How to Keep Your Home Tidy and Have More Time for Yourself

Sponsored – The popular psychology that comes from the Far East says that a clean house helps us keep our minds clean as well. There is even a book by a Shin-Buddhist monk, Shoukei Matsumoto, that addresses the issue — ‘A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind’.

While some people simply don’t mind being messy, we can’t deny that a clean space does transmit better vibes. There are a variety of cleaning methods out there – perhaps the most well-known is the KonMari Method. Whatever cleaning system you use to keep your house clean, here are a few tips that take inspiration from the KonMari cleaning method that you can include in your everyday routine.

Put Everything Back to Its Place

This might seem like an impossible task at first, but once you create a habit of it, it will vastly influence the overall free time you have each day.

The majority of people leave things wherever they find themselves at a particular moment. You come back from work, take off your shoes in the corridor, leave your bag in the living room, and your coat on the couch.

The situation repeats when you are leaving your home — you do your makeup and leave everything on the table. Or you take things out of the closet, and while you try them on you throw them on your bed before you finally choose what you’ll wear.

And while these actions don’t seem like anything that can cause trouble, repeating them day by day will create a huge mess that will stress you out the moment you start cleaning. The stress will also occur when you try to find a particular item the following day and get lost in the pile of things you have created.

That’s why the KonMari method advocates for creating a habit of putting everything where it belongs immediately after you are done using it. That way, you will always know where to find your things and you will have less work to do when cleaning. Therefore, you’ll have more time for your favourite activities.

Don’t Put off Until Tomorrow What You Can Do Today

Another thing that people often do is procrastinating and postponing responsibilities for one more hour, day, week, or even month. Although we sometimes plan when we are going to do certain things, it is not necessary to strictly stick to the schedule when it comes to things that don’t require a deadline.

Maybe you planned to mow the lawn or organise your accessories on Sunday morning. However, your friend cancelled the picnic plans you had for Saturday and now you have nothing to do. So why not finish on Saturday whatever you had planned for Sunday?

Even one day without any tasks awaiting in the morning will make you feel relaxed since you will be able to spontaneously do whatever you feel like and simply go with the flow.

Kill Two Birds With One Stone

This trick is one of the best time-savers you can use each day. The process of ‘killing two birds with one stone’ doesn’t mean that you should do two things at the same time because, in that case, you wouldn’t be able to focus on any of them properly.

What you can do instead is to finish some minor things while something else is ‘getting done’. In practice, this includes situations like wiping your kitchen counter and putting the dishes in the machine while the turkey in the oven is getting ready. Another option that can save your time is cleaning the sink while the acid you sprayed your shower with works on melting the limescale.

These little things make your home clean for longer and help you reduce your cleaning time to a minimum later on.

Do Regular Seasonal Cleaning

Even if you follow all of the above-mentioned steps and your house doesn’t look like it needs a seasonal cleaning, devote one day at the beginning of every season to detailed cleaning.

Pay attention to all the things you are not going to use in the following months. That can include putting away winter clothes that take up half of your closet, storing your roller blades or anything else that doesn’t belong to the current season.

So take these suggestions, inspired by Marie Kondo, and enjoy all the free time you have from cleaning efficiently!

This was a guest post written by Kyle Moore.