If your homeis currently completely tidy and clean…congratulations! You’ve probably worked hard over the last few days to get rid of the things you don’t need, to organize and put your belongings away, and to make every corner of your home sparkle. But now that you’ve come this far, don’t get complacent, because tidiness and cleanliness don’t maintain themselves.
The thing is, for all the effort you’ve put in to really be worth it, you need to know and apply a series of strategies that will help you keep dirt and clutter at bay. But don’t worry—at CULMIA, we want to make it easy for you, so we’ve put together a list of tips that, if you put them into practice, will help you keep everything around you under control.
Tips for Keeping Your Home Clean
Be consistent
Maintaining a home involves cleaning it (along with everything inside it) every few days. Dust and dirt tend to accumulate naturally, so consistency is essential if we are to enjoy ideal living conditions at all times.
If we establish specific routines, we’ll find it easier to get into the habit of cleaning, so shortly after we start doing it regularly, it will become second nature. For example, we can set aside specific times during the week to “get to work,” such as Sunday mornings to dust or mop the floors in the bedrooms.
Not all areas of the house and objects get dirty to the same extent
You might think the best approach is to clean every part of the house at once, but the truth is that not everything requires the same level of care. For example, it’s probably enough to dust the furniture and rooms once a week, but the bathroom deserves more special attention, and you should disinfect its most important areas (such as the sink or toilet) with water and specific cleaning products about three times a week.
Meanwhile, you should wash your clothes after wearing them once or twice at most; the refrigerator will need a thorough cleaning every one or two months, towels will need to go through the washing machine every three or four uses, and you should also make sure to change your pillows and sheets every two weeks.
Keep your shoes in a specific place
It is estimated that a typical shoe has approximately 421,000 bacteria on the outside and 2,887 on the inside. So it’s definitely not a good idea to walk around the house with them on after coming in from outside. Instead, take them off as soon as you come in, brush them off, and store them in their designated spot, such as a shoe cabinet.
If you make a mess, clean it up as soon as possible
Activities like cooking or eating can make a mess in the kitchen or dining room, respectively. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the problem arises if we don’t clean everything up right away, because we’re very likely to end up forgetting about it or putting it off, and the dirty area could become a breeding ground for bacteria or even insects.
It may not be necessary to clean up if we’ve just finished cooking and plan to eat right away. However, we should clean up all the mess once we’re done and restore the kitchen to its clean state, so that the next time we use it, we can do so under the best possible conditions.
The Importance of Ventilation
Ventilating the room every day is also very important to prevent dust and dirt from accumulating. If we open all the windows in the morning or at night, we’ll get rid of any unpleasant odors that may have built up over the hours, breathe cleaner air, and prevent harmful substances—such as certain gases produced while cooking—from accumulating in the room.
Replace or wash the kitchen and bathroom rags and dishcloths every few days
Rags and cleaning cloths are very useful for picking up dirt and cleaning hard-to-reach corners in delicate areas of your home, such as the kitchen sink, the corners of the bathtub or shower, or the bathroom sink. And, since they serve such an important purpose, it’s important to take special care to ensure that dirt doesn’t build up on them. Ideally, you should wash or replace them every few days; otherwise, they may accumulate bacteria, and when you use them, you could spread those bacteria throughout your home.
Do not let trash pile up
Anything you throw away or don’t need, take it to the trash right away. Try not to leave it on a table or toss it on the floor with the intention of cleaning it up later, because that will just create more work for you later on. In fact, constantly putting things in the trash will fill it up, so you can take it out frequently and avoid letting several bags pile up at home.
Tips for Keeping Your Home Tidy
Every time you use something, put it back where it belongs when you’re done.
To keep your home tidy, you need to find a place to store everything in it: books, toys, paints, kitchen utensils, etc. So, if you need to use any of these items at any given time, don’t forget to put them back where they belong once you’re done. If you don’t, it’s very likely that clutter will soon take over your home.
Don’t try to have more things than you need
You may be trying everything to tidy up your home, but to no avail. This may be because you simply have more things in your home than you can keep organized. The fact is, the accumulation of clutter and objects can end up being a problem in and of itself, especially if you don’t have enough space to store them.
Faced with this issue, we have no choice but to begin a decluttering process in which we throw away everything that isn’t useful to us. Although it won’t even be necessary to reach this point if we first make a drastic decision: to get rid of one item every time we bring a new one into the house. This way, by following the “one for one” rule, we’ll ensure we always have a similar amount of space without having to accumulate more stuff.
Surfaces should always be as clean as possible
Tables, entryway furniture, or shelves are sometimes like “magnets” that invite us to set down whatever we happen to be holding at the moment. From the keys in our pocket to papers, books, or even items we’ve just bought and don’t know where to put.
However, these are key areas in our home because they tend to fill up easily, and when they do, they give off a strong sense of clutter. So we shouldn’t use them as “pass-through” areas where we leave whatever comes to mind out of convenience or indecision. Instead, it’s better to take two minutes to put the item back where it belongs or to decide where to put it if we’ve just bought it.
A Little Tidying Up at the End of the Day
Yes, by the end of the day we’re usually tired. But if we haven’t been careful enough to follow the basic rules of organization throughout the day, we’ll probably have to spend 15 minutes before going to bed to put everything back where it belongs. We’re talking about going over the most important areas, like the kitchen or our bedroom, to make sure we don’t leave any dishes or cutlery unwashed or clothes out of place.
Take special care with your clothes
It’s no coincidence that we just mentioned clothes, because they’re one of the things that can make it hardest for us to keep our homes tidy. When we change clothes, we might be tempted to leave them on the bed, a chair, or even on the floor. That’s a big mistake, because not only does it create extra work for later, but it also instantly destroys the sense of order.
Therefore, try to be consistent about this, and when you take off your clothes, do one of two things: put them back in the closet or wardrobe if it’s a coat or jacket that you can wear again, or put them in the laundry basket (or washing machine) to wash them when the time comes.
A little effort every day will save you a lot of work every so often
In short, if you always keep in mind the importance of keeping your home tidy and clean, you can incorporate small routines into your daily life that will allow you to enjoy a healthy and welcoming environment.
In fact, if you’re interested in learning more about this topic and gaining an in-depth understanding of techniques for keeping your home tidy at all times, feel free to download our free guide here:
We hope you find this very helpful!
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