How To Keep A Clean House and & Free Yourself From Constant Cleaning

Keeping a spotlessly clean house isn’t as difficult as it looks. How to do it has been the best kept secret of Susie Homemaker for years.

How to keep a clean house and free yourself from the chains of drudgery will give you the know how, skills and confidence to achieve a spotlessly clean house and a clear conscience.

Even in our modern day with both partners working women get the lions share of the work as well as the guilt. Women spend about 3 hours a day doing house work compared to an hour and a half for men. Two out of five men don’t do laundry while only one out of twelve women don’t do laundry. Society demands that homes be clean, tidy and organized and yet economics requires women to work out side of the home. The old stereotypes persist and women get stuck, emotionally and physically, with all the work. Yet if anyone is working 3 hours a day on housework they’re doing it wrong.

Never, ever, break these rules!

1. Everything has a home.

2. Use it or lose it.

3. Never ignore or pass anything that needs to find it’s home.

4. Use “little minutes” every chance you get.

You will have to have a talk with your better half and let him know what you are trying to accomplish. He will have to be a part of it and support you in this. He’ll have to pitch in as well. Let him know that this system will be easy to follow with clear direction and will result in a very satisfying feeling. It will make you happy and his goal should be to help you be happy.

A messy house has emotional and physical costs. It makes you feel tired, hopeless, out of control, depressed, frustrated and over stressed. It can lead to resentment and loss of self-esteem. If you can’t find something, over and over, you can’t relax because you worry about all the things you need to do. It can lower your immunity and resistance to illness. It’s an energy drain and a time drain. Clutter eats up your time. Everything needs taking care of; even if you’re finding it impossible to take care of it all you still know it needs taken care of. If you have 50 cups you need to take care of 50 cups. If you have 20 cups you only need to take care of 20 cups. By cutting the amount of things you have you can cut the time you need to take care of them, and worry about it, by more than half.

But, have hope! All is not lost. All you need is a plan. Stop beating yourself up, sit down, take a deep breath, and read on.

Don’t start with a shovel. Start with a spoon. Or actually three boxes and one corner.

Now you can do one small corner can’t you? Of course you can!

A good place to start is the living room and a good corner to start at is one of your two end tables.

Grab three boxes and label them with a marker or crayon. You’ll find the crayons over in the sock drawer. How they got there no one knows. If they’re not there try the silverware drawer. But if you can’t find one within 3 minutes give it up and go buy one. You’ll be able to find anything you need once you’re done with your plan.

Now label them:

box 1 – Keep

box 2 – Toss

box 3 – Donate

For heaven’s sake, don’t get all boggled down with what box to use or delay because you haven’t collected the boxes yet. Any containers will work. Laundry baskets, plastic bags, anything. It doesn’t have to be perfect or done exact. If you think it does then you’re a perfectionist and that very fact is holding you back. More on personality types later.

Take your three boxes to one corner of your house. Start picking things up and placing them in the correct boxes. Garbage goes in the TOSS box, things you don’t want but wish to give away put in the DONATE box and things that need to go somewhere else in the house in the KEEP box.

You don’t have to think much on this. Don’t make any big decisions. Just toss things into the different boxes as fast as you can toss.

Work for 15 minutes then stop.

I said STOP! Do not work for more than 15 minutes.

Trust me on this one

Now take the garbage stuff to the garbage immediately and put the donate box in the trunk of your car so you can drop the items off at the Goodwill box today. Don’t delay doing this or your trunk will fill up and be another clutter place. Take all the things that belong somewhere else to where ever they belong. Don’t worry about where to put them. Just toss them. You’ll get to that room later.

Stand back and look at your clean corner. Wow! You did it! This one small corner is where it will all start. Not only will the cleanliness start here but so will your habits and it’s those habits that will help you keep control of your housework.

Now refer to the FOUR UNBREAKABLE RULES above and do not put anything in that corner that does not belong in that corner. If you walk past it and something is there that doesn’t belong, move it. Use little minutes to dust it and keep it tidy. Never mess up what you’ve cleaned up. You’ve won the battle in one corner and soon you’ll win the entire war!

Make the FOUR UNBREAKABLE RULES your habits. Say them over and over as you do them. When you pick up a toy and move it to where it belongs say to yourself “Everything has a home”. When you pick up a magazine someone put on the end table say “Use it or lose it” and toss it away. When you’re waiting for the coffee to drip grab a dust rag and head to your corner