3 Tidy Habits For A Clean Home
We all want to have a neat and tidy home, but sometimes it seems impossible to maintain.
It’s not.
All you need to do is develop some good, daily habits. These 3 tidy habits for a clean home are often overlooked:
- Making your bed
- Tidying as you go
- Doing a load of laundry
Now, before you start with reasons, such as, “I’m too busy,” or, “But, I have children,” I’m in the same boat. And, I know what you are up against.
Having kids and a demanding schedule, keeps you busy and time management can be an issue. However, developing routines and habits will make life easier.
When you get into the routine of performing these daily habits, you will find that you get more efficient at your tasks.
The faster you become at getting these jobs done, the more time you have for leisure and activities you enjoy. Do you need much more incentive than that?
With all that said, let’s look at these 3 tidy habits for a clean home, in more detail.
Tidy Habit # 1: Make Your Bed
Yes, your bed is messy every single day! And, it almost seems pointless to make it. I mean why would you, it’s only going to get messed up that very same day.
All the more reason to get into the habit of making it right away.
No one likes walking into the bedroom and seeing a messy bed. It makes the whole room look untidy. So, if you make your bed as soon as you get up, it only takes a minute or two.
A tip to cut down the time even further is to use a duvet with a removable cover. This will eliminate sheets and blankets that take much longer to tuck in and straighten out.
Duvets are also great for varying temperatures so you don’t need to add or remove layers as you do with blankets.
And when get up, you just fluff it out, lay it flat and you are ready to get on with the rest of your day. The bonus is that when you’re getting ready to sleep, it just looks so inviting.
Tidy Habit # 2: Tidy As You Go
This seems like the simplest of concepts but it’s the easiest thing to let slide. How many times have you said, “I will pick that up later” or “I’ll clean that up later”?
What generally happens? You end up saying it a few times a day and the mess grows.
When a mess grows it can start to stress you out. This could result in avoidance.
Now, you’ve avoided the mess for so long, it’s become even larger. Finally, you decide to clean it and it takes you longer than you thought.
Every time you go through this routine, it builds up in the back of your mind, and tidying up becomes a disliked job. How do we deal with disliked jobs? We typically avoid them. Can you see how this becomes a vicious cycle?
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be. If you tidy as you go, you avoid all the stress and time of a big clean later on.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s cleaning up after your little one, or washing a few dishes in the kitchen. Take a few seconds, or maybe minutes, to quickly tidy up. Make it a habit.
Trust me, when you walk into a room and it’s neat and tidy, you will feel so much better.
So take the time to stop and tidy up. You’ll be surprised that after a while, it will become a habit.
Tidy Habit #3: Do One Load of Laundry Per Day
This might seem a little excessive but it will pay off in the long run, saving you time and energy.
A lot of people do laundry only on the weekends or when they’re running low on clean clothes. If you do one load each day, you free up your time on the weekends and avoid getting to the point where you’re down to your last clean outfit.
It doesn’t take as much time as you might think. Remember it’s one load.
You may elect to do smaller loads of laundry. This will take less time to wash, and much less time to dry.
Pre-sort your laundry ahead of time. There are plenty of multi-section laundry hampers. So, you can sort your dark clothes, colors and light clothing, as soon as your clothes are ready for the laundry.
Also, these days, there are high-efficiency washing machines that use less water, hold more clothes, and save energy.
When it comes to your dryer, make sure to take the laundry out as soon as it’s dry. This will reduce having to iron a lot of clothes. If you opt for a smaller load, as previously mentioned, it won’t take as long to dry.
Most of today’s dryers have sensors that detect when the clothes are dry and turn off before the stated time of the cycle.
I recommend giving your owner’s manual a good read through. This will let you know all the tips you might not have known about your washer and dryer. And, it will help you get the best out of your machines.
Time Well Spent
So, there you go. Just 3 tidy habits to pave the way for a clean home. Remember the more you do something, the more it will become a habit. Once it becomes a habit you will find that you are getting faster and faster at it.
Not only will you get faster at it, but it will also become like the definition of the word habit states:
So you won’t even be thinking about it as you did before, like a seemingly overwhelming task to be done. It will simply get done without you realizing that you did it.
Once you are “in the habit” you will have a lot of extra free time to spend doing things that are more fun. Things like spending time with your family, enjoying a new hobby, or kicking up your heels and chilling out. Who knows maybe some of those things could become habits too.
See also 3 More Tidy Habits For A Clean Home.
