According to recent research one of the greatest sources of stress for many adults is the cleanliness of their homes, in fact an American study by the Huffington Post revealed that a whopping 81% of men and 87% of women felt their house was too cluttered. This has led to a dramatic increase in people opting to invest in storage units to store belongings that just don’t fit into their homes.
To help you de-clutter your home and feel more relaxed we have created these home tidiness habits that are not only super-easy but will also help bring some feng-shui back into your home (and you).
Getting Into a Routine
Perhaps the most effective way of ensuring that your house continues to stay neat is to get into the habit of regular cleaning, so keep in mind some of the routines of people who keep a tidy home. First thing in the morning, make your bed. When you’re cooking, scrub the dishes and put away any kitchen supplies you’re using so the sink doesn’t become a leaning tower of pots and pans. Then, afterward, turn on the dishwasher, and empty that dishwasher in the morning. Do laundry regularly. Dust and vacuum on a timetable. (Spot-clean one weekend, deep-clean the other one, and so on.) Finally, adhere to the cleaning principle that parents have been telling their children for generations: A place for everything, and everything in its place. And if it doesn’t have a place, throw it out.
Cleaning Your House
Now that you’ve adopted useful cleaning habits, make sure you’re doing them efficiently. Establish a cleaning regimen that you stick to. The tasks will vary for each part of your house. In the kitchen, soak the microwave trays in a pan of warm water, wipe down the appliances, and dust out the grit and crumbs from behind them. In the bedrooms, spray the mirrors with a glass cleaner, and dust those hard-to-get nooks and crannies of the furniture – the bedposts, the footboards, the windowsills, and so on. Then, throughout the house, after you mop and vacuum the floors, be sure to scrub the baseboards with a damp rag. Also, consider getting a Swiffer with an extendable handle that lets you reach up into the corners of the ceiling.
Tidying Up the Garden
For many people, their lawn or garden is the largest square footage of their property. So even if your home is all sparkling appliances and stainless appliances, you won’t feel like the space you live in is clean if the backyard is patched with mud and the driveway is cracked. Here are some tips to make the exterior of your home as spiffy as the inside. Clean the gutters and scrub the windows. Power-wash the side of the house to remove any grime. Pat down mulch around your garden to give it a clean, consistent look that will also help the plants pop with color. And the moment you see a weed, bend over and pick it.
“Tidy house, tidy mind” is a phrase that’s been bandied around forever because it points out a truth: We are more relaxed when the space around us is neat and spare. The mental benefits of decluttering include better focus, lower anxiety, and the ability to separate what we want from what we need. In other words, discarding messes from our lives helps us let go of what we’re holding onto and steer forward into the future.
Author
Alice Robertson began her career in the home organisation industry as a professional house cleaner. After cleaning and organising her clients’ homes for years, she decided to open her own home organisation business. Over the years, she has built an impressive client list, helping to make spaces in homes and businesses more functional. She recently created tidyhome.info as a place to share the great cleaning and organizing advice she has developed over the years.
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