We all have those moments when our home is a mess. Laundry starts to pile up in our service yard, the dishes pile up, and the bathroom is in complete chaos. It seems like no matter how much we try to catch up with the cleaning, it keeps piling up. It can leave you feeling like you’re a failure, and like you’re not sure where to start when it comes to getting things back in order.
Yet, you’re not alone if this sounds like you. A messy home isn’t always about laziness or even lack of time. More often than not, it also comes down to a lack of tools and know-how. Believe it or not, sometimes the cleanest homes are often a result of minimal cleaning. It’s all about knowing the right tips and tricks. If your home is a bomb site, then here are some common reasons why it might be a mess. Perhaps more importantly, here are some ways you can remedy it.
You Have Too Many Things
It’s simple science: the more things you own, the more things you have to tidy up. The more things you have to store, manage, and dust… you get the idea. No amount of organizing can make a space feel tidy if it’s too overfilled. Clutter creates visual stress, and it makes it much harder to make a space look clean and tidy.
Start decluttering your house room by room, and be ruthless about what you actually use and what you don’t. If you don’t absolutely love something and you haven’t used it for a long period of time, get rid of it. Donate it, recycle it, or sell it if you can. Remember, less stuff means less stress and less mess.
You Don’t Have a System in Place
People with tidy homes have a specific system set in place to keep it that way. If you don’t have a regular cleaning schedule or system, then your house will be in disarray in no time. You need to decide where things should be kept, how they should be organized, and how often you should straighten up. Use bins, trays, baskets, and labels—whatever it takes to make it easy to put things away quickly and with a system in place.
You’re Tired
If you have an extremely demanding professional life, then chances are the last thing you feel like doing when you get home is cleaning. This is completely understandable. Yet, lots of people are tired and still manage to clean their house.
Build tiny little habits into your day that involve cleaning. Tiny spurts of cleaning can add up over the course of the week. Instead of pushing yourself to do a huge clean once a week that completely exhausts you, try to incorporate small cleaning sessions every single day into your schedule. You’ll find that it will keep the mess from building up, and it’s much less exhausting.