How To Organize and Clean Your House

Keeping a house organized and clean is mostly seen as a daunting and time-consuming task, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Have you ever been to a friend’s house that is just so immaculately clean that it looks like nobody lives there, but in reality a family of seven enjoys the warmth and cleanliness of that home? It looks impossible just looking at it and imagining the amount of work that it requires to accomplish such a feat.

Here’s how they do it:

Declutter

The first step to an organized and clean house is decluttering. There’s really no way around clutter other than disposing them or storing them out of sight. You can really have a clean house having clutter around especially with the help of the amazing people from Calibre Cleaning.

Most of the time, the kitchen is going to be the source of most clutter. Consider it the heart of the house, the busiest part of the house throughout the day more like an indoor workshop, but instead of hammers and nails, you got pots and pans scattered around.

Now, let’s take your kitchen as an example. How do you declutter it?

First, look for things that you don’t need or things that have are just too battered and ugly to be used anymore. Like your favorite 24-inch stainless steel pan that has endured 4 years of cooking and has warped badly under all the heat. You don’t use it but you keep it. It’s too big and it takes too much space in the cabinet. Declutter. Throw it away.

Do the same for the entirety of your home. Holding on to things that you don’t need won’t do you any good, but will only cost you valuable space and give you an unsightly home.

1. Regular Cleaning

You shouldn’t clean for the sake of cleaning. Clean to maintain cleanliness. Cleaning once a month is okay, if it’s a vacation home you visit every summer with two of your kids. And you can hire trusted and reliable cleaners to do that for you.

However, if it’s your permanent home we’re talking about where you eat, sleep, watch TV while emptying a box of pizza, spend time with your family, host little gatherings and whatnot, then you should be cleaning at least twice a week.

In other words, clean even when the house looks clean.

It may sound counter-intuitive, but cleaning regularly more than what you think is enough actually requires less from you — less time, less money, and less energy.

Here’s why:

If you clean once a month, you’re most likely to be looking at a whole day’s work or for some, even more than that, depending on the size of the house. Let’s call that “general cleaning.”

On the other hand, if you clean your house today and spend an hour cleaning, then clean again two days later, you’re probably looking at only 30 minutes of cleaning or “maintenance cleaning.”

Now, do the math and compare the time and energy. If you spend 30 minutes for simple maintenance cleaning three times a week every month, you’re only looking at spending 6 hours a month compared to a full day if you only clean once a month.

And here’s the kicker: if you clean regularly, you don’t only save time, but you also save a lot of your energy and possibly even a good amount of money.

2. Storage

Storage is very important in organizing your house. If things do not have their own designated spaces, you’re guaranteed an untidy house every single time.

It’s only natural for the amount of things in a house to grow over time. We buy a lot of things we need and we don’t need. It’s normal human behavior.

However, this is not an excuse for a disorganized house. There’s a solution to this and it’s somewhat simple. With just a little budget, time and DIY skills, you’d be able to bring back the organization your house once had.

The best storage you can build is vertical storage. Vertical storage is the most efficient way of making use of unused space — air/wall space. At the same time, vertical storages can contain more items than regular horizontal chests, tupperwares and the like.

3. Disinfect

Disinfection is very important especially during this time when a novel coronavirus is a threat to anyone’s life. As you clean, you should also disinfect. Disinfection is different from cleaning. You should know that cleaning is only the act of decluttering and getting rid of visible dirt/dusting. On the other hand, disinfection involves using chemicals or solutions that effectively eliminates bacterias and viruses present on household items.

Just a reminder:

Not all disinfectants are effective against the novel coronavirus. There is a list of disinfectants online that have been approved by the World Health Organization as safe to use for disinfecting against the COVId-19 virus. Before stepping into the store, make sure to check out the list of approved disinfectants.

4. Get everyone involved

Keeping the house organized and clean is not a one-man job. Although you can do it alone, it just requires less energy, time and money doing it with your family or your housemates.

If you live with your family, you can ask them to help you out with cleaning the house regularly. If they have the time, you can assign them their own personal task. This will help you dramatically cut the amount of time you invest in cleaning. If you do all the sweeping, mopping and dusting, you can potentially save 20 minutes of your time if you pass two of your responsibilities to your family.