Household chores can be some of the most boring, routine tasks on earth. For those of us who are naturally messy and could never be described as neat freaks, it can feel impossible to keep a house clean. But avoiding clutter and mess is essential to living in a peaceful, healthy environment. Here are some ways to start becoming a neater and more at peace individual.
Scheduled Cleaning
How does your house get so messy in the first place? Chances are, you’re a busy person, and putting off cleaning seems like the best way to buy back some time. Then, when the mess becomes too much to live with, you spend hours and maybe even days getting back to square 1. The cycle repeats and you wonder if it’ll ever get easier. The best way to avoid this cycle is by scheduling your cleaning, room by room, according to the days of the week.
You can do easier cleans, like vacuuming bedrooms or dusting living and dining rooms, on weekdays and save the harder jobs, like bathrooms and the kitchen, for weekends. Having a schedule ensures that a) you don’t forget anything for too long and b) you don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of cleaning each day. By breaking it up, you’ll only be spending a half hour to an hour at most on everyday cleaning tasks.
Cleaning Services
While this option has the reputation of being reserved for the rich and famous, cleaning services can be surprisingly affordable and practical. Having someone clean every day would be expensive, but hiring a cleaner to come in once or twice a month to deep clean an area you find yourself neglecting or doing a general clean of the whole house can make a huge difference. The fact is, many people are too busy to really keep their homes tidy, so budgeting for an Atlanta maid service might be worth it in the long run.
The Five-Minute Rule
Another trick that has helped many messy people get clean is the five-minute rule. Here’s how it works: if you see a mess around your house, like a bunch of dirty dishes or a pile of laundry on your couch, gauge how long it’ll take you. If it takes more than five minutes, come back to it when you have time. If it takes five minutes or less, do it right then and there. By doing this throughout the day, you’ll slowly eliminate tons of tiny cleaning projects and your home will be that much cleaner. After all, large messes are often made up of many tiny messes.
No More Junk
One big reason why people’s homes become messy is because throughout your life you accumulate tons and tons of junk. That junk starts to overflow and you start running out of storage solutions, so it’s just floating around your home being moved from room to room. A great way to start being tidier is to get rid of the excess. Closets are a big culprit for hiding junk, so consider taking an afternoon to weed through clothes, toys, and whatever else is creating piles in your house to see what you need to keep versus what could be gifted or donated. Once you have some space freed up, you’ll have somewhere to store things like winter clothes and linens and suddenly keeping your house clean won’t be as difficult.
A Place For Everything
If you’re someone who loves to decorate or collect knick-knacks, look around at your surfaces and gauge how much clear space you actually have. There’s nothing wrong with decorating, but having too much clutter on your surfaces can make it hard to see what needs to be done, as well as making dusting and wiping down surfaces much more difficult. Try scaling back the decor and seeing what kind of difference that makes.
Once your decor has been scaled back, it’ll be easier to see how much available space you have. Now it’s time to assign everything you have to a specific place. Everything should have a place to go and should be put there whenever you’re done using it. Eventually, you’ll realize that keeping your home clean is more about changing your mindset around neatness, rather than changing your personality.