5 Easy Steps for Keeping a Neater Home

Did you know that we waste 3,680 hours or 153 days searching for stuff, over the course of our lifetimes? (source: Dailymail.co). Sometimes (or all the time) you get home from work and simply can’t bring yourself to clean the house. The mess seems insurmountable, you’re exhausted, and things won’t change much if you just let things slide for one more day. Luckily, the secret to being tidy doesn’t involve massive cleaning projects or high time commitments. By changing a few of your habits, you can be on the path to a cleaner and more comfortable home.  

1. Clean While You Wait

This one is so easy to do. Every day, we do things around the house that require a waiting period. Instead of using that period to un-pause Netflix, or scroll through Facebook, try using the time to clean. 

Are you microwaving a meal? Take that three minutes to load the dishwasher. Doing a load of laundry? Organize the linen closet. Maybe you’re boiling water for a cup of tea, and you have just enough time to sort the mail and discard the junk. Whatever it is you’re waiting for, fill the time with a small task. You’ll be surprised at how many small messes you can eliminate. 

2. Finish What You Start

Have you ever started a load of laundry, forgot about it for a day or two, and returned only to find that everything smells like mildew? Now you have to start all over again. Or maybe you washed all of the dishes from dinner… except for that one that “needs to soak”. Now it’ll sit there for days while everybody pretends they haven’t seen it.  

The key to keeping things clean is to actually clean them, from start to finish. Too often, we start tasks and then leave them dangling for days or even weeks. This results in a variety of undesirable outcomes, from foul odors to mountains of piled up work that nobody wants to tackle. If you start a task, make it your goal to finish it by the end of the day. You can sleep easier knowing that none of your chores are rolling over into tomorrow. 

3. Devote Time Every Day

When I was young, I shared a bedroom with my sister. We were disaster children, with clothing, books, and stuffed animals everywhere. My parents advised us that keeping the room would be much easier if we cleaned a little bit every day, rather than trying to clean it all at once and keep it that way. 

As an adult, I swear by this technique. Every single day, I put at least fifteen minutes of tidying up into my home. If I’m not feeling up to it, I set a timer so I know that even when I start, I’m almost done. That time can be anything you’d like it to be – discarding old food from the refrigerator, vacuuming the stairs, or simply picking things up off the floor and putting them away. At the end of the fifteen minutes, you can stop and take pride in yourself, or maybe you’ll feel compelled to keep going! Either way, your house just got a little bit cleaner. 

4. Give Everything a Home

When your belongings don’t have explicit places to go when you aren’t using them, they begin to encroach on the space you live in. Your closet is too small, so your bedroom floor is covered in clothing. Three people are sharing one small bathroom, so every counter space is taken up by hygiene products. There’s no designated space for shoes so the shoes are, well… everywhere. 

Of all my tips, this is the only one that may cost you a little extra cash. Investing in more storage for your clothing, shelving for the bathroom, or a rack for your shoes could open up all that space currently coated in clutter. Getting rid of the disorder can help your home feel more open and comfortable. Finally, that brings me to…

5. Eliminate Clutter

I know, I have a hard time with this one too. There’s currently a denim vest with leather shoulder pads and metallic bejeweled details in my closet because I’m convinced that someday there will be an appropriate time and place to wear it. It’s hard to let go of things that we don’t use anymore because we want to believe we can find another use for it. 

Some of those things (i.e. my vest) get a free pass because they don’t take up much space in our lives. But other things simply must go. Throwing out all of your ratty undershirts, dishwasher-warped Tupperware, or that stack of magazines you never got around to reading is an absolute must if you want your home to feel tidy. Be honest with yourself and evaluate what you will actually use in the future versus what’s taking up valuable space in your home.

Until next time – be well!

Sarah 🙂