Tidying Up Your House: 11 Tips
Often tidying up your home can seem like an impossible task. However much you can clean and tidy, you always have the feeling that something is out of place and that the space will soon be back in disorder.
In fact, there is no single strategy for tidying up the house , it all depends on the personality of each of us. However, there are some basic tricks, valid for everyone, to be applied to tidy up the home environment and make it comfortable and harmonious.
The first steps to tidy up the house
The first thing to do is to identify the areas of the house where the problem of clutter is most concentrated. Carefully analyze the situation and then think about which solution to adopt. Don’t try to tidy up the whole house at once. Dedicate the time needed to each environment, manage them one by one even if it takes several days.
It is equally important that you and the rest of the family stick to the decisions you make so that you don’t fall back into the same mistakes and find yourself in a mess again. With these considerations in mind, you can easily apply the following strategies for tidying up your home.
1. Do not store items that we do not use
You will surely have a wardrobe or boxes full of countless things that you no longer use, but that you hope to be able to reuse or that are simply linked to good memories. Books, decorative objects, documents, old or unworn clothes and even vinyls that you no longer use because you only listen to music with your smartphone.
All these objects that you no longer use and that you keep somewhere take up space that you could reserve for something else or that you can free up to give the house a little more breathing space.
When something stays in a box or closet for too long, it will stay there for life. You will only see it again when you try to put it in order, and then continue to keep it for months or years. At this point, it’s best to get rid of it.
If they give you or buy something new, get rid of the old item. Give it away, give it away or throw it in the trash if it no longer works, but don’t keep it “in case the new one breaks”.
2. Always put things in the same place
Every day a large number of objects enter the house that each family member brings with them. From keys and wallet, to grocery shopping, post office or business bag. Find an appropriate and fixed place for everything, no matter if they will take them back with them when they go out.
“If you have too many things lying around without a permanent job, sooner or later it will pile up and it will be impossible to clean,” says Jennnifer Snyder, lawyer at Neat as a Pin . Attach a hook for the house keys near the door or a shelf for the mail and a magazine rack. Don’t let them pile up on a table or chair.
3. Store items according to their frequency of use
Organize wardrobes and drawers intelligently. What you use on a daily basis should always be within reach. What you rarely use can fit on a closet shelf that you can only reach with a chair.
If you place little used items next to frequently used items, you will likely be forced to move them constantly to access the ones you use the most.
4. Divide drawers and shelves to keep the house tidy
Don’t stack everything together in drawers and shelves, but use dividers to separate them. This will allow you to make better use of the space and not to form piles of things on top of others.
“There shouldn’t be a single drawer in the house without a partition,” says Christopher Lower, author of the book Seven Stages of the Organization .
5. Don’t use tables as deposits
One of the most frequent temptations in the home is to put everything on a table. Although the intention is to do this temporarily, in the end the table is always occupied. Make it a rule that it should never be done even for a minute, and if it doesn’t work, make it impossible.
Julie Isaac, owner of Uncluttered Homes, recommends placing flowers, small knick-knacks on tables or desks or even setting them with plates and cutlery, if it’s the dining table, to send the clear message that it’s not about deposits.
6. Do not purchase containers and order boxes until you have disposed of everything
Before buying a box or container for storing objects, make sure you have already carried out a thorough job of cleaning and disposing of the objects to be thrown away.
If you have more space than you really need, in no time you will find yourself accumulating a large amount of useless objects, which over time will create more clutter in the house.
7. Organize household activities
If you have a family and don’t get outside help with housework, assign cleaning tasks to each family member. Who will take care of clearing the table, who will wash the dishes and put them in place. Who still cleans the bathroom or kitchen. Everyone will be responsible for leaving their room tidy and with the bed made every day.
This rule must be strictly observed. If one of the family members misses one of the tasks, the others have an excuse not to do their part.
8. Put things away immediately after use to tidy up the house
A convenient, but bad habit is to put things off. The problem is that the next moment never comes. Ask your children to put away their toys when they are finished using them, not to leave dishes on the table after eating or to wash the kitchen utensils while cooking. The tasks assigned to each must be done instantly and must never be postponed.
9. Don’t stack too many hangers
Whenever you pick up clothes from the laundry or buy them, you bring a hanger with you to hang them. So, without realizing it, you end up having more hangers than clothes and your closet fills up more and more. Return the hangers to the laundry or recycle them.
10. Do not use the garage or attic as a warehouse to keep your house tidy
When you have a garage or attic, it’s easy to think that you always have space for things you don’t use. But this thought risks leading you to fill them and transform them into that messy space that you don’t want.
As already advised, remove older objects and remember that the garage and attic are also part of the house, and therefore should not be transformed into a warehouse.
11. Devote one day a year to the order of the whole house
Even if you apply the best strategies to keep your home tidy, some things inevitably get out of place sooner or later. It does not matter if you think that the house is finally in order as always dreamed of.
Once a year, dedicate a day to general order, checking that you have not accumulated unnecessary objects and that the shelves and drawers are well organized and everything is in place.
The time has come to tidy up the house. Take a critical look at your spaces and decide where to start. Get to work!
