5 Tips for Maintaining a Tidy Home in These Troubled Times
Do you sometimes struggle to keep a tidy home? Don’t worry. You aren’t alone.
It may seem that in times like these, keeping your house clean and organized has a relatively unimportant priority. But it’s important to keep things sanitary, and being in a clean and well-organized space can help greatly with feelings of depression — and being ‘stuck in the house’ when the house doesn’t feel like a home.
Now, we understand that keeping a whole house tidy can seem like a ton of work, especially if you’re trying to do it all at once! But, with a little bit of planning and organization, this challenging task can be made much simpler. And yes, YOU can do it!
Keep reading for our top five tips to help your house sparkle every day.
Keeping a Tidy Home: Our Top 5 Tips
Having a clean house can positively impact your physical and mental health. So, while it will require a bit of effort every day, it’s well worth your while!
1. Clean as You Go
Don’t wait for messes and clutter to build up. Instead, clean and put away items right after you use them. This is especially important for areas like your kitchen and bathroom, which can become hotspots for germs in your house.
High-traffic areas like entryways and laundry rooms can also get out of control quickly. Putting up clothes and everyday items as soon as you’re done with them will keep these problem areas looking perfect.
During this time of COVID-19, it’s important to recognize that sanitizing is ‘different’ from traditional cleaning — and that the effective steps are simple, but must be prompt and consistent. So have the ‘right’ EPA List N sanitizers ready to hand, know how to use them, and then use them right away … on hands, and on surfaces you contact (including your telephone, your keys, your cards, and other things you breathe on or touch)
2. Everything in Its Place
You’ll find it much easier to keep your home tidy and organized if you start with clean habits. Creating a “home” for each and every thing you own will prevent you from just moving clutter from one room to the next… or ‘putting off organizing’ until it seems an overwhelming task.
Plus, having a system of organization in place will help if you want to delegate housework. This is ideal when you want to assign your kids chores, or you decide you want to hire a professional house cleaner to do the things you don’t want to do, or feel you can’t.
Professional anti-viral sanitation services, for example, can bring peace of mind as well as best chances for health even should outbreaks of COVID-19 spread to your area. When you know just how and when to use these services, they can be valuable, particularly when they can be delegated ‘around’ much of the everyday cleaning you can do yourself — or pre-organize to be ‘done’ to your satisfaction when they arrive.
3. Stick to a Schedule
Dedicating just a few minutes of time to cleaning every day will keep you from spending hours at a time catching up on scrubbing and scouring over the weekend.
Start by choosing a part of your day that you can devote regularly to cleaning — a time when you can clean quickly and without disturbance or distraction. This might be first thing in the morning, right when you get off work, or just after dinnertime. Making it a habit to decide on short, achievable tasks, and then completing them fully at a particular time, builds both the discipline and the sense of achievement that are valuable in assuring a clean lifestyle.
This will also give you a clear idea when, for any reason, you can’t maintain tidiness entirely by yourself or with good discipline. Then you can ask for help only when and as you might need it … then go right back to maintaining on schedule.
4. Focus on the Big Picture
It’s easy to get caught up in the details. But, when it comes to tidy housecleaning, you’ll want to keep the big picture in mind. No point in deep cleaning a countertop if you’re just going to stack piles of household clutter right back on top of it!
Walk into a few different rooms in your house, and notice how you feel in each space. If your eye is drawn to piles of clutter or you start experiencing stress, you know the area needs some attention. When you can, figure out a plan to get each of these spaces tidy, and then ‘work that plan’ — put clutter away, make decisions to keep or throw, reorganize as necessary — for each space, to get the ‘whole’ of your living space lined out and right. Then you can be more comfortable keeping it that way.
5. Know When to Hire Help
If you’ve let a few areas go too long without a good deep cleaning, it might be time to call in some professionals. Don’t worry; the right maid service will be happy to help!
Start by assessing the situation. If you think it’s going to take you more than a few hours to tackle your household clutter and mess … or you keep finding you don’t have the time to quite ever finish getting things right … you’re probably in over your head.
There’s nothing to be embarrassed about! Even if your home is spotless, hiring an expert for a deep cleaning once or twice a year will help get your living spaces to feel warm, inviting, and totally hygienic … after which you’ll find it easier to work to keep them that way.
Get Started Today
Now that you’ve got some basic information on maintaining a tidy home, you’re ready to think about tackling those ‘problem areas’.
Use this article as a checklist and make a resolution to put a few healthy habits in place, and you’ll find it easier to keep the house spotless later on. And, if you think it’s time to call for backup, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Wondering how much it will cost to get a professional cleaning ? Contact us for a discussion and free estimate today!