I grew up in a messy home that made me feel claustrophobic. And whilst most of it was not my mess, I was forced to do the majority of the intense tidying, which often filled me with rage. Now, as an adult, the slightest bit of mess, not surprisingly, makes me miserable.
I have a busy little home with a young daughter and two cats. To make sure the state of my home doesn't send me spiraling, I've developed tricks over the years to keep on top of our daily mess, including my 'fly bys' and micro resets.
These tidying tips are low energy, won't take you more than a couple of minutes and they're really effective habits to get into.
1. My two-minute Fly By
Does it always seem there is a pile of fresh laundry sitting on your stairs? Or do you find mess accumulates on surfaces around your home? It might be bits and bobs on a sideboard, a coffee table, the kitchen counter, or island, but these places are the perfect target for normal mess.
In a busy home full of people, children, grandchildren and pets, and with working from home often thrown in, it's inevitable that we end up leaving things laying around, fail to put them back immediately or accumulate clutter. And that's OK. You don't want your home to be a military style operation or for people in it to feel it's a show home they can't relax in. Homes are supposed to be lived in.
But if mess, especially a lot of visual clutter bothers you, I encourage you to try my two-minute Fly By. Wherever you are moving to in your house, grab things on your way and put them away. That coffee cup on the study in your desk? It's coming downstairs to the kitchen, and on the way, you're going to move that pair of slippers back where they belong. When you're going to bed, you're putting your handbag away, and when you take your makeup off, pop your bracelet back in the jewelry box.
This is what I do pretty much all day everyday, and my hands are never empty as there is usually some bit of mess that needs putting away. There are two rules I employ however for my Fly Bys so I don't end up getting resentful: I'm not the only one in the house that does it, and we do it together a lot.
You could say it's a brilliant habit highly-organized homeowners keep and I'd love you for it!
With my Fly By method, sometimes, I just move something to a spot that's half a house closer to where it needs to go and I finish it on my next fly by. It doesn't feel arduous because I'm not grabbing things that mean going out of my way to tidy. If it makes sense, it's on my way, and I have empty hands, it's coming with me.
Now, my husband does this too and in time, my daughter, nearly 8, will do it off her own back. Currently, I prompt her occasionally with, 'When you next go upstairs, please take X thing with you.'
I consider it a great thing for her to learn as a mindful and considerate person and I'm sure she'll be thankful for it later.
I have one of these and I love it. Instead of piles of 'things' that need to go upstairs cluttering up a step, it gets chucked into one of these. Visual clutter be gone! Plus, style and function? Of course I was immediately sold!
2. Micro resets
You may have seen those big weekend or Sunday resets on social media, where a person resets their entire room, or house, ready for the week or weekend ahead.
My micro-resets are in the same spirit, but much more manageable, less time consuming and only take a few minutes at most. For instance, after I finish getting ready for the day, I tidy up my vanity so nothing is left out, and it's ready for my nighttime skin routine later, and push in my chair.
After I finish working as Head of Solved for Homes & Gardens, I straight up my desk, grab all my cups and mugs, and put my notepads and pens away, ready for tomorrow.
These little resets, including the shower after I'm done, the area around me in the living room, and after I've finished the dishes all help make these often-used and busy, vital spaces mess-free, and ready for the next time I head there.
My husband has got in this habit too and together, it make an enormous difference to how tidy our home is, which is usually, lived in but almost-guest ready. We've taken to doing living room resets and it's become a point of self care not just for ourselves, but each other too. When he works late, I reset the living room after I put our daughter to bed so when he finishes, he'll come into a peaceful, tidy lounge to wind down in for the evening.
When I have been working from home all day in the study, he does the same in the living room before making dinner. Our mini-version for our daughter is when she finishes an activity, she puts it away and therefore resets the space she had been using ready for the next person who wants to get on with something there.
If she feels even remotely overwhelmed by her own mess, or doesn't want to do it, she simply has to ask us for help and we will do the majority while she contributes what she can. Again, this mess-mindfulness builds great habits for her, without parentifying her or expecting too much from her.
To make it easier for our daughter to tidy up her activities, we have shallow plastic lidded boxes like this in the gap beneath our couches. Each one has a theme of activities or toys such as Lego, coloring, reading. When she's done, she just throws everything back in the box and pushes it under the couch. We avoid overfilling so she doesn't have to do some kind of Jenga wizardry to make it all fit again.
3. Communicating well
To avoid resentment over chores with my husband, we talk and communicate with each other kindly. We've lived together for 11 years and the beginning was hard as he literally didn't 'see things' that had ended up on the floor, and didn't think twice about lining up groceries on counters and surfaces instead of putting them away or finding them a home.
But over the years we've worked together to find a middle ground where we can both be content and happy at home and set some mess and tidying 'laws' in we both stick to.
Where the gray areas are in our habits, I have learned to stay in my lane and he has learned to lessen the impact of his higher mess-tolerance on me. For example, what goes on on my husband's bedside cabinet, or on the floor next to his side of the bed is absolutely none of my business.
We have just made sure I have the side that's visible when you walk into our bedroom so it's my side I see when I walk into it, and if it gets obstructive or too much, I either ask him to tidy it, or I begin a series of Fly Bys, especially when he is overwhelmed with work. These sort of house rules keep us both sane.
Zero conflict, absolute resolution.
My husband and I share a small office and both work from home. To keep our desks tidy, we use a nifty monitor riser that comes with a drawer, like the one pictured, to help us do our end of day desk resets. If we're very tired, everything goes in our respective drawers and we deal with it another time. But, neither of us has to look at each other's mess. Plus, the use of vertical storage is smart for a small space like ours.
4. Two minute blasts
Whether it's while I'm brushing my teeth, or the kettle is boiling, or I'm waiting for the microwave to ping, I take those two minutes to tidy some mess nearby and it's a simple method to tidy that really works. You don't have to make time to tidy, you simply utilize time otherwise wasted.
It's amazing how making use of that dead time actually has a brilliant cumulative effect and helps get on top of mess and clutter, and cleaning too!
Next, try the week by week decluttering method, to have less mess to deal with in the first place.
