Let’s call it now: this will be the summer of social distancing. While we dream of beach days and far-flung vacations, the reality is that this season will mostly be spent indoors. It’s a great time to focus on mental and physical health, to rekindle old or pick up new hobbies, and to strengthen connections with loved ones near and far. It’s also a great time to reevaluate the space you’re living in. Getting rid of clutter and reorganizing will make the home feel fresh. For your first steps, try some of these hot tips.
Cleaning is a chore—I’d be hardpressed to find someone who enjoys cleaning the toilet or vacuuming the darkest corners of a room. It can be tempting to put it all off and have one marathon cleaning day. You may end up with great before and after photos, but you risk feeling burnt out and unmotivated to do future cleaning. Instead of a marathon, try cleaning in smaller, more regular sprints. One recommendation is the “timeboxing” method: set a timer for 20 minutes and tidy up. When the timer goes off, you’re done for the day. This works best when done daily, but you can change the frequency or timer to suit your needs. Additionally, I’ve found it helpful to identify my “trouble spots” and target them every day: no dirty dishes overnight, and dry laundry must be put away immediately. Doing cleaning sprints maintains the tidiness of your home and ensures that larger cleaning days are less of a burdenthan irregular marathons.
10
Simply put, every item you own needs its own home. Some fairly universal examples: shoes live in the genkan, cutlery lives in that one kitchen drawer, dress shirts live on hangers in the closet. This way, cleaning is much easier because you should immediately know where everything is supposed to go. Without this system, cleaning can take much longer because you won’t know where to put things. A few bonus tips for assigning homes for your stuff: 1) Keep alike items in the same place. For example, keep all of your reading materials on one bookshelf instead of spread out on your bed, desk, and floor. 2) Store items closest to where you’ll use them. For example, keeping trash bags near the trash can. Of course you’ll have to work within your space and storage constraints, but these are good rules of thumb!
