9 Habits to Keep Your Home Clutter-Free, Tidy & Organised
It’s no secret that having too much stuff is difficult to maintain. It creates more housework, can adversely affect your mental health and quality of sleep also. Simply put, a cluttered and messy home makes our lives more stressful than they need to be. On the flip-side, an organised, functional home, simplifies and enhances life outcomes.
Think of decluttering as a habit, not a project.
But as important as decluttering and organising your home is, it’s only the first step. Establishing habits and routines are equally as important. If you don’t establish routines and habits that support your decluttering endeavours, you’re likely to end up exactly where you started – with a cluttered home that’s hard to manage.
This said, my clutter-free & organised home takes time + effort to maintain. The habits + behaviours that I make on a daily, weekly, monthly & yearly basis, greatly impact the condition of my home. It’s frustrating to put a lot of effort into decluttering and organising your home, only to find the clutter piles keep adding up. In support of simplified spaces, habits and behaviours need to change. The end goal is to create a simplified space that stays that way.
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Jim Rhon
So, you’ve decluttered your home, but even when you own less stuff, at times, your home will still get messy. After-all, it’s a home and you and your family live there! Routines and habits will not only help keep your home tidy and clutter-free, they will guarantee you spend considerably less time doing household chores, giving you more time to enjoy doing the things you love.
Today I’m going to share 13 easy routines and habits to help you maintain a clutter-free home now and in the future! Practiced daily, these habits will ensure your home remains in a perpetual state of calm (or at least, close to it), organised + clutter-free!
#1. Make Your Bed
Making your bed might seem insignificant, but this small accomplishment sets the tone for the rest of the day.
Perhaps no one has extolled this virtue of making the bed each morning as well as Naval Admiral William McRaven, the commander of U.S. Special Operations. In a 2014 commencement speech at University of Texas at Austin, Admiral McRaven shared his thoughts on the matter.
“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day.
It 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. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.”
These are powerful words, and you don't need to be able to bounce a coin off your military-style-made bed to benefit from them. Shifting your mindset allows you to start your day with a sense of accomplishment, pride and initiative.
Image thanks to Volha-flaxeco
It enforces positive habits that reverberate through your life. It has a domino effect that helps inspire other small habits that keep your home decluttered and tidy. From tiny beginnings, great things follow. It might inspire you to pop a load of washing in the machine or fold items in the laundry basket and put them away before you leave home instead of turning a blind eye and leaving it on your invisible to-do-list.
It also instantly transforms the way your bedroom looks and feels. It makes the space look tidier, cleaner and calmer. The small action of making your bed inspires other small initiatives that make a big difference in maintaining a clutter-free home.
The feeling of arriving home to a clean, tidy and well organised home is second only to climbing into a freshly made bed at the end of a long day.
#2. Don’t Put it Down, Put it Away
Once you have a home for your household items, the next step is to get into the habit of immediately putting them away when you’ve finished using them. Instead of putting something down to deal with later (often leaving you with a lot of clutter, or a large pile of stuff lying around at the end of the day), just put it away right there and then. Another way to remember it is this: don’t put it down, put it away!
Image thanks to Dan Gold
Of course, sometimes you get busy or life happens and things won’t always get put away immediately. But the more you get in the habit of putting things away after you’re done using them, the easier it will be to keep your home tidy and clutter-free.
Remember, behaviour forms patterns + habits. The more you get into the habit of putting things away straight after you use them the more entrenched the pattern becomes.Eventually, these patterns will become second nature!
#3. The Common Household Causes of Clutter and How to Avoid the Build-up
It’s often the same few items that are the biggest causes of clutter in a home. Maybe it’s the washing, paperwork, toys, dishes and kitchen items, etc. As you go about your day, notice the common causes of clutter and what is usually accumulating around your home.
Once you know your most common sources of clutter, create a plan in your schedule to declutter these items daily. If laundry is piling up, make time each day to wash, fold and store laundry items. If your weekly grocery shop exceeds the storage capabilities of your pantry, create a weekly meal plan and buy only what you need. Alternatively, declutter your pantry by creating a meal plan that makes you use of all the items currently crowding your pantry space.
#4. Have a System to Keep Paperwork Organised
From mail to school notices, there’s a never-ending steam of paperwork resulting in one of the biggest causes of household clutter.
The flat surfaces in our homes seem to be magnets for paperwork, so it’s easy to paper items down and leave and forget. Next thing clutter attracts clutter and before we know it, we have a whole pile of unopened envelopes or paperwork!
The most effective way to keep paper clutter from piling up is to have a good management system that’s easy and quick to use, so you can put it away before it has a chance to pile up.
A simple paperwork command centre is one of the best ways to deal with incoming paperwork.Set up a command centre that works with your lifestyle and habits. This way, you can quickly and easily put it away, find it when you need it and avoid the dreaded piles of paper clutter.
#5. Employ an ‘Outgoing Box’
Another simple, but super effective way to maintain a clutter-free home is by keeping an outgoing box available and handy at all times. When you come across something you no longer use, need or love, simply add it to your outgoing box.
If you plan to donate the item, put it straight in your car ready to drop off to your local charity store. If you plan to sell the item, take photos and upload them straight away to Facebook Market place or where-ever you plan to sell it. If you plan to regift an item, store it in your gift area in your home. If it’s past it use-by-date, and you plan to recycle it, put it straight in your car ready to drop off to the recycle centre. Or, of course, if it’s an item that is broken and can’t be recycled, regifted, donated or sold, throw it in the bin.
An outgoing box makes it easy to declutter as you go about your day. The fewer barriers you have to decluttering the easier it will be to clear the clutter and keep your home functional and tidy.
#6. Clearing Clutter Magnets
Flat surfaces, like kitchen counters, coffee tables, dining tables, night stands, etc seem to be magnets for clutter. Every day I make a habit of clearing these surfaces or limit how much come into my home. All my bills and bank statements are delivered by email and receipts are scanned and uploaded to an app and school permission forms are signed and put straight back into the school backpack. Although I limit my incoming paperwork, I still get my fair share, so clearing my flat surfaces is an especially important daily routine.
Again, the more frequently you stay on top of clearing these surfaces, the easier it will be to keep them clear. Don’t give these clutter magnets a chance to overwhelm you! Instead, clear these flat surfaces every day to help maintain a clutter-free and tidy home.
#7. A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place
Clutter is often the result of items that don’t have a home, items that are not used or items you don’t know what to do with. Household items that don’t have a home are often left out, cluttering your surfaces and, I’m guessing your cupboards are filled to the brim with items that remain unused.
The best ways to maintain a clutter-free home is to ensure every household item has a designated place to store it and commit to putting items you bring into the home, or items you use, away in their place, every day. When every item has a home, this makes maintaining clutter-free living spaces simple.
Image thanks to Dan Deaner
If an item doesn’t have a home, or you can’t find a place to store it, either declutter other areas until you can find a home for it, or ask yourself if you really need to keep it.
Make sure the storage locations are logical, ideally keeping things close to where you use them.And make sure storage locations are easily accessible. If it takes too much work to put something away, it likely won’t get put away.
#8. Use the “One in One Out” Rule
Purging your clutter is just one half of the equation. The other half is keeping the clutter from coming back. Unless you address how all the clutter comes into your home in the first place, chances are you will quickly find your home filling right back up with clutter. The “One In, One Out Rule” is a powerful tool to prevent that from happening!
This rule simply means that for every item you bring into your home, another item you already own must leave. It helps you to adopt new spending habits, helps you stay aware of what you own, and helps you make more intentional shopping decisions so you aren’t buying things you don’t really need or won’t use. If you want to kick it up a notch, consider getting rid of two or more things for each new item you bring into your home!
#9. A Daily Declutter Detox
Maintaining a clutter-free home is an ongoing process. It’s not a do once and you’re done. Our needs change, our preferences change, the season of life we’re in changes. So, decluttering as you go about your daily routine is a great habit to adopt as effective way to keep your home clutter-free.
When you find something, you no longer use, need, or love, add it to your outgoing box or if it’s unable to be used or recycled, put it in the bin when you find it. When you get into the habit of doing this consistently, you’ll make great progress towards clearing the clutter or maintain a tidy, clean and clutter-free home.
The more you declutter on a regular basis, the more you will find the benefits of living with less, and the more willing and excited you become to let go of more and change your spending habits which means you purchase less stuff.
Make getting rid of things you don’t use, need or love part of your daily routine and you’ll reach your decluttering goals even faster, and or maintain a clutter-free home forever!
#10. Keep Your Kitchen Clean, Clear & Tidy
The kitchen tends to be the heart of the home. It’s where we all gather and hang out with friends and family. Because it’s such a hardworking, well utilized room, keeping it tidy and clutter-free sets the cultural tone for your home. It communicates calm and order. It promotes opportunity and possibility. It saves time and ensures cleanliness.
But it is definitely one of the more difficult places in the home to keep uncluttered. But simple habits such as cleaning as you cook, cleaning up after each meal, reducing the number of benchtop appliances, and even meal planning, can keep your kitchen looking tidy, clean and clutter-free.
When you spend less time taking care of a cluttered kitchen, you have more time to make nutritious, delicious meals, and linger in conversation at the dinner table. When you make room for loved ones to gather, you prioritise relationships by expanding everyone’s opportunities for giving and receiving love and connections. The kitchen truly is the heart of your home.
#11. Planning the Week Ahead
Taking time to plan your week in advance can help you manage the household responsibilities much easier.
In addition to picking up and putting things away, I also like to:
Set goals and make lists. Sunday is a great time to plan your upcoming week and develop a few goals for what you’d like to get done.
A planner is your best friend. Visually planning out your week is a must for keeping on tops of things. Find a planner that works for you.
Plan meals in advance. When planning out your week, it makes sense to think through your meals for the next seven days as well. Recycled leftovers make great school lunches, too!
Prep what you can the week, or night before. Alleviate the weekly or morning rush by prepping what you can the night before. Lunches should be ready to grab from the fridge on your way out the door. School papers and homework should be placed in backpacks and ready to go. Outfits can also be picked out the night before.
Get an early start. You have your lists and you are ready to start the week. Now you can you get the most out of your day by setting your morning alarm to wake up thirty minutes earlier than usual. This is a great way to take advantage of the calm morning hours.
Clean a little each day. Cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. I clean a little each day to alleviate the all-or-nothing approach. Spending at least twenty minutes each day is an excellent way to get cleaning done without feeling overburdened.
It feels great to start the week feeling on top of things instead of already feeling behind.
#12. The Cost of Clutter
You can also practice treating yourself to things that won’t cause clutter.
The cost of purchasing things we don’t need adds up and eats away at our finances. Next time you’re tempted to buy something, write down the cost in a notepad. At the end of the week, add up the totals for the items you didn’t buy and put these savings into a savings account you don’t withdraw from.
I recommended this tactic to one of my clients and after 12 months she saved well in excess of $12K. A two-week New Zealand ski holiday for her family of four created irreplaceable memories and saved her house from attracting more clutter!
#13 Less Is More!
Without question the number one habit to maintain a clutter-free home is simply to own less stuff!
Clearing the clutter is your first step to keeping your home organised and functional. If you had too much stuff to begin with, you don’t want to fall back into past habits and patterns and recreate a clutter filled home.
You can start by not spending money on unnecessary items that you don’t need. The combination of owning less coupled with establishing some habits to keep it tidy, clean and clutter free are the keys to creating a simplified home that’s easy to manage and maintain, creating an enjoyable environment that less stressful.
Remember, Progress Not Perfection!
On average it takes more than 3 months before a new behaviour becomes automatic. How long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behaviour, the person, and the circumstances. Research suggests that missing one opportunity to perform new behaviours does not materially affect the habit formation process. It doesn’t matter if you mess up every now and then. Building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process.
Aim to add one or two new habits at a time. Once you feel like you’ve mastered those habits, add in one or two more. Going slow will help increase your chances of sticking to your new habits and routines.
It’s more important to aim for progress, not perfection. If you miss a day, don’t beat yourself up. Start again and get back on track. Just remember to keep moving forward!
What is your favourite habit or routine that helps keep your home tidy and clutter-free? Do you have habits and routines that help make your home life easier? Share your hints and tips in comments below.
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