Keeping your apartment tidy and organized can be an annoying, time consuming chore for little gain, but by approaching it differently and using some of the tips outlined here it can also be a stress reliever and an efficient use of your time.
Good organization, no matter how large or small, begins with the everyday tasks, like putting your keys in the same place each day. This notion sounds simple but for many people not finding keys in the morning sets a frenzied and negative tone for the day.
Here’s a short list of some tidying tasks you can do to save time and keep the clutter to a minimum:
Make your bed as soon as you get up:
Make the bed in the morning as soon as you get up and out from the comfort of your sheets. If you bed is messy it’s easy to feel like your entire bedroom is messy. After all, the bed is usually the focal point of the bedroom.
Keep a space for your keys, phone, wallet, etc:
It may seem like a small thing, but keeping your keys and the items you take out of your pockets or purse in one space when you get home can reduce clutter and stress. No more frantic searching for keys or wallet early in the morning when you’re leaving for work!
Clean one room or area a day:
This is less daunting than cleaning the whole apartment at once. Take some time during the day to clean the washroom, and then the kitchen another day, and so on.
Share the load:
It might be obvious to some, but sharing the cleaning load with your roommate, partner, family or whomever you live with will make it a much easier task to tackle. The problem of course comes in getting those people to reliably do the cleaning when it needs to be done. To solve this problem, speak with them and create a cleaning schedule that you’re both happy with. Have the schedule posted somewhere you both will see it regularly so no one can use the excuse that they “forgot that it was their turn”.
Keep your clothes in their place:
It’s always tempting to come home and toss your jacket on the couch, your dirty clothes on the dresser, and relax for the rest of the evening. Besides adding to a general look of clutter around your apartment, this kind of behaviour can quickly escalate to having piles of dirty and clean clothes on the floor, bed, and wherever else is most convenient to toss. Break this habit! Just like making your bed in the morning it’s best to take care of this simple chore right away before it turns your entire apartment into a hamper. Put clothes away as soon as you take them out of the dryer; hang your jacket when you get home; put dirty clothes in the hamper—don’t let your clothes pile up!
These Apartment Living Tips were provided by The CAPREIT Team
