Coming home or waking up to a dirty home can throw off your entire day. Setting an intention for a clean home is building a simple everyday mindset. How you treat your home is how you treat your life. When we go into a restaurant we want a clean, unique to the eye, and the smell of fantastic food. We need that same satisfaction coming into our own house. Enabling us to look forward to coming home, living in a clean space and a spot to hang out with loved ones. Read further to get some helpful mindset tips to maintain a clean and organized home.
1. Pick up what you put down
Leave no trace behind! When you go camping or to the beach, you always pick up your trash when you leave right? Why would you leave trash around your own house? When you are taking off dirty clothes, instead of putting them on the ground, put them directly in the hamper. You may think, well I get lazy. If you think about it, leaving your belongings all over the ground is giving yourself more work. One day you are going to have to pick everything up, when you could've saved your time doing other meaningful activities. Have the items that leave your hand, put directly in a place where they belong. Do not have time? I do not believe walking 5 seconds to the hamper or dishwasher is filling that much of your time up. If anything doing this is saving you time in the future from having to pick up after yourself. It is all in the mindset of how you go about it.
2. Clean your dishes immediately
This goes hand and hand with pick up what you put down. Leaving dishes in the sink for a long time will cause them to be harder to clean, stinky and making you even more lazier when it comes time to wash them. The goal is to end your night with everything clean, so you can wake up feeling clean and ready to start a new day, not cleaning after yourself the next morning. After enjoying your meal, you do not want to sit there thinking about doing the dishes. My tip here is to wash most of them while cooking or before you enjoy your meal. Ask for help! The more hands you get on the dishes, the faster it will go by. Drying dishes after they have been washed is an efficient way to have your kitchen cleaned quicker and not leaving waterspouts behind. The faster you get it done, the less time you have to think about it.
3. One cleaning chore a day
Seven days in one week, how many of those days do you clean your home? Maybe 1 day? Then that 1 day takes hours, leading you to dread cleaning your home. Pick at least 1 chore a day that only take up 5-20 minutes out of the 24 hours in a day. Let's say for an example...
Sunday: dishes
Monday: laundry
Tuesday: wipe down surfaces and cabinets
Wednesday: clean floors
Thursday: dust
Friday and Saturday: have people over
The difference it makes will leave your friends speechless of how clean your home always is. Carve out those minutes you do chores, out of the time you would spend on the couch, on your phone or watching TV. This can easily be done while talking to friends or family and even watching tv, multitasking. No need to worry about picking up your things because you already have the no trace left behind mindset.
4. Have a spot for all your belongings
If you have a space for all your things and remember where those items go, it will be easy to return and find them. The biggest issue we face is not having room for the things we own, they become decoration cluttered around our house because we do not know where to put them. When you have a small space, think about the furniture you put in your area, will it hold all your possessions? Buy what will be beneficial to your space in your home. Along with that, categorize what you put in those drawers, so you know where to go when you are looking for a specific commodity. This saves you time and worry on where you last put that item. Use your creativity to maximize the potential of your space, there is never enough storage. Your future self will thank you.
5. Keep habits accessible
Having habits is important because they set a pattern for your life. To maintain habits you have to keep them in spots you access everyday, so you remember to do them. Keep your habits where you go to everyday, like your medicine cabinet or desk drawer. Keeping them out will cause clutter and your mind will be frazzled. Checking off a list is the best feeling of being accomplished, track your routine in a weekly planner. Some examples of good habits are journaling, reading, working out, taking vitamins and of course, cleaning. Do this for a month and you will see the improvement of your behavior within days. This routine will help you maintain the schedule we all need in our lives.
6. Fill your home with scents
The right aromas can evoke pleasant feelings and improve physiological health. It causes emotional centers of the brain to determine how you are feeling. It has the power to influence your mood and anxiety by memory. We buy the candles, essential oils and lotions by the scents that attract us. Take advantage of the simple pleasures of a nice scented candle in the room where you spend your time. It will make your home more attractive to your liking and loving your space. We spend most of our time indoors, create an ambience of pleasure for yourself and boost your mood.
7. Surround yourself with what you love
Creating the perfect ambience ties in with scents and decorations. In #4 I point out that everything you own needs to be put away, meaning junk and non decoration things. To make it your own space, surround it with decorations that call to you. That could be local art, plants, animals, candles, and hobbies that you love. There is no greater feeling than having a clean, nice smelling space, filled with things you love. What is the point of bringing out you creativity just to trash it. Having the mindset of clean makes you want to maintain an arranged home that you are in control of. Things that make you happy and feel good, just as you would taking care of yourself.
What you leave your home like is similar to what you wear when you leave home. You do not start your day wearing underwear or without brushing your teeth. Treat your home like you would take care of yourself. Make your home sacred to you, something you deserve to come home to or work in. Do less work by thinking smarter on how you treat your home. How you maintain it now will determine how your attitude will presume your life. Keep yourself living a productive life rather than a lazy one, there is not enough time to be messy. If you spend your time looking at dirt, you will feel like dirt. Use that time to clean up your act by filling it with goals, achievements and your future.
Photos by Kailynn
This inspired me to clean and organize my space! Thanks Kailynn!