Keeping Your Home Organized (Part One)

Alright! If you have been following this series of organizing your home, you have finally arrived. Your home has never looked better and the compliments are flying. However, with all of that hard work, the temptation may be to rest on your laurels. If you value all you have gone through to get your home where it is now, it is vital to stay the course and not go backwards.

The fact is, there are some easy steps to take that take mere moments a day to do in order to keep your house spic and span. Everyone can find the time to take 15 to 30 minutes a day and maintain their home in stages. Let’s begin going room by room, starting with the kitchen.

Maintaining the Kitchen

Here are some suggestions to do daily:

It is important to put dirty dishes in your dishwasher or dishpan under the sink on a daily basis. Then, when either is full, do the dishes right away. If you run your dishwasher while you’re asleep at night, you’ll pay lower utility rates and the dishes will be cool and clean in the morning—ready to be put away.

Take a cleaning cloth dampened with the cleaner of your choice and go over the countertops and tabletop once a day. This will take you mere moments, yet will help keep your kitchen organized and neat. If you do this daily, you shouldn’t have to scrub or take everything off the counters; just wipe where you’ve cooked or eaten.

Clean your sink daily. Scrub it with a soap pad or use some window cleaner and a rag—if your sink is clean, you’re less likely to let dirty dishes pile up in it.

Finally, sweep your floors at least once a week. Just take a broom across it and get the big crumbs. Then run a damp mop over it to get the week’s dirt washed off—you don’t have to shine it, just a damp mop (the type is your choice).

Maintaining the Living Room Areas

On a daily basis (or as needed) pick up all papers laying around and either throw them away or file them appropriately in their proper location. If you are diligent about keeping the papers picked up, your room will appear much more organized and clean, even if you haven’t done any deep cleaning.

Once a week, run your duster over the flat surfaces. It’s a 5 minute job that will make a huge impact in your room(s).

Do a general vacuum once a week. Don’t bother moving furniture or using the crevice tools; just do the middle areas where you walk. This should only take 15 minutes, max.

Now take your glass cleaner and clean the TV screen and any other glass that collects fingerprints and dust once a week. Come on, 3 minutes, tops!

Just doing quick and easy tasks gives you the key to stay organized. Once you get going, things get done! We will move on in the next article to the bathroom.