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Keeping your home tidy can greatly affect your mental health and how you go about things. You’ll be less stressed and have more space and a more peaceful environment.
If you struggle to keep your house clean all the time and want to have it a bit more tidy, check out these strategies down below.
Why Do I Struggle To Keep My Home Tidy?
Before we get into it, we have to figure out why we struggle to keep our homes tidy. You can try all you want to clean it up but somewhere by the end of the week, it looks like a tornado passed through.
Here are the top 4 factors that can make it a struggle to keep your home tidy;
1. You have a Lot Of Stuff
A lot of stuff in your home can make your place feel cluttered. Doesn’t matter if you clean it or not. Keeping onto items you don’t need can make your house look messy.
2. You Have a Busy Schedule
Working overtime, and having events to go to on the weekends can make it hard for you to clean up daily or even weekly.
3. No Proper Place To Put Things
I always say that an item needs a home. It could be on a bookshelf, on the counter, or on drawers. If an item doesn’t have an area where it stays. Then your home will look messy.
4. Procrastination Is Your Killer
I have to be blunt about this ( I struggle with this a lot) procrastination can also be a cause for keeping your house messy.
Sometimes we know we have time to clean up but instead, we say “Oh I’ll clean it up tomorrow.” And tomorrow never comes.
Now that we have covered the 4 factors that could be keeping our house messy. It’s time to go over some ways to help keep your home tidy at all times.
How Do I Keep My House Clean All The Time?
1. Declutter Declutter Declutter
Take a moment each month or quarterly to declutter your home. Get rid of clothes, and old and broken items you no longer use.
This will help you figure out how much space you have and see if the large amount of stuff in the home is causing the ongoing clutter.
2. Establish Daily Habits
You have to instill positive daily habits to keep your home tidy. Here is a short list of daily habits that can improve the tidiness of your home;
- Clean as you go – while you are cooking, relaxing, or working remember to put things back where they belong,
- Make your bed every morning – having a made-up bed makes your room look 10x more put-together
- Place laundry in a laundry basket – always always place dirty clothes inside the laundry basket. Dirty clothes on the ground can make a room look messy.
3. Follow The 20-Minute Cleaning Rule
What is the 20-minute cleaning rule? The 20-minute cleaning rule is each day; this could be right before bed, before work, after work, any time of the day you spend 20 minutes cleaning up something.
You can create a list of items you want to hit within those 20 minutes or just pick a room/area in your house that you want to tackle.
Set a timer for 20 minutes and just solely focus on cleaning that area.
After a while, you’ll notice a huge difference.
4. Create a Cleaning Routine
A cleaning routine is a great way of keeping on top of the cleaning in your home. This could be washing dishes every night Mopping on Tuesdays, or vacuuming carpets on Wednesdays.
Instead of just overwhelming yourself with cleaning everywhere in one day.
Down below I have a cleaning checklist I follow and it breaks down all the places you have to clean in each room, you can print this off or use it on your iPad.
5. Keep High-Traffic Areas Clean
Take a moment to keep those high-traffic areas clean daily. Here is a list of common high-traffic areas in homes and how to keep them tidy;
- Kitchen – wipe down counters, put away dishes, keep garbage off the counters, sweep floors
- Bathroom – wipe down counters, place products in a tidy area
- Living Room – have an area for removing controllers, folding blankets, place throw pillows neatly on the couch
- Entryway – place shoes on a shoe rack, and have an area for keys and bags
6. Come Up With a Storage Solution
Remember I said earlier how every item you have needs a home? Well, let’s dive in further with this. For items to have a designated space in your home, you need to look into your storage.
Do you have storage bins for small items? What about a simple basket for throwing blankets? I have a blog post about storage space for small apartments however it can be applied to homes as well.
RELATED POST: Simple Apartment Storage Tips To Gain More Space!
Check out these items I currently use inside my home for storage.
7. Make Cleaning Feel Less Of a Chore
Make cleaning more fun than letting it feel like a chore. One way you can do this is by creating a playlist of your favorite songs. Or listening to a podcast.
What I do is pick a podcast for how long I’m cleaning for and use it as my timer. For example, if I am listening to a 30-minute podcast. I want to make sure I’m done cleaning by then.
8. Come Up With a Reset Day
You hear it all over social media but these influencers are onto something. Pick a day out of the week that you’re not too busy and reset your home.
Create a list of tasks you want to include on your reset day and take the time to complete it.
Looking for ideas on what to do on your reset day? Here is a list of tasks you can do on your reset day!
- laundry
- Change bed sheets
- Vacuum
- Clear off tables
- Bathroom cleaning
- Dust
- Wash dishes/load dishwasher
- Wipe down kitchen counters
Overall…
Keeping your home clean starts with forming daily habits. By following these strategies you will be well on your way to a tidier home.
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