5 Brilliant Habits To Develop To Keep Your Home Clean And Tidy All The Time

When you think about your favorite activities, cleaning and organizing usually isn’t at the top of the list. However, having a clean and tidy house helps you feel relaxed, refreshed and comfortable when you get home, so it’s essential to get organized. Here’s how to get it to stay that way.

1. Set a Short Timer

Once a day, set a timer on your phone and tidy as much as possible. Choose a short burst of time — like five to 10 minutes — and challenge yourself to get as much done as possible before the timer goes off.

If you do this consistently, you might realize a few minutes daily is all you need to keep the house in order. Ten minutes a day becomes an hour and 10 minutes of tidying per week, but it feels shorter and more manageable than a large block of time.

You can always tidy for longer on the weekends if you need to. However, in one survey, 45% of U.S. respondents spent just up to an hour cleaning every week.

Are there several people in your household? If so, get them to adopt the timer method. Few people will agree if you ask them to spend 60 hours a year on cleaning, but if you frame it as just 10 minutes a day, they’ll usually be on board.

2. Take Advantage of Small Moments

You probably don’t think of your faucet, coffee maker and microwave as timers, but they can certainly work as one. While waiting for your morning coffee, breakfast burrito or bubble bath to be ready — which may take just three or four minutes — clean as much as you can in the kitchen or bathroom. After all, you’d normally just stand there waiting!

Make a game of unloading the dishwasher before the microwave beeps or running the bathroom trash out to the dumpster before the bathtub is full. Wipe down the counters or polish the mirror as best you can before you have to stop. It’s surprisingly fun to race the clock and it helps you take advantage of small moments throughout the day.

3. Create Designated Spots for Everything

Every item in your house needs a home. In other words, there should be only one or two spots where you can find your glasses when you need them. Maybe they belong in your desk drawer or nightstand, and those are the only places — other than your face — where you’re allowed to put them.

Make a habit of putting things in the same place every time. Throwing stuff on the floor may be more convenient, but using designated spots helps keep the mess under control. And, no, having 50 designated areas for an item doesn’t count!

To decide where an item belongs, consider where you use it most. Mobile items like keys or purses can stay on a hook by the front door.

4. Listen to Something

Cleaning can help you shut off your brain for a few minutes. If your day usually involves listening to reruns of Bluey or your dog barking at passersbys, it’s time to turn tidying into your new favorite activity.

First, create a couple of playlists that include songs, podcasts, guided meditation tracks or background noise. You can make one playlist relaxing and the other upbeat.

When you set your daily cleaning timer, put on a pair of noise-canceling headphones and take a few moments to yourself. Maybe you work a desk job and feel like dancing while washing the dishes. Alternatively, if you work in construction or spend the day wrangling toddlers, you might want to hear soothing, peaceful piano music while cleaning.

Listening to something you love turns a bland or neutral activity into me-time. By making cleaning fun, you’re more likely to keep the house organized.

5. Don’t Over-organize

Some people procrastinate on tidying because they have a very meticulous way of doing things. In some ways, you can keep your house tidier by allowing yourself to be less organized. It might sound counterintuitive, but keeping several items in one place will cut down on cleaning time.

An example is having a shoe bin for everyone’s shoes rather than an organized rack. Let your kids put their shoes in the container at night and pick them out in the morning. Shoes are easy to tell apart and don’t get tangled up, so keeping them in one central location is fine.

You can use a silverware drawer where you keep all everyday cutlery — forks, spoons and butterknives — rather than separating them into different sections. Sharp knives can still go in a knife block or separate drawer.

When doing laundry, don’t worry about turning your shirts right-side-out or making them face a certain way on the hanger. Simply get them on the hanger as fast as possible and put them in the closet. If you want to go back and organize your clothes later, you can, but you might realize it doesn’t make much of a difference either way, especially if you’re struggling with getting the task completed in general.

Cleaning and tidying imperfectly is better than procrastinating because you think your home has to be flawless. You don’t live in a Pinterest-inspired showroom — nor should you.

Enjoying Your Space

Your home is your sanctuary. Keeping it clean and tidy will bring you peace of mind and help you spend more time on things you enjoy, like cooking, reading or hanging out with friends. You can reap the benefits of living in an organized, refreshing home by implementing a few new habits.