Clean home – clean mind, that’s how the saying goes. It sounds a bit pretentious, but it doesn’t make it wrong. The concept of a clean home is something we get used to while living at home with our parents. But when it’s time to move into a fresh new apartment or dorm room, it gets hard to keep everything under control.
Still, we understand that a messy apartment translates into a messy life. How many times did you need to find a shirt or your paper writing service homework you’ve lost under the piles of something that once was your table? It stops now. We’ll help you get your life sorted and room cleaned.
Cleaning 101: Fast and Productive
Cleaning up a mess might seem really daunting to someone who’s not used to doing it all the time. That’s why we’ve brought you the top five tips that can help.
Start With One Room
If you feel like there’s too much of everything everywhere and you want it to be gone right this moment, we will disappoint you – it won’t happen. Unless you want to get burnt out and bored of the cleaning right away, you need to take it one room at a time.
Pick whatever doesn’t seem too much for you at the moment, and start small. There’s no better motivator than success, so you need to finish what you’ve set out to do. Even a small room cleaned is a win!
Plan It Out
Have you ever seen those esthetically pleasing planners that organize all the tasks in small chunks? You can be that person with a planner on your fridge or in your notebook.
The bare minimum you need to do is outline the chores you usually have and put the check boxes next to them. If you put a checkmark every time you’ve done something, menial tasks will become your achievements. It will be like a reward.
Set Out to Complete at Least One Task a Day
There are days when we feel unproductive, tired, or like even a small problem is too much for us. It’s okay to get rest from the things that hang over you. Still, we promise you that even doing something small, like putting your dirty clothes in the laundry or unpacking the backpack, will feel like conquering mount Everest. And believing in yourself is exactly what you need at that moment.
Don’t Be Hard on Yourself
Our rooms are not always squeaky clean, and it’s okay. Some mess can be intentional or even cozy: no one wants to live in a museum, so relax and don’t stress over making your living space look like a display.
How to Keep the Room Tidy?
It’s one thing to clean your space, but how to keep it that way? Anyone can say that you only need to put the stuff back in its original place, but life happens. There are many reasons for having a messy room, but we won’t go into all of them. Let’s concentrate on the ways we can deal with the mess.
Have a Dedicated Shelf for Everything
This might sound too primitive but think of all the times you’ve lost your keys, a transport card, or a water bottle. When you have a place for all your stuff, you can’t really lose it or make a mess with it. It’ll just be in its place.
Keep Horizontal Surfaces Clean
This advice is one of the most popular to make your living space look “fake clean.” All the mess usually comes from visual clutter. So when your table is empty, and there’s no stuff strewn around on the floors, the room already feels clean. All you need is a table with drawers and some storage cubes to get all the things that were usually visible hidden from sight.
Don’t Store Your Clothes on the Bed
Our beds are a giant empty space that looks too inviting not to throw some clothes on, followed by a couple of books you don’t need right now and a backpack. Avoid putting anything there. If you start, it gets hard to stop.
Trust us; you will thank yourself if, after a crazy day/night, you can come home and just go to bed. If nothing is on the bed, nothing needs to be cleaned up or thrown on the floor (in an emergency situation, of course).
Have a Laundry Hamper Near Your Closet
Having a separate hamper in or near your closet will significantly simplify your life. Now, every time you come back home and go to change, you can throw your clothes in the laundry right away and forget about having a mess. This also decreases your cleaning time by a lot. You can just take your hamper to a laundry machine without collecting dirty stuff from all over the apartment.
Put Your Things Back
However corny it may sound, you do need to put everything you’ve used back in its place. That’s why your stuff should have a spot in the first place. This might become one of your evening rituals.
Some people like to get out of “outside” clothes right when they enter the house, so other duties can come before putting them in their place. That is why it’s a great idea to turn your brain off after a day on your computer and spend half an hour putting everything where you like it.
Is It Really That Easy?
The state your space is in can depend on many factors, and you should not beat yourself up if it’s not spotless every minute of the day. Mental health can affect your desire to clean or even care about your apartment, so don’t be too hard on yourself and try to take your chores one at a time. The only person you’re responsible before is yourself, so remember to praise yourself and celebrate even the littlest achievements.