10 tips that will help you keep your home tidy: how to do without general cleaning

There are several simple tricks that will allow you to keep your home clean – this is what professionals recommend using.

There are tasks that can be accomplished in just a few hours, and sometimes even in a few days, like systematizing and organizing things. But there are things that don’t take much time – and, remembering them, we very often say to ourselves: “I’ll do it tomorrow!” As a result, small things pile up and take up most of the day when cleaning.

To prevent this from happening, productivity expert David Allen recommends using the two-minute rule: If something can be done in two minutes or less, do it now — for example, throw out the trash, load dishwasher, run the detergent. , pay a bill or wipe the mirror.

Is there a housewife who doesn’t know how important it is to use boxes and containers to keep things organized? However, says space organizer Holly Blakely, they should be used not only for large items, but also for small items – it’s better to place small items in organizers rather than neatly arranging them on shelves .

The “tidy throw” trick is very simple: just throw hair ties, unpaid receipts, shoe polish or cosmetics into baskets designed to store them, and it doesn’t allow the mess to ” spread” throughout the apartment (and you always know where to look for things).

This technique was invented by blogger Meg Asby: each time before throwing a towel in the wash, she wipes it with something nearby: for example, a sink or a mirror in the bathroom, a countertop work desk or a table in the kitchen. “This simple action costs me four seconds, and then everyone is amazed at how clean my house is,” says Meg.

For those who have never worked in a store, let’s explain: closing a shift means preparing the workplace for the next day. This rule can also be applied in your home: before going to bed, prepare the surroundings for when you wake up.

This will mean different things to different people: think about what you want (or don’t want) to see when you return to the room. Maybe you wash the dishes that have accumulated in the sink or put things away in the closet – either way, it will affect your mood in the morning.

Try not to overdo it when you “close your shift”: Perfectionists may find themselves scrubbing the bathroom grout with a vinegar solution at 1 a.m. Evening cleaning shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes – set a timer so you don’t get carried away with getting things in order.

Creating a cleaning schedule is an obvious tip, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. Using to-do lists can be a game-changer: you’ll usually find that a “big” weekend clean can be easily broken down into smaller 10-20 minute tasks and spread out over several days.

This is another piece of advice from Captain Obvious, but it cannot be ignored: it is essential to involve the whole family in maintaining order. It’s important not to simply delegate tasks: as space organizer Judy Igwe explains, communication is of fundamental importance – until all members of the family agree on the same opinion on what order is, it will not be possible to maintain it. Judy also reminds us that we need to make compromises – for example, agreeing with children that they can organize and clean their personal space as and when they want.

Most people have more things than they need. The first thing a professional space organizer does is get rid of clutter. Broken, duplicate and unused items can be safely thrown away: once you remove them from your home, you will immediately notice how much easier it is to keep it clean. Frequent sorting and “cleaning” of unnecessary items is not necessary – you can review their quantity once every one or two years.

There are places where a lot of dust and dirt accumulate throughout the day, and one of them is the kitchen. There is no need to disinfect tables every day or wash countertops with soap – simply remove fresh stains immediately and, if necessary, wipe the surfaces first with a damp cloth then with a dry cloth, and you will no longer have to spend hours cleaning the sticky dust. By the way, the same rule applies to floors. Do you know the places that get dirty most often? Keep a pack of wet wipes nearby: if you remove the dirt immediately, the room will look clean, even if you wash the floors once a month.

For example, for a manicure, put files, buffers, shoe polish, cotton pads and everything else in it, so that when you decide to do your nails, you just have to take the basket out of the closet and put it in. place near the sofa. Using the same principle, you can organize a container or bucket of detergents: throw in a spray bottle of vinegar solution and two microfiber cloths, and now you have a ready-made emergency suitcase for nine out of ten surfaces – not need to recover it. all the products from the different shelves.

Most space organizers think there aren’t many benefits to spring cleaning – thinking about it only makes you nervous, and the cleaning itself is exhausting and exhausting. It is easier to disassemble it and distribute it over different days, but not over a week, but over a month or a year. For example, there’s no need to wash all the kitchen cabinets at once – just put one away each Saturday.

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