While I spend some time contemplating how to turn my penchant for blaspheming into a billion-dollar global empire, you could spend some time contemplating what it takes to clean your house and actually keep it that way for more than three hours. Because there are some folks out there who claim it’s possible to tidy once and remain tidy for life, but I have to say: I call bullshit.
At this point, we’re living in a post-tidying society.
The “one-time deal” fantasy of tidying your home top to bottom is seductive, but it’s not practical. Like having a threesome with your spouse and the beguiling older neighbor, you got what you wanted, but you still have to see each other in the hallway and walk on your rugs. The house is not going to let you off the hook after one go-round, and neither is the cougar in 3B.
Practically everyone I know (including me) has a story about dumping the contents of their kitchen cabinets onto the floor and bidding tearful goodbyes to a set of spatulas. That’s great, it really is. But what happens when the narcotic haze of tidying lifts and Alvin decides to scram before he gets sucked into another round of Tupperware organizing?
I’ll tell you what happens.
People get their tidying groove on for a few months, or even just a few weeks, and then… kinda lose the thread. The laundry stops migrating into the hamper, the books and papers multiply like Kardashians in heat, the tchotchkes return with a vengeance. These folks spend so much time and energy clearing out their physical space, only to fill it back up again, with chaos and discount birdbaths.
Why is that?
Well, I submit that if they’d had their shit together in the first place, the tidying bug would have stuck. A flurry of physical tidying can be very effective in the short term, but it all goes to shit when you lack time and motivation to maintain it. Mental decluttering is the prerequisite for cleaning your house AND keeping it that way.
Yes, things are easier to keep clean if you start with a total purge (see: Inbox Zero), but you still have to work at it, if not every single day, then at least once or twice a week. Maybe less, if you live in a tiny house. In fact, the only reason to live in a tiny house is because you hate to clean. Tiny houses are an abomination. There, I said it. Moving on.
Does any of this sound familiar?
I need help decluttering and keeping it that way.
No matter what I do, my apartment is messy and gross. I’m incredibly envious of people for whom cleaning is a compulsion.
I have to spend several all-night sessions making my home presentable when my parents come to stay. I’d like it to be pretty much ready for visitors at all times.
For three of you it should sound very familiar, because these quotes are lifted directly from my survey responses. For the rest, if this is what your completely normal, non-Hoarders life looks like, then at least you know you’re not alone by a long shot. You’re also not helpless! If having a tidy house is tops on your wish list, you can approach it just like everything else—by getting your shit together.
Goal: Not only clean your house, but keep it clean for unexpected company, impromptu dinner parties, and your own general sanity.
Strategize: Begin with a one-time cleanup. This doesn’t have to be a life-changing magic-level purge, just one overall sweep that gets you to the “It’d be okay if the neighbors swung by” headspace. (Disregard the fact that neighbors don’t just “swing by” anymore; they text first.) Then divide your cleaning duties up by category, such as picking up toys, folding laundry, emptying trash cans, or vacuuming, and pledge to tackle one or two at a time, every couple of days, for maintenance. No matter how much ground you have to cover, if you break it up into small, manageable chunks, it won’t be so overwhelming.
Focus: Set aside time to complete each corresponding mini-goal. When you look at the small picture, you really only need twenty minutes for some of this shit. Toys go into bins, shoes go into the closet, trash goes out, and knickknacks get righted (actually, just get rid of the knickknacks). Twenty minutes every few days can go a long way to keeping the house ready for prime time, all the time. A task like vacuuming might take longer, but doing it once every two weeks for an hour is a lot easier than piling that hour of vacuuming on top of ten hours of other cleaning, isn’t it?
Commit: If you’ve set your mini-goals, judged how long it takes you to complete them, then prioritized them into your must-do list, you’ll have no more excuses for not keeping the house clean. You built the time into your day; now all you have to do is use it. You’ve effectively backed yourself into a corner with your own Swiffer.
The fact is, you don’t need to have a cleaning compulsion to maintain a tidy (or tiny) home. All you need to do is make the work as easy as possible on yourself—by breaking it into small, manageable chunks—and then it becomes part of your routine, just like watching the Today show or trimming your nose hair.
In sum: Want a regularly clean house? Clean it regularly! Don’t think you have time to do it? Prioritize it over things you want less. Still have too much on your to-do list? Whittle it down to the must-do.
And if you go through all these steps and you still find keeping a clean house impossible… maybe it’s time to admit that you don’t really care? I suspect that some people claim exasperation about the state of their cluttered countertops because they think they’re supposed to want to be able to see the granite beneath the crumbs and months-old Christmas cards.
It’s perfectly okay to admit that physical decluttering just isn’t important to you.
That’s the life-changing magic of not giving a fuck, and it truly lasts forever.