#6: Getting The "HOME, SWEET MESS" Under Control

How many times have you caught yourself saying, "Welcome to our home, excuse the mess"? Saying that is definitely not going to help. So, we better do something about it and put things under control. But what do we do to get the mess under control? How do we get started? Join me as we explore these questions and provide practical tips for maintaining a tidy and organized home.

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Credits: 

Song: Green Lights
Performed By: DLP
Written by: Daniel Labate (BMI 100%)
Published by: Boss Soundstripe Productions (BMI 100%)

Song (Trailer): Epic Hybrid Trailer Music
Performed by: by 2CoolFire
Licensed by: Envato Market

Cover Photo: Angela Clifton Photography
Hair and Make-up: Casey J. Cheek

Transcript

You're listening to the Neat Lifestyle Podcast, episode number six. Today's episode is all about getting the "home sweet mess" under control, so stay tuned.

Welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast. My name is Katia Mesquita. I'm a personal organization expert, an online business entrepreneur, and your host on this weekly variety show. I'm excited to bring you an extra dose of inspiration to become more organized, stay organized, and make things work better for you. My goal in this podcast is to help you achieve a more functional, harmonious, and meaningful life. I can't wait to connect with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in, and now let's begin. Hello, hello and welcome to episode number six. Thank you so much for being here with me. I'm your host, Katia Mesquita, and how many times have you caught yourself saying to your guests "Welcome, excuse the mess?" I hope you didn't do it too much. 

The funny thing is that when people say that, "Excuse the mess," their guests who may not even have noticed yet, start to drive their whole attention to every messy corner of the house. So, saying excuse the mess is definitely not going to help. What really helps is to solve the mess, right? Let's do something about it and put things under control. Some people ask me what to do if they keep hiring a cleaner and organizer, but the house gets totally messed up again the day after. How to put things under control and what to do first? Before we get to the answers, let's talk about the reasons why it's important to organize and how the mess may impact our lives. First, let's clarify what kind of mess I refer to here. I'm talking about the mess created by lumps of clutter and general untidiness. Okay, not hoarding. 

Our home is that sacred place where we center. It's the base where we start everything. It's usually our primary reference point. Our home is supposed to be functional to provide us and our family with safety, shelter, health, easy access to all rooms, some peace of mind, of course, good quality of sleep, good living space, conditions for nutrition, hygiene, a place to keep our personal belongings, documents, clothing, etc, okay? And a mess at home can affect us not only physically but also emotionally.

And I'm going to share with you some of the most common problems related to mess. So, it can be loss of time, searching for items we don't know where they are, confusion, stress, difficulty in thinking straight, also known as brain fog, some injuries, we can step and fall or bump our heads. Also, vulnerability to fire, strain in relationships, problems with self-esteem, overall quality of life, difficulties in accessing certain areas to clean properly, and consequently health problems. 

In other words, a mess prevents us from having exactly what a home is meant to be for us. Another thing is the organization of a home needs to be associated with cleaning. There is no such thing as organized home without cleaning. Our homes also need to be organized in a way that facilitates cleaning. A lot of people have constant allergy problems without realizing that making this space underneath the bed as a storage prevents your house cleaner from accessing and cleaning under the bed, and severe dust and mold accumulate over time. Then they go to bed at night, have difficulties to sleep, spending the night sneezing and coughing, leading them to more sleeping aid, more doctor visits, more medicine for allergy and more exposure to its side effects. But the thing is, taking medicine for allergy usually helps with the symptoms and may not address the possible root cause of the problem. 

So consider cleaning under the bed, and please check the top of the ceiling fan as well. Sometimes, the blades of the fan is covered in dust and mold, and what do you think will happen when you turn it on? It will spread all the dust on top of you, and very similar thing happens when we use a fan on the floor. It works like that: gravity brings all the dust, animal, fur, dirt particles, mold, whatever, from the air to the floor, right? Then, you place the fan on the floor, turn it on, and it blows all dirt from the floor directly into you. After approximately three months of using a fan on the floor, look inside the fan and see what it's blowing into you and your family. 

Alright, that said, let's get to the organization of the house. First, we need to make an assessment to check on a situation and decide what kind of organization to do. One type of organization is the organization by decluttering, which consists of removing all those unnecessary items from the untidy or overcrowded place. Another way to organize is by creating new spaces. Adding extra cabinets, shelves, beings, organizers, etc. And a third way to organize is by doing both cluttering and adding extra space. Then, after deciding what type of organization we are gonna do, we make a plan to do a room at a time. It's a bite-sized organization. It can be even fun if we combine it with our favorite songs or the people we enjoy hanging out with. Also, taking a picture before the project starts and comparing with the after can be so exciting. I don't know, but life starts to get transformed. It's amazing. We start breathing better, sleeping better, finding our things easily, feeling better, and we make things easier to maintain ,and it has an incredible ripple effect in our health, our relationships, our general wellness, anyway, in other areas of our lives.

You can hire a professional service to do it for you or you can do it yourself. Either way, just make sure you get at least minimally involved because it is important for you to consider your habits. For example, things you use more frequently should be more handy, and also you may want to know where your things are gonna be after the organization's done. You should have a say in how your things are organized in your place. I usually help clients virtually with some guidance in this DIY process. They typically go to my website and email me, and we book an appointment. Then things get more clear, we create exciting bite-size plans and projects together, they show me the before and after. I feel proud of them. But regardless of what you choose as a starting point to organize your home, the question is: how do you keep it organized and under control? 

This is a very important part because it's not just a matter of hiring someone, but it is a matter of changing household behaviors. The maintenance of the organization of your house depends on your behavior and the behaviors of all household. It starts by changing your behavior in the first place and it requires the willingness to change, establishing some new rules and discussing them with the other household members. It's about becoming a better version of yourself and passing it on to the household members. It works better when everybody is on the same page. It doesn't work if just you do your part and whoever lives with you keeps messing things up. You might be asking, okay, what if the other members are children? Just wait a minute. I'll get there because I also have a plan for children and I'll show you how. 

I understand that adopting new habits can be challenging, but it's your home, it's your place, it's about your life, it's about your family. You may have a service being done by a professional frequently, but the professional worker, organizer, cleaner, whatever is not there every day. And how is your home while you wait for the next service? How does that work if you have a last-minute visitor? I know changing habits is difficult, but if you change some habits little by little, like just two or three habits at a time, you can make it. Just don't try to do a huge change at once. It usually doesn't work. And here are some simple things you can start doing to keep your home organized right after your next cleaning and organization service. Number one: make sure every item or group of items has its place, and always put things away after you are done using them. Please don't leave it for another day or for someone else to do it. 

Do not accumulate. One of the most important things I learned from my mom was when a certain messy teenager called Katia, you happen to know who I'm talking about, she was having a problem finding her things. So, my mom kindly said to her, and I say her, not me, because I'm a different person now, more disciplined. She said to her: "My dear, please always put things back in the same place, and you will always find them." And it made the whole difference to me and to who I am today. And I don't mind being a little bit repetitive about something that I want to say now, but even though it might seem counterintuitive, contrary to what some people say, discipline doesn't limit our freedom. It's the opposite. The more disciplined we become, the more freedom we experience. Mastery requires discipline. That's why we see a lot of discipline in martial arts, also with athletes, and discipline is also what helps us avoid falling into the same problem again. 

Number two: wash your hands after meals or after dirtying them. Use napkins or paper towels during meals to minimize grease on your hands, and avoid touching any surfaces before washing your hands. Number three: close the cabinet doors after opening them. Doing this immediately affects the look of the house. The house looks better, and it also avoids injuries, especially to guests and workers like your house cleaner, for instance. What happens frequently is that when the house cleaner is working with the floors or lower parts of the house, they usually don't see the cabinet door open and they bump their heads when they move their heads up. Number four: after using the dishes, separate greasy items from non-greasy ones. Oil and grease are hard to remove. If you put a cup that you have, just use it for drinking water inside a greasy bowl or a greasy sink, you are going to transform an item easy to clean into an item hard to clean. 

Number five: take the trash out daily. It keeps the house smelling good and avoid attracting bugs and please don't put liquids or oil inside the trash can. The liquid can drip all over the house when you remove the trash, so please make your own life easier. Number six: never accumulate too many dirty dishes or laundry to be done. By doing so, you are making your own life more difficult. Organizing and keeping things clean are not supposed to be a hustle. By avoiding accumulating them, things will be easier to manage and more digestible. And having a house cleaner coming with a certain frequency doesn't mean leaving things undone until the next cleaning visit. Remember, life is made of things we enjoy doing and also things we don't enjoy doing, but needs to be done.

In my daily routine, when I finish eating, I put the crumbs and the residue of food inside the trash can. It avoids attracting bugs. Then I place my dish and silverware inside the sink and soak them with water until I'm ready to put them to wash. I usually put them to wash... I can do either manually or in the washer in the evening or early in the morning. My day has to start with clean dishes. Same thing with the laundry. I don't accumulate them too much, so it's easier to put 'em away. When we do it in bite sizes and integrate these home tasks that we don't like to do with things that we enjoy, things can be better. Like, I do my dishes and my laundry, usually listening to my favorite songs or listening to some audiobook, so I never waste time. I combine these activities with enjoyable things. Just think a little bit. How can you make it more digestible and more fun for you? 

Number seven: keep tools and supplies clean, handy and available. There is no such thing as a dirty tool to clean something. Please keep tools free from grease, residues of food, or dirt, and make sure all sinks have hand soap available, handy, and ready to use. Number eight: clean surfaces immediately after spills. Cleaning is easier when the dirt is still fresh and cleaning it right away prevents permanent stains from forming. Number nine: be mindful of the next person to use the toilet. What will they find? A clean and decent toilet or a nasty and undignifying one? After flushing your toilet, please double-check its condition. Remember, someone will be using it after you. The dirt will come off easy while still fresh. It takes less than a minute to clean. If you just put a few drops of toilet bowl cleaner and use a toilet brush, you can remove the dirt immediately, and with a few drops of disinfectant on a toilet paper, you can clean the toilet seat. It takes less than one minute to clean if you keep the tools and supplies handy. Give it a try.

Number 10: children. Introduce these habits to children as early as possible. You can start by playing with them to organize the dolls' House, for instance, bringing their dolls and Transformers to wash their hands, organize the garage of their cars, put their toys away after playing, you can combine with music, fun. With my mom, putting the toys away after playing was a condition to let me play. Alright, that's all for today. I hope you'll give it a try and keep persisting. Soon, it can be part of your routine, and you'll start doing these things without struggle. And I'll be here excited for you and wishing you the best. It can be a good beginning. Please keep me posted on your milestones. Thanks again for listening. I'm Kata Mesquita, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to share it with those you care about so they can also benefit from it. If you aren't already following me on social media, do so by clicking on the link on the show notes or simply by visiting my website at neatlifestyle.com. I appreciate you so much. I hope you have an amazing day. I'll see you in the next episode of The Neat Lifestyle Podcast.