2 Easy Ways to Tidy Your Home When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed or Unmotivated
This post may include affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through them, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my efforts in creating these posts!
Simple motivational methods to help you get your home back in order.
Most people have let their house get a little messy or unorganized at one time or another. What usually starts as minor disorganization can snowball into a larger problem, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you look around at it all. That’s why knowing these two easy ways to tidy any space in your home will help you get back on track.
Maybe you strayed from your usual routine while working overtime at your job, while you or a family member were sick, during a time you were feeling depressed, or any other number of reasons. Now you’re wanting to get the clutter and chaos under control, but whenever you look around the room you’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated, or unmotivated. Where do you begin?
Here are two easy ways to start your path back to a clean home when you’re feeling overwhelmed with the task.
Cleaning Method #1: The Timer Method
Set a timer for an amount of time you know you can devote to tidying your home. Try to do as much as possible during that time without getting distracted by something unrelated to your cleaning goals (no picking up your phone to scroll social media!).
Whether you set your timer for 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, make sure it’s an attainable amount of cleaning time for you. If it makes more sense for you to set shorter amounts of time so you can take short breaks, then do that, because when the timer goes off you want to feel good about what you’ve accomplished.
Maybe you have a ton of laundry to fold so you want to motivate yourself to fold it in a 20 minute uninterrupted stretch before taking a 5 minute phone break. Or you want to devote 30 uninterrupted minutes to unloading the dishwasher and tackling your sink full of dishes. The timer method is great for motivation for these types of tasks, but can also be used for any kind of tidying or cleaning.
Besides using the timer method for a specific task like laundry or dishes, it also works great for the general tidying up of a room, like cleaning up your living room. See how many items can get put away in a designated amount of time — you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you can accomplish in an uninterrupted time block!
Another way to use this method is when you have food in the oven or microwave and are waiting for the timer to go off — see how much you can get done in that time. Even if you’re heating up something in the microwave for only 3 minutes, you’ll be surprised how many items you can tidy from your kitchen countertops during that time.
Cleaning Method #2: The Number Method
Pick any number, whether it’s 10 or 40. Then you put away that number of items as fast as you can.
If there’s an item that requires longer attention you can choose to skip it and come back to it later. You’re looking for items that are out of place that you can easily put away.
For example, you can walk through your room and quickly find a jacket that needs to be hung up, a bottle of nail polish that belongs in your bathroom cabinet, a pair of scissors that can be returned to your kitchen drawer, and so on. You can’t stop to get distracted by your phone or the TV until you reach your number goal. Once you’ve hit your goal you can take a short break if necessary, otherwise pick another number and start again. Before you know it, your room will be looking less cluttered.
If you come across numerous small items that are together and are going to the same place, you can choose to count them as one item even though they’re technically multiple items. For example, if you have 8 markers on the table and they’re all going into the same marker bin, you can count it as “one” item from your list. Otherwise it can be too easy to reach your goal by putting away only a few things.
To make it more exciting, put on some music! Just because you’re cleaning doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, too.
Related: These Are the Perfect Beach Color Palettes, and Here’s How You Can Use Them
There Are Many Ways to Tidy Your Home
If you don’t struggle with the motivation to clean your house then these easy ways to tidy your home may not be necessary for you. But if you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or frozen by the disorder in your home, give these methods a try and see if they help you to get things heading in the right direction.
There are many ways to tidy your home, and these are just two of them. Hopefully using these methods will help you feel motivated to get your house in order. Once you’ve tackled some of your clutter and are feeling less overwhelmed, you may find that other ways to tidy your home suddenly feel easier. Before you know it, your house will feel clean and comfortable again!
Once your house is clean, you can still use these two ways to tidy your home to stay on top of things.
Save These Easy Ways to Tidy Your Home
Pin this graphic on Pinterest, or bookmark this page, so you can continue to refer back to these two easy ways to tidy your house. And don’t forget to follow us on Pinterest for more beach and coastal lifestyle inspiration.
When you don’t know where to begin with a messy house, these two easy ways to tidy any room in your home should help you get started.
Once the clutter in your home has become too overwhelming it can be hard to start tackling it. With these different ways to tidy your space, you can find a way to start cleaning and hopefully you’ll pick up momentum and have your space back in order in no time!
Do you know of any other easy ways to tidy your home for someone who is struggling to get it under control? Share your tips in the comments.
