Many of us are thrown into real life with little-to-no experience with keeping a house clean. Maybe you’re just moving out of the dorms in college, or you’re finally living on your own and feeling a little sloppy.
In any case, we’re here to help. We’re going to explore some great ways to keep your home clean as a beginner, allowing you to free your mind up and feel like a full-blown adult.
Let’s take a look at some methods of keeping your house clean.
The Art of Keeping Your House Clean
The first thing to note is that “clean” is a relative term. We all have our own ideas about cleanliness, what’s expected of us, and what we need in order to be happy in our environment.
So, don’t think that you’re a slob just because you leave a dish in the sink here and there. Your version of clean is a manageable state that keeps you happy and productive in your life.
We can think of “messy” or “dirty” as environments that are cluttered, unkept, and produce a lot of stress and anxiety for you. Keeping your house as clean as your grandmothers might be impossible.
Collecting each spec of dust and doing so every day is just something that we can’t expect to do if we have busy lives.
1. Adjust Your Habits
The first thing to do is to notice the things that you do that create a mess. Every time we sit down or take part in an activity, we create something of a little mess.
Just sitting down in itself flutters the cushions or displaces a chair. So, note that everything you do has an impact on the cleanliness of your house. Some key ways to keep things in order are to place all clothing in laundry baskets when you’re done with them, put all of your dishes away when they’re used, and wipe up anything that spills while you’re using it.
If we leave those few things out throughout the day, our houses will be messy every evening. It’s startling to notice how quickly things get messy if you don’t develop the habits needed to pick up after yourself.
2. Pick a Cleaning Day
Regardless of how tidy you are in your daily life, there are still going to be necessary cleaning times. The best way to do this is to pick a certain day of the week that you pick up and wipe things down.
Even if your house is relatively tidy, still take part of that day to deep clean various parts of your home. You’ll find that, as your habits change, your home gets gradually cleaner and cleaner.
Digging into the deep areas of cleaning, though, is important as well. Scrubbing under the oven, getting into the cracks of the bathroom tiles, and other tedious tasks are what keep your environment hygienic.
You have to have a specific time to do those things, though. If you don’t plan to do them at a particular time, that task will just be another thing that gives you anxiety when you think about it.
We procrastinate and procrastinate, only to find that the mess grows as we wait.
3. Have The Supplies You Need On Hand
It’s really easy to leave those dishes in the sink if you don’t have any tools to scrub them with. The same goes for sweeping, washing, and vacuuming.
Get the supplies you have to have in order to keep your home clean. You don’t need to invest in anything fancy to get the job done. Just purchase the nuts and bolts and make sure that they’re somewhere that you can find them.
This seems like a simple thing, but many people just don’t prioritize having the right cleaning tools. Either that or they just don’t buy them again when they use them up or supplies run out.
Do your best to prioritize trips to the store to pick these things up when they run out. When you do go out and make these purchases, consider investing in eco friendly cleaning for home supplies.
4. Acknowledge The Connection to Mental Health
If you don’t have good reason to keep things clean, odds are that you won’t do it. Cleaning is something we do to maintain hygiene and feel good about ourselves.
That said, if you lose sight of the way cleaning makes you feel, there’s very little stopping you from avoiding it altogether. Make note that cleaning regularly sets a foundation for your mental health.
You feel good when your environment is clean. Further, you can find things, enjoy your space, and get that little rush of endorphins when you complete the task of cleaning.
On the other side of things, living in a dirty and stressful environment can harm your mental health. We forget this fact when we decide to slack on a cleaning project, but it’s the truth. Letting things get out of order and dirty in our homes can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression.
They might not be the source, but there’s a chain reaction between some symptoms of mental illness and the state of your living environment.
5. Pick Up at The End of The Day
Finally, run through your house before you go to bed to see if there’s anything that you can pick up. Remember, the less total mess there is to deal with, the better chance you’ll have of keeping things clean.
Picking up the odds and ends from the day can make the general toll of “cleaning the house” feel a lot less significant. If you can turn this into a habit, you might find that your space is consistently cleaner and less intimidating to clean.
Need More Home Management Tips?
Hopefully, our advice on how to keep your house clean and organized was helpful to you. You’ll discover your own secrets to keeping a clean house as you get the hang of it, but the ideas above should serve as a good foundation.
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