I spend the majority of my time in my home and when it isn’t tidy, I have a very difficult time concentrating. Not only is visual clutter unsightly, but it heightens my anxiety and creates mental clutter. I’ve been working on a consistent daily routine for a few months now, as a way of dealing with my anxiety issues and to keep my safe haven as tidy as possible.
These are five things I have been able to implement daily to keep my home clean and my brain calm.
1. Make the bed – this is the simplest thing I can do to make the day ahead smoother. When our bed is made, the room feels tidier. And, it almost forces me to clean up around the room, since I want the whole room to feel relaxed and zen.
2. Run the dishwasher – Running the dishwasher daily is literally life changing. The amount of mental strain that loading and unloading an overflowing dishwasher caused is crazy to think about – and I didn’t even realize it was happening! Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to run the dishwasher every day, so I’ll do it every other. I cannot even describe how happy it makes me to unload a dishwasher that is only a quarter full. Life. Changing.
3. Put away clutter – when I’m feeling particularly anxious about something, I have a huge tendency to stop cleaning up after myself. Coasters will be left out on the coffee table, purses left hanging on the dining chairs, shoes left by the front door, etc. I find that if I make an effort to put these items in their proper places every night, I wake up feeling much less overwhelmed. Chad is also notorious for littering about the condo, however picking up after him always seems like less strain than picking up after myself (go figure).
4. At least 1 load of laundry – Full disclosure, I am still actively working on this one. I hate doing laundry, with every fiber of my being. However, I’ve found that the weeks where I’m on top of it, are some of the least stressful weeks I have. When you break tasks you hate down into smaller more manageable tasks, they tend to be less overwhelming. Since I do almost all of the laundry in our household (aside from Chad’s clothing, he does his own [best husband ever]), there always seems to be something to do. Breaking it down into a daily task is so helpful – as long as you can stick to it. I feel like this one will always be a work in progress.
5. Vacuum 1 room – If you ask any of my immediate family how I feel about vacuuming, they will all tell you, Erinn doesn’t vacuum. And they would be right. I despise it and I don’t do it. I have despised it since I was a kid. The problem with despising it but also being the person who keeps your home clean is you can’t. You have to get over it. As I have worked my way through these 5 simple things, this one is the most difficult to accomplish. It is very much in the infant stages, but with every passing day, it becomes more of a habit. But just like laundry, I figured breaking it down into smaller daily tasks would help me accomplish it and dare I say – stop hating vacuuming? A girl can dream.
There are a few other items I’d like to include in my daily tidying routine that I haven’t started yet.
⁃ Wiping down countertops (kitchen & bath)
⁃ Dusting
⁃ Tidying the couch pillows
⁃ Organizing paper clutter
I feel like once I finally get to these and make them a habit as well, I’ll never have to worry about a cluttered, untidy home ever again.
What’s your favorite daily task for a tidy home?
