Photo by Norbert Levajsics on Unsplash
The lazy person’s guide to keeping your house clean
Megan Holstein
I’m a tidy person now, but for most of my life, I was absolutely not. Through my high school years and my early twenties, I kept my clothes on the floor (and they rarely got washed). Trash ended up in the trash bag only when I was bagging it up to take it out on trash day. I would let dirty dishes sit out for weeks before pulling myself together and washing them.
That’s not the case anymore. Just the other day, my own mother (the same mother who scolded me for leaving dirty dishes out when I was young) complimented me on how neat and orderly my space is.
I’m still the same lazy person I’ve always been. I didn’t suddenly decide to “stop being lazy.” I just found a tidying system that works for me — a system that doesn’t take extra time or effort, but still works wonders.
1. Focus on decluttering, not “cleaning”
Some people have an unproductive idea of cleaning. They will exhaust themselves making the beds, cleaning the walls, scrubbing the floor, vacuuming the carpet, and then collapse at the end of the day in a “cleaner” house that’s still messy and cluttered. There’s a difference between “cleaning” and truly having a clean home.
For all its problems, the show Hoarders makes this perfectly clear. Some people on the show have what’s called a “dirty hoard,” a hoard with cat poop and rat poop and trash bags piled up so high the home needs to be condemned — but some people have what’s called a “clean hoard.” A clean hoard is piled up neatly, with no dust or debris on the floor or items, and is hygienically perfectly safe, but it is still a hoard.
A good example of a clean hoard. Source.
When your idea of “cleaning the house” is only using Windex on the windows, sanitizing surfaces, and making all the beds, you can spend all day cleaning without getting any closer to a clean home.
If you truly want a clean home, focus most of your energy on decluttering, not cleaning. Make as much space as possible in your home by saying goodbye to things you don’t need.
Things you can usually say goodbye to:
Most paperwork (receipts, waivers, insurance forms, other documents produced by corporations to legally cover their own ass)
Clothes you haven’t worn in a decade
Books you haven’t read in a decade
Sports equipment produced in the nineties
That sewing machine you never, ever use
If you’re wondering “Can I let this go?” The answer is 99% likely to be “Yes.”
Many people view decluttering as a one-time, gargantuan effort. This is the wrong way to look at it. Decluttering should be part of the way you view your home. Every time you’re picking stuff up and putting it away, a part of your brain should be asking “Do I even need to continue owning this item?” This prevents clutter from building up in the first place.
When your home is decluttered, it is a heck of a lot easier to do the rest of the cleaning, too. Prior to adopting a decluttered mindset, I never wiped countertops or vacuumed because there was too much other cleaning to do. After decluttering, I found myself vacuuming and wiping down countertops regularly because there was just less cleaning to do.
2. Take dirty dishes to the kitchen and put trash in the trash can
So much of what makes a dirty space look dirty is old dishes and trash that are sitting out. If you take all your dirty dishes to the kitchen and throw away all the trash, things look a lot cleaner right off the bat.
I’m not saying you have to get up every time you produce a speck of trash. Just put a trash can near where you sit. In most rooms, there are places where we regularly spend time — the right-hand seat of the couch, our desk, the left-hand side of our bed, so on and so forth. Put small trash cans near those locations. Now, every time you create trash, you can throw it away without even getting up.
As for dishes —I don’t live in a fantasy land where I always eat delicious home-cooked meals at my kitchen table. Most of my meals are simple fare, and I eat them in my favorite reading chair while watching Naruto or something. I don’t clean my dishes up immediately after eating, either, because thanks to my IBS, I often feel nauseous immediately after eating.
My space stays clean because of one habit I formed — every time I get up to go to the kitchen, for a snack or glass of water or dinner, I grab a dirty dish and take it with me. This habit prevents dishes from piling up in my room. If you make a habit of grabbing a dirty dish when you are getting up anyway, dishes never get the chance to pile up and it doesn’t cost you anything extra.
3. Don’t let anything stay on the floor
The floor is where things go to die.
Clothes get dirty on the floor even if they weren’t dirty before, papers get crumpled and destroyed, small items fall behind furniture and get lost, trash piles up in corners, the list goes on. Anything that’s on the floor will get walked on, and anything that gets walked on will get dirtied and destroyed.
If there are things on your floor, get them off your floor. Pick them up and put them on the end tables, top of the dresser, bed, or nearest table. Sure, that’s not clean, exactly, but things won’t actively get destroyed if they’re on a tabletop.
Every time I walk into a room and find I’ve left shit on the floor, I immediately pick it all up and put it on the nearest surface. My vanity countertop often becomes a home for clothes I’ve taken off the hangers but haven’t dirtied yet. Much better for them to be there than on the floor, where I will walk on them and will dirty them.
4. Pick a place for things and keep them there
I used to lose my keys, phone, and wallet a lot. Amongst my dishes on the desk, trash in the corner, and dirty clothes all over the floor, it was easy for the essentials to disappear under one of the layers and become lost.
Not anymore. I probably misplace these essentials once every six months now, if that.
I stopped losing my essentials because I adopted the habit of emptying my pockets onto my desk or reading chair end-table as soon as I get home. When I leave the house, I know my essentials will always be in a little pile in one of these two locations — not left in last night’s jeans, fallen behind the end table, or shoved in a couch cushion. This habit takes me no time and saves me much frustration.
More broadly, I don’t really lose anything anymore. That’s mostly because everything has a place in my home.
Some people don’t designate places for things. When they “clean,” they just shove stuff on shelves, in drawers, or under their bed until things look clean from the outside. This looks fine to the guests who come over, but it basically guarantees you won’t remember where you put something and will struggle to find it later.
For a truly tidy home, designate a place for everything. Put books in one location, cards in another, art supplies in their own box, so on and so forth.
Make it even easier on yourself by storing things so they are visible. People who are familiar with Konmari will recall her recommended storage method of storing things upright so they are all visible from the drawer — this is so you do not forget things that are not visible because they are underneath other things.
Shirts and accessories stored upright. Source.
When you store things this way, it is so easy to know where everything is. Just go to the drawer that stores that type of item, open it, and boom! What you’re looking for will be right there.
5. Tidy up every time you leave the house
This is my favorite recommendation on this list. Every time I’m leaving the house (when I’m not in a rush), I tidy up.
I make my bed.
I make sure all my clean clothes are put away and all my dirty clothes are in the laundry basket.
I start the dishwasher if it needs it.
I make sure all the trash is in a trash can.
This takes less than ten minutes.
I love doing this because I love coming home to a clean house. It feels like arriving at a hotel after a long day of driving — plus, it’s got all my favorite stuff in it, and it’s already paid for. It’s awesome.
When I’m going on vacation, I take it a step further. I fully clean and put away all my laundry the night before I leave. If the trash needs to be taken out, I do so. Then, in the morning, packing takes less than five minutes — I grab the clothes and gear I need and set off.
Coming home from vacation to a dirty house sucks. It’s such a come-down. Coming home from vacation to a clean house is great. As I said, it’s like coming home to a high-quality hotel. Who wouldn’t want that?
I’m not a neat freak. I still go months without cleaning the floors, vacuuming, or wiping down the countertop. But my home is now reliably clean. There is space for me to do things like yoga, reading, and painting. Many people struggle to spend their time the way they want in their home, but not me. That’s more important than a sanitized countertop.
As I said at the beginning of this article, it’s not because I’m disciplined or hard-working. I’m a pretty lazy person. My house is clean because of some clever life-hacks, that’s all. With the same life hacks, yours could be too.
Endnote: I don’t actually think laziness exists. I used the phrase “lazy” in this article because it’s great shorthand for the concept of “not wanting to dedicate time and energy explicitly for cleaning.”