwhelmingly, disproportionately, and often invisibly – tend to fall to women even when juggling full-time jobs and taking care of the kids. Adding a multitude of cleaning tasks to your already busy schedule can feel like a tall order. Follow the tips above and see if they help make your house cleaning more manageable.
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