Messy House? Learn 11 Instantly Effective Routines to Beat that Clutter and Bring Calm to your Home!
As a practicing minimalist, I know how quickly clutter can build up when you don’t get into the habit of immediately acting upon the mess. You see, clutter is like a magnet and it attracts further clutter. Before you know it, you have accumulated a mess of items that all require returning to many different places. Cleaning the aftermath takes up your time, effort and energy.
If you have difficulty seeing your mess, take a step outside your house and then enter with fresh eyes open and your mind set on “Mess Detector” mode.
Instantly and Effectively Beat that Clutter
A family donation box: Create a donation box with a lid near your door or in a closet. As you spontaneously find items or clothing that you no longer use or like, place them in your donation box and when it is full, take it to a charity store. Other people may appreciate your items and you are contributing to the environment by your items not going into landfill!
Bombarded by junk mail through your letterbox?: Get that junk mail into your recycling bin as soon as it crosses your household threshold. Even better, place a clear printed sign that states “No Junk Mail or Business Advertising Accepted!” or “No Junk Mail Accepted. Help Us Save the Environment!”
Clothes live in homes: Clothes hang on hooks, live in closets on hangers or are folded up in drawers. Shoes live in your designated shoe area, stand or cupboard. Clothes don’t live on the backs of chairs, bar stools, doorknobs, on the floor, or draped on the sofa. Clothing accessories do not live on surfaces. If you aren’t clear on where your clothes, accessories and shoes should be, ensure you identify a home for them. When they are not on your body, they are returned to their home within the first 5 minutes of entering your front door. Every time you change, your items either go in the laundry basket or back to their storage home.
Dirty clothes: No longer do they lie around the house, particularly in the bedroom; they have accumulated sweat, dirt, grot and typically make your house smell musty. Gross! Get them into your laundry basket (with a lid) or place them immediately in your washing machine ready for your next wash.
Get those dishes, mugs and cutlery washed: As soon as you think about leaving that dirty dish on the countertop next to the sink, put it straight into the dishwasher instead. Even better, wash it up in your sink immediately. You don’t need to fill the sink with hot water for just a dish or two. Give your plate a quick rinse and then use a sponge brush that holds dishwashing liquid in the handle, rinse again and place the clean item in the draining board. Wipe and put away.
Have a clear workspace and desk: If your life involves a lot of paperwork (less common in the digital age), have a filing cabinet directly under your desk with labelled files that you can put that paper in immediately when you have finished with it or are taking a break. You don’t need an inbox on your desk or lots of stationary on display. Drawers and cabinets can ease the stress of a disorganised and messy desk. Gone are the days when multi-tasking was fashionable; people now value the quality that comes from a single focus. An old school desk with lift up table lids is perfect to keep your stuff off the surfaces as well.
Keep your Kitchen Surfaces Clear: Many of the kitchen gadgets we own are not needed fulltime. Keep them in your cupboard and make the effort to bring them out only when you need them. Return them into the cupboard after their use, when they have been cleaned or wiped down.
Sort your digital clutter: Have labelled digital folder and subfolders on your devices to quickly clean your digital desktop of individual files. These folders can be on your desktop or in your documents or stored on the Cloud (particularly as a safety backup). Categories reflect the areas of your life or the medium of your files such as, Work, Photos, Images, Study, Finance, Videos, Music and Hobbies. Within Finance, you may have Bills, Invoices, Payments and Receipts. Inside Bills you might have Council Taxes, Amenities, Memberships etc. Save these items directly from emails, software apps or downloads into your designated digital folders.
Toys need attention: Toys are the perfect opportunity to teach your children how to tidy and that everything we own has a place. They can learn how to sort into categories and be returned to their homes. They can also learn single focus by having one play item out at a time or if they are combining their creative play, to re-sort their toys after use. Go through the early pain of teaching your children to value what they own and return things to their designated homes. If they don’t learn the value of a toy, they need to know that they can choose to let it go to someone else who will. Regularly involve your children in donating to charity, toy banks, community centres, children’s medical services, kindergartens, nurseries or infant schools. Children need to learn about recycling for the environment, the diversity of our community and its economic needs, and how everyone can help improve our lives.
Exercise, Sports and Hobby equipment: These items must have homes and it is your duty to ensure that they are cleaned immediately after their use and put away in their place. Dirty clothes in washing machines, running shoes in an airy place where their smell won’t linger, and equipment such as bikes in your bike shed, garage or hung up high in the hall on hooks, depending on your living space.
Unsure of what to do with something that just doesn’t have a home? If you have stuff that you just don’t know what to do with, it probably shouldn’t exist any longer as a physical item. Maybe it is information on a scrap of paper or a leaflet that you are certain you will use very soon. Instead, take a digital photo of it and store it in your images file on your digital device. Regularly go through all your digital folders and bin the digital clutter.
If you would like to learn more about living a minimalist lifestyle, please check out my book “Mindful Minimalism” here.