Keep your home clean and tidy with these 10 simple tips
Our daily lives are filled with thousands of commitments that make it difficult for us to keep the house clean and tidy at all times. Work, study, children's recreational activities, meals to prepare, sport and all the other appointments we are obliged to carry out to manage our lives, causes the cleaning of the house to slide down our list of priorities.
For this reason, many of us find ourselves carrying out once-a-month cleaning "pushes", which often require working for a whole day or weekend. While carrying out periodic cleaning chores can be an excellent strategy, it is also true that the house can get quite dirty between one cleaning session and the next.
The psychological benefits of having a clean and tidy home are significant and it is therefore important to adopt small daily habits that allow us to maintain a minimum level of cleanliness and order in our homes.
Below, we reveal 10 simple tips to keep a home clean and tidy at all times.
1. Clean up as you go!
You know how messy the kitchen gets when you prepare your meals and who better than youself to can take care of cleaning up? Take advantage of any "downtime" while cooking to start the cleaning job by washing dirty utensils, emptying and/or loading the dishwasher and removing spills and food residue from all the worktops.
By doing this, you have more time to relax after your meals.
Likewise, you will waste less time cleaning dishes and dishes that have been stacked up in a sink over an number of mealtimes. Empty the sink by washing the dishes after each meal - your kitchen will immediately look much cleaner.
2. Put away your clothes, coats and shoes when not in use
When you come home after a long day at work, the first thing you want to do is take off your coat and shoes. The temptation to dump them in a corner can be great, but putting them away properly will take you just a few seconds, leaving your home cleaner and tidier. Place a coat and shoe rack in the entrance area (if you can) and this better habit will be easy to adopt.
For the same reason, laundry should also be put away immediately after drying. Folding clothes and leaving them in the laundry basket will create unnecessary mess. We know how tiring it can be, but once you've folded up you clothes, put them away in their proper place.
3. Open the windows every day
Don't underestimate the enormous regenerative power of fresh air. Changing the air in the home by opening the windows daily may seem odd in winter (when it is very cold), but if you get into the habit of doing this for at least 10 minutes every day, you will realize how the exchange of air can help put you in a good mood. Not to mention the presence of dust and allergens, which will significantly decrease thanks to this simple practice.
Your home will immediately feel cleaner!
4. Make your bed in the morning
The bed should be aired otu to dry the moisture/sweat left by your body during the night. By opening the windows in your room and then making the bed before leaving the house will immediately make your home look and feel neater.
Furthermore, a made-up bed will dissuade you from throwing clothes and other things on it, saving you the effort of having to free it up when you go to bed in the evening.
5. Decluttering to eliminate excess
Getting rid of possessions is never a simple thing, especially if you have sentimental attachments to them. But we should try to get rid of everything that does not reflect ourselves and our lifestyle. How many utensils do you have in your kitchen, for example, that you have never opened after buying them? And how many dresses still have the price tags attached?
Get into the habit of periodically examining what you have at home, throwing away whatever is broken and donating what is useless for you.
6. The 2-minute rule
Postponing a task because it takes time can lead to a build-up of many things to do later and which might need days to clean and tidy up further down the line.
Follow the 2-minute rule when managing your home: if a task can be completed in less than 2 minutes, do it immediately, you will avoid many small to-do chores building up which will take hours to do later. Sorting the mail, putting away the laundry, loading or emptying the dishwasher, throwing out the garbage are all small tasks that, taken individually, don't take much effort. But when needing to be done at the same time, these multiple chores can be overwhelming.
7. Remove dust daily
To do the dusting, there is no need to buy specific cleaning products: a simple damp microfibre cloth will be enough to make your home look cleaner quickly. Dust accumulates extremely easily and removing it regularly takes very little time and will change the look of your home in an instant. The coffee table in the living room, the TV cabinet, the kitchen shelves can be dusted every day with a damp cloth and will instantly make a vast improvement.
8. Ten minutes every evening
In the evening, before going to bed, dedicate 10 minutes to tidying up: put away the laundry, gather up the children's toys, put away everything you have used during the day (and which may still be lying around). Soon, this practice will become an established routine, just like brushing your teeth. It will also be easier to fall asleep if you knowò that you have put everything back in its place.
Get into this habit at your workplace too: before leaving the office (or your desk, if you work at home), put everything back in its place, so that you find everything nice a neat when you return the next day.
9. Thoroughly clean one electrical appliance each month
Taking care of your major appliances is essential to keeping them functioning efficiently. In addition to regular and superficial cleaning, it is a good idea to do a periodic in-depth cleaning of them which will make them last longer. If you don't want to to be overwhelmed by this chore, thoroughly clean one major appliance per month. Thorough cleaning of the various internal and external components of just one appliance per month, will save time, ensure proper functioning and will save you money in the long run.
10. Plan out your cleaning chores
Drawing up a weekly, monthly and annual cleaning rosters will help you complete all the necessary tasks in a systematic way. Even if you love improvisation, careful planning will allow you to establish a routine and will prevent you from forgetting something.
To do this, start by making a list of the main cleaning chores you have to do. Then, divide them up by day, week and month.
Following these simple tips, your home will be immediately cleaner and tidier!
