Have you ever noticed how some people just seem to always have their homes pulled together and spotlessly clean? You look around but can rarely find even the smallest unkempt corner. How do they do it? While it’s true that keeping a well-organized home in tiptop shape is definitely not an effortless task, some people do seem to have an easier time than others at staying on top of the daily clutter and minor messes. You may be wondering what their secrets are, but it’s no secret. There are simply some things that tidy people do differently, or don’t do at all. Here are some things that tidy people simply know not to do.
Clean Everything, All At Once
You might look around a tidy person’s home and assume that they’ve recently spent several hours or even a full day cleaning their home from top to bottom. This is almost never the case though. These people know that cleaning everything all at once is exhausting and not much fun. Instead, they have developed habits that keep them always in a state of micro-cleaning. When they finish with an item, they put it back where it goes immediately. If they spot a small mess, they clean it right then. If they are leaving a room, they automatically scan it for items that could be put away in the room they are travelling to next. These things become second nature so much that one rarely even notices that he or she is doing it.
Save a Mess for the Morning
People with neat homes don’t abandon a sink full of dishes and go to bed, or look at a pile of laundry that needs to be folded and think, “I’ll get to that tomorrow.” They know that 5 extra minutes of cleaning now can save you much, much more time later as you try to scrub hardened spaghetti off a day-old plate, or as you iron clothes that were fine when they came out of the dryer but are now wrinkled from a week sitting at the bottom of the clean laundry pile. Clean the kitchen immediately after dinner. Straighten up before you sit down on the couch to watch TV. Don’t wait until your daily energy reserves are depleted at the end of the night, especially if this is a new habit you are trying to build.
Run Out of Cleaning Supplies
Tidy people tend to be the same “buy in bulk” people you see at the local Costco or Sam’s Club. They find products that work and they stock up on them so that everything they need to tackle daily messes is at arm’s length. There’s likely a stash of some of the more basic and multi-purpose cleaning supplies in most rooms, for quick accessibility. And they’ve found hacks to make sure they aren’t constantly running back out to the store to maintain their supply. Do you use a lot of Clorox Wipes? Put them on a subscription for delivery. Running low on toilet cleaner? Buy a bottle for every bathroom. The easier you make cleaning, the more likely you are to do it.
Neglect the Laundry Schedule
One thing tidy people do not do constantly throughout the day and/or week is laundry. Setting aside a specific day for laundry has multiple benefits. Everyone in the house knows when laundry will happen and it is now their responsibility to have all of their dirty clothes ready and accessible. You are able to knock out folding and putting away clean laundry all at once rather than having a seemingly constant stream of clothing going from the washer to the dryer to the folding area to to the closet.
Tidy people also know that teamwork makes the dream work. If you train your kids to retrieve their laundry and put it away at a certain time on a certain day of the week, clean laundry won’t pile up as it awaits transport to its permanent home.
Overdo the Decor
Tidy people know that the more things you have out, the more you have to dust and clean under and around. They know that a clear surface is easier to clean and just looks neater. You should aim for no more than 3 decorative pieces on any surface such as an end table or a segment of kitchen counter. Not only does limiting the number of decor items cut down on your cleaning time, but its better for you mentally as well. Even if you carefully choose each vase, picture frame and candle, too many of even the nicest things can overwhelm a room and begin to look and feel like clutter. This can be mentally taxing and make you feel like your home is in more of a mess than it really is.
Use the Floor for Storage
Look around your tidiest friend’s home. Do you see many things on the floor? The answer is likely no. Whether it’s the kids’ backpacks, a stack of library books that need to be returned, or even a neatly folded stack of blankets, storing items on the floor for an extended period of time can make your home look messier than it actually is. Find a permanent home for everything, and make sure that it stays there. Before long it will become automatic for you to put everything in its assigned spot.
Another thing to avoid is using the area under your bed as storage. What do you normally find collecting underneath furniture? Dust bunnies. That means that anything you store beneath a bed is likely getting far dirtier than it would if stored somewhere else.
Ignore the Fridge
When someone has a home that is spotless as far as the eye can see, it’s most likely spotless in the places you don’t see as well. The refrigerator is a perfect example. Tidy people do not remove everything from their refrigerator for a deep cleaning every week, but they do give the fridge some attention on a weekly basis. At least once each week they scan the contents and check for anything that is expired, toss out any leftovers that are aging, and clean up any minor spills. Usually this quick cleanup goes hand in hand with a trip to the grocery store so that items can be replaced before they are needed.
The same is true of the pantry. Tidy people do not wait until the shelves are overflowing before they address overcrowding. Items in your pantry are also at risk of expiring, though not as frequently. Staying on top of what could be aging and checking the pantry before a trip to the store is an automatic step in the grocery process for these folks.
Save Papers
People who live in tidy homes do not have a stack of magazines and newspapers they’ve already read, just in case they want to refer back to something they saw in an article later. They don’t allow important papers to linger in an unsorted pile on top of the file cabinet. If you’ve read a newspaper or magazine, it’s time to toss it in the recycle bin. Junk mail is just that, junk, so there’s no need to keep it. Books that have been read should be passed on to a new reader, or put on the shelf for display, not left in a stack on a nightstand or end table.
Of course there are some important documents that we should be holding on to, but these should be dealt with immediately upon receipt. If a hard copy is not necessary, scan the paper and save as an appropriately labeled PDF on your computer, then shred the original. If an actual paper copy is required, file it as soon as you are finished reviewing it. It takes mere seconds to file one piece of paper, but so much longer to go through and sort a stack of “to be filed” papers periodically.
Even when papers are filed, tidy people don’t allow those important documents to linger longer than absolutely necessary. For certain items like birth certificates and life insurance policies, you may never come to an end point when they can be tossed out. Those documents should be placed in a more secure location like a safe anyway. For everything else, there is a recommended schedule of how long you should hold onto them. Either 3, 5 or 7 years in the norm for most financial documents. Tidy people keep up with this, and their file cabinets are emptied accordingly.
Live in “Just in Case” Land
So many of us have a basement, garage, attic or even all three that are filled with items we no longer use, but keep hanging on to, “just in case” we need them again. But even if you do occasionally reach into the “just in case” stash and find an item to reuse, does the clutter you live with in the meantime make it worth it? Could you not just repurchase that item for the sake of clearing out and cleaning up so many other areas of your home?
Tidy people do not live in “just in case” land. When an item is no longer being used, they throw it away. Yes, this does sometimes mean having to repurchase something at a later date, but tidy people believe this is worth the money and trouble. Also, holding onto an item for years and storing it in a location that gets too hot, too cold and sometimes even too wet, can often render it useless. Go ahead and clear out some of that space in your home by getting rid of items while they still have a little bit of shelf life left. Whether you are giving the items away, donating to a local charity or reselling, all of your belongings will be worth more if they are not old and damaged from years in storage.
Tidy people also do not allow nostalgia or guilt to affect their decision making regarding what to keep and what to get rid of. They recognize that a sunk cost is a sunk cost. This is an economics term that means once you have spent money on something, that money is gone. Using the item more doesn’t necessarily make it more or less worthwhile to have purchased it. So get out of “just in case” land and get to decluttering!