IF your house is looking like it could be on an episode of hoarders than this cleaning routine article is for you my friend!
There are times in our busy lives when we are trying to get a lot done, our schedules are just jam-packed, we have too much on our plates, that all the things in your home seem like they are coming down on you. Claustrophobia style.
You take a look around your home and every space is filled with something. Projects, school papers, mail, clothes, crafts, toys, and who knows what else? (no really, we don’t know because it’s buried, right?)
At this point, we just need to take a seat and breathe. It’s easy to get it under control and functional. It will just cost you some time and energy. So if you’re willing to pay the price to get this done, I have some ideas for you on how you can get started so your home can stop feeling like a sardine can and the beautiful space you know it can be.
1| Assess each area of your home: are you keeping things in there that don’t belong there?
Normally what starts to happen, is one or two things come into a space where it doesn’t belong, and those don’t get put away. Then a couple more things. Once little things start accumulating this way, they become a soul-sucking magnet to all the things in your house you didn’t know existed and they pile on. It isn’t until this point when you’re like holy cow what the heck happened in here?! Right?!
If I am surrounded by mountains of messes, I will start the climb in the kitchen. This is usually the space that seems to get a lot of the accumulation of the stuff. It always makes the biggest impact too. This might be different in your house. Whichever room gets the most accumulation, start there.
After you choose your space, break it down one step further, to another space. For example in the kitchen, let’s say your kitchen counters. What is on there? Is it empty? Can you see the counters? Or do you have it stacked full of clutter? Do you have space where you can prep food and cook without having to scoot things out of the way?
Take a minute to take inventory of what exactly is on the counter. Receipts? Bills? Mail? Junk mail? School papers? Kid’s artwork (who doesn’t have that!)? Garbage? Toys? Things you haven’t made a decision on? Important papers?
Do these items have a place to go? They obviously don’t belong there. But do you have a system in order to store these things? Do you have a filing cabinet? An inbox? A place to store kids’ schoolwork?
Maybe therein lies your problem? You can’t move it because it has nowhere to go?
Really think this through and you will discover what the underlying cause is. Only then can you tackle the problem. We don’t want to just hide or cover up the symptom, we really want to get to the root of the problem here.
2| What status are you trying to get to? Start off with a quick clean!
I’m assuming that we aren’t looking for a deep clean here. We want our house to get to a level where its not a trainwreck but not everything was shoved into a closet and forgotten about. (Like Monica’s closet!) We want to find our flow again when it comes to tidying up, cleaning up, and enjoying our home.
My suggestion would be to do a quick clean. Then the next time you come back you can dig a little deeper and so on. We don’t need to go through all the magazines on the coffee table, but if you spot a couple you can part with. Let them go. We don’t need to vacuum under all the couch cushions, but fix up the pillows and fold the blankets. Do a quick dusting with a Swiffer, not a microfiber cloth and pledge, don’t go too hard too fast.
You will feel so much better once everything is just picked up and put away.
3| Start small
Pick a space and get into the habit of keeping it clean and clear for at least 3 days.
You know how when you’re tackling debt, the best method is the debt snowball, going from the smallest debt to the largest. Because this gives you visual progress.
We want to get really good at clearing and resetting a room, once you are a pro at that, then it takes little to no time and little to no energy to tackle it. Then add in one more room. Build your snowball. Before you know it, you will be able to tackle all the rooms you want to reset.
Check out: free cleaning guide and video series
4| Get Into a Daily Cleaning Routine
Let me give you a few ideas on where to start with the reset system. These are the things I do in my own house:
In the Morning:
- Make the bed
- Tidy up the bathrooms
- Clear off the dining table
- Pick up the kitchen after breakfast
In the Afternoon:
- Clear off the dining table
- Clean up the kitchen after lunch
- Pick up toys
In the Evening:
- Tidy up the living room
- Clear off the dining table
- Clean up the kitchen after dinner
- Pick up toys
- Put shoes away
“If you take action on a consistent basis, it teaches your mind to do that”
Brendon Burchard
5| Get into a Cleaning Routine
Pick one room and clean at a time. That way you can see a transformation from beginning to end. It can be the smallest room in your house. Or the most used. The process is the same for all the rooms.
Read: Check out my post here on my cleaning routine.
Once you get into a rhythm, you’ll start feeling more confident and things will take less time. You will begin to buy less because you don’t want to deal with finding a spot for it. You will look for things to let go because you don’t want to deal with finding a spot for it.
Once you start loving on your home instead of being frustrated with it, you will stop filling it with junk and start removing it from within, to get the home you’ve always wanted. Because it was there all along.
One Sweet Life
