I was recently asked by a friend to help with any tips or suggestions for keeping the house afloat. I then began to think, "What do I do to keep the house functioning at its best?" I went through my daily activities in my mind and outlined what stood out to me. Now, there's no divine wisdom behind this list but this is what I do to keep sane and it works for us. It may work for you if you've yet to find an approach and need a way to go about keeping your house from becoming a tornado.
List and Tip Sheet for keeping the House Organized and Tidy
1. Make your bed as soon as you get out of it. It takes less than 5 minutes and it can make a world of difference
2. Remove anything you brought in your room the night before (cups, water bottles, laptop, book) and put it away in its designated area
3. Get ready right away in the morning; shower, change, brush your teeth. This helps with having the attitude that you are ready to start the day
4. Laundry: If you are like us and don’t have loads and loads to wash, choose a day where you can make it your “laundry day” and get ALL the laundry done. If you have more than 4 loads this can be hard; so try doing 1 load of laundry a day; start a load before leaving the house.
5. Plan dinner in the morning ( I am by no means a cook but I attempt to make dinner every night; left overs work too :) )
6. Clean the kitchen up after every meal. Make a point to spend the extra ten minutes cleaning up the kitchen, instead of getting behind and letting things pile up.
7. Clean up the living room before going to bed each a night. This can become a family chore. Take five or ten minutes to do a sweep through the living room and put everything back where it belongs.
8. Put it away now. The single, simplest thing I do to stay personally organized is to put whatever tool, item, clothing, bag, hairbrush etc., away immediately after using it. I always know where everything and anything is so I never waste time looking for something. Also, if I am not home the medstud can call to ask where something is and I can tell him exactly where it’s at
9. Pick your clothes out the night before
10. Keep a notepad next to you to write anything down that you think you will remember only to forget minutes later or the next morning
11. Near the Door: Keep items you must have with you when you leave near the door. Place keys, phones and chargers, sunglasses etc. in a baskets or on a table near the door or on a mantel. When you come home put everything back in its designated area. "Contain and maintain." The habit of putting things in one place every time eliminates having to hunt things down, saving frustration and time
12. Sort your mail as soon as you get it. Sort through your mail as soon as it comes. Have baskets or envelopes for mail organized by bills, catalogs, and miscellaneous items. Toss catalogs you know you won’t use or look at immediately, and throw away junk mail. (You may also want to call and ask to be removed from the mailing list.)
13. Keep your dishwasher unloaded: Take a few minutes each day to make sure you keep your dishwasher unloaded. That way, you can immediately load your dishes into the dishwasher after meals so the dishes won’t pile up in the sink.
14. Have designated areas for everything. Have different bins or plastics containers to pile things in; mail, things to be shred, things do to, phone calls to make, papers to be filed away, bill etc. This is great to do because if you have people coming over you can quickly store those bins/containers in room or closet as oppose to cleaning off your dinning/coffee table
15. In and Out of your car: Take anything out of your car that does not need to be in your car especially trash. Do this every time you get out of your car, scan your vehicle real quick and toss stuff
16. Organize your day the night before
17. Try doing things at the same time of each day; I mainly do this in the morning and at night
18. Chore day: Pick a day where you can stay home and clean up the house. OR spend 15-20 minutes each day to clean up an area of the house; a bathroom, a bedroom, the front door area, the kitchen etc. I usually take a part of my day and get it all done in one day especially because I have all the cleaning supplies out. If I have the Windex out I go around the house and Windex anything that needs to be windexed. If I have the vacuum out I vacuum the whole house.
Do I do all of these things all of the time? No. But I do have a way to go about getting them done so that helps tremendously.
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