Clean and Simple: 5 Easy Cleaning and Organizing Hacks for Homebodies!

You may have noticed the creeping emergence of a particular phenomenon while enduring what is for many their 2^nd full month of voluntary lockdown. Once you notice it, its origins may seem mysterious. But like most things, it is easily explained.

I am talking about - wait for it - habitat pollution; otherwise known as becoming a slob. You see, when we are unaccustomed to spending so much of our time in the same limited space, what may in normal times be only a mild case of messiness, a slight tendency to leave a sock or two on the floor, a nominal ability to rationalize leaving the dishes until later – may during home isolation suddenly mutate into an explosion of trash, mountains of unsorted recycling, dirty laundry, and crusty dishes.

And then my fellow homebodies, you may be faced with the realization that – you are a slob. If I sound like I’m talking from experience, then, so be it – this is not about me, it is about helping you avoid becoming like me.

There are a lot of stupid sayings and traditional wisdom about keeping yourself and your environment clean:

Cleanliness is next to Godliness; Clean bodies, pure morals; It will all come right in the wash; The world is our house. Keep it clean, yada yada

 Unfortunately for slovenly homebodies everywhere, one truth is unmistakable: a cleaner, uncluttered house leads to a cleaner, uncluttered mind. If you tend towards the messy side of the tidy/messy spectrum, you really owe it yourself to test this assertion out for yourself. Especially for people who may be a bit scatter-brained and disorganized, getting your “ducks in a row”, (i.e. Cleaning your damn house) can truly make a mind and mood changing difference for the better. And improving your mindset and mood is, by definition, improving your life.

It would be foolish however to presume that individuals who have been honing the art of habitat disorder for a lifetime can suddenly decide to flip the switch and turn into Marie Kondo! We can change some things, but most people just don’t change fundamentally all that much. So, making your home cleaning and organizing project a sustainable lifestyle habit must be approached thoughtfully. Small changes are easier to keep than big changes, and when we maintain them for a period, they become habits. That is when we can proudly proclaim, we have changed for the better. That’s called personal evolution folks. And once that has happened, we have also laid the foundation for other incremental changes that, if we are not careful, may snowball into a runaway train of success and self-improvement!

Ok, whoa there – let’s not get carried away. Let us start at the beginning. Let’s do this little cleaning and organizing task first. Let us get this little ball rolling that it may have a chance to become bigger.

One thing you’ve got going for you in this regard, if you’re furloughed from work and whiling away the days shopping online or playing Mortal Kombat, is time and, presumably, being well-rested, and even perhaps a little bored, so that you’re in the right frame of mind to kick yourself in the butt and get going on something productive. If you have followed any advice from the last post on Morning Rituals, you may even be ahead of me already!

So Let’s start with some simple, easy cleaning and organizing tips, hacks and habits that lazy people like me can implement as effortlessly as farting in the bathtub, and come back after a week to evaluate if this new routine passes the smell test. Shall we

1. Give All Your Stuff a Home

We all know how important it is to have a place we can always go back to, where we’ll always feel welcomed, right? Well, treat your things with the same respect and you’ll thank yourself later. Not only will your home look cleaner and tidier, but you’ll always be able to find everything!

2. Create or (If You’re Too Lazy for DIY) Buy Organizers for Everything that tends to get scattered around the house.

Things like shoes, hair accessories, spices, seasonings and sauces, stationary items, and definitely toys, are the primary culprits in making your home look like the aftermath of a tornado simulation. Group these things together by them and function, and give them a shared co-location – doing this one thing will make a huge difference to your level of domestic bliss.

24 Pocket Hanging Organizer

Stackable Spice Organizer

3. Throw stuff out!

If you’ve done 1 and 2, and you still have stuff cluttering your house, ask yourself if you really need it – if yes, make a home for it. If no, pitch it.

4. The 5 Minute Drill

Every time you come home, do a quick visual scan of your place. You’re likely not going out far or often these days, and if you’re a homebody, that’s the norm anyway. However, after being outside for a while you have fresh eyes to look at your place, and the parts that are sparking anti-joy will stand out. Take 5-10 minutes to buzz around and tidy up the first few spots that caught your eye when you came in. Then your home time pleasure factor will be multiplied by 5.

5. Wash Dishes As You Cook!

If you love to cook and hate to clean , like me, a mountain of pots and dishes to clean after a meal can be downright depressing. I’ve found a great remedy to that by just taking those few down moments while cooking, like waiting for water to boil or the oil in the pan to heat up, to quickly wash up and place in the over the sink dish drying rack (which I also highly recommend in the organizing tools category)

That’s it! Baby Steps, homebodies! If you have found yourself in a tidiness rut in recent days, PLEASE do yourself a favor and take some time to get everything neat and tidy. You’ll want to thank me, but don’t – thank yourself!