Clean up
10 Things Neat People Do Every Day
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Keeping things tidy is often a challenge. But it’s worth it because then we have more time for the beautiful things in life. We can learn these 10 things from decent people.
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Would you rather meet up with friends for dinner? Are you bathed in sweat when a spontaneous visitor comes to your door? Then your home might look a bit chaotic.
Now imagine how nice life would be with a tidy apartment. With a few extra steps, your home would even be ready for visitors. Sounds good? Then it doesn’t have to remain a pipe dream. Instead of falling into a panicked tidying and cleaning frenzy every now and then, we’d rather adopt a few habits that characterize people with tidy homes.
Neat people do these 10 things every day
1. Make the bed
Neat people never leave the house without making their bed. A made bed visually ensures order and peace in the bedroom, as the bed usually takes up a large part of the bedroom. And in the evening it’s much nicer to turn over the covers and jump into a decent bed.
2. Empty the dishwasher
If you empty the dishwasher in the evening or at the latest in the morning, you don’t have to store the dirty dishes in the sink first. A trick that fans of order rely on. Because the cereal bowl, bread knife and coffee cup can be put straight into the empty dishwasher. In the evening, after dinner, more dirty dishes come along without you having to get up, tired from the day, to unload and then load the dishwasher again.
If you don’t have a dishwasher, it’s best to wash your dishes straight away. Once large mountains of cups and plates have piled up, it becomes more difficult to overcome and rinse off.
3. Wash laundry regularly
Tidy people don’t let piles of laundry become mountains of laundry. If you wash your clothes regularly, you will prevent the mountain of dirty laundry from becoming too big at some point. Advantage: There is always enough underwear in the closet. And enough space to dry the laundry.
4. Put clothes away
Who doesn’t want to just throw their clothes in the corner and lie down on the couch in the evening? But if you do that every day, you invite chaos to you. So it’s worth resisting the call of the couch and putting your clothes aside properly first. Practical: Once you have hung up a dress, you can wear it another time without having to wash and iron it.
Reading tip: Here you can find out more about how to store worn clothes.
5. Clean up the kitchen
The bed has a magical appeal. But tidy people clean the kitchen first. Dirty dishes, pans and pots go into the dishwasher or are washed off. Leftovers go into the fridge. Work surfaces and dining tables are wiped down. Advantage: You don’t have to worry about it in the morning if it’s harder for you, you can hop into bed with a clear conscience. Plus, the kitchen (or even the entire apartment) doesn’t smell like the food from the night before. In the morning you prefer to concentrate on the new day anyway.
6. Take out the trash
Organic and residual waste usually becomes noticeable quickly. You have no choice but to take out the trash immediately if you want to avoid unpleasant smells and nasty fruit flies (especially in summer). Paper waste and old glass, on the other hand, do not attract attention so persistently, especially if both are collected in the corner or in the storage room. Tidy people regularly put paper, cardboard, bottles and glasses in the paper bin or the paper and glass container.
7. Tidy up and clean in between
While the pasta is cooking in the pot or the vegetables are sizzling in the pan, you can throw the pasta packaging in the trash can or wash the knife and cutting board. In this way, you not only keep an overview and order in between, but you also use waiting times cleverly and in the end you have to clean up less and can use the time for nicer things.
8. Organize things
Boxes, baskets and cartons help tidy people keep chaos under control. All the things that you don’t need (e.g. catalogs, sales letters, etc.) you throw in the trash before this stuff ever feels at home. Neat people collect important documents (e.g. for taxes) in a folder or box. Nothing gets lost and everything has its place.
9. Plan ahead
If you think about what you want to wear in the evening, you save time in the morning – and you don’t have to rummage through the closet for the right outfit. Tidy people don’t give the programmed (clothing) chaos a chance!
10. Don’t put anything off!
If you value order, you tackle things straight away: delivered packages are cleared out immediately and the packaging is disposed of. Anything that turns out to be a bad purchase is immediately prepared for return (which actually saves a lot of money in the end). Purchases are immediately unpacked and put away, letters are opened immediately and, if necessary, put on the shelf, unnecessary mail (e.g. catalogs) is thrown into the trash (and if possible unsubscribed…). If you don’t put anything off, but tackle things right away, you’ll save yourself from an ever-increasing mountain of tasks that will definitely not disappear into thin air on their own.