KEEP YOUR HOME ORGANISED ROUND THE CLOCK

Having a full-time job, taking care of the kids and running a household is a lot to handle. How often isn’t your house clean one minute and a mess the next? Here are some simple daily habits to keep your home always organised.

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Wake and make!
If you’ve ever come home to an unmade bed; this is for you. Start making your bed up as soon as you wake up – this will encourage you to keep the rest of the room neat and tidy. Getting into the habit of making your bed right away, will help to you to do a quick scoop of the rest of the room and complete small tasks like putting that pile of dirty clothes (that’s usually over “the chair”) into the laundry basket. 

“Making your bed immediately will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed," says William H. McRaven, author of Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life . . . and Maybe the World.



Leave all your pocket items in one place
Keep your pocket items – cell phones, wallets, car keys and sunglasses – in a basket close to the front door. This will aid you to take what you need when heading out and, more importantly, to remember where they are. It will also reduce the amount of counter clutter in your home.

Take 20 minutes a day to clean up
Skip Saturday’s long list of piled-up chores from the week (read: headache) through consistent clean-ups. If you take 20 minutes a day before or after work to do some simple chores, you’ll have ticked off at least one thing on your list every day. Choose one day to clear out that junk drawer in the living room then do a quick load of washing (load-shedding allowing) the next day.

Clean out your fridge weekly
It’s easy to pack away leftovers and forget about them. Tackle your fridge once a week and get rid of mouldy leftovers and expired food. Unpack the contents of your fridge and wipe down the shelves. Not only will you clear out waste, but it’s also a great way to keep stock of the fresh ingredients you’ll need for the coming week.

Ensure everyone keeps to their chores
A simple way to keep track of the mess, is to ensure everyone is doing their part to clean up too. It becomes a slippery slope when one person neglects their chore, and it spills over to the next day. Make a schedule for everyone in the household and make sure everyone understands their responsibilities. It alleviates the pressure of one person having to clean all the time.