The Essential Non-Negotiables To Keep Your Home In Order
If you want your home life to flow more smoothly and effectively, there should be a few things in your routine that serve as your non-negotiables within the home.
These are the things that are going to keep your home clean, tidy, and as stressless as possible. They seem simple enough, but if you often feel overwhelmed like you have to keep up with your home rather than just enjoy it, you’re probably letting these things slide. And although each thing may seem small and maybe even pretty insignificant, they can quickly turn your cozy, well kept home into a disaster zone overnight.
That’s why I think it’s important to give these seemingly obvious little tasks a bit of a spotlight for a second. Because I feel like often times we assume our big problems (“I can never keep the house clean!”) need a big solution (“I need to hire a housecleaner but I can’t afford one” or “I need to completely reorganize my house top to bottom but when will I ever find time to do that?”).
In actuality though, making small changes and building simple habits can consistently maintain your home and keep it a peaceful place. Once you’ve been consistent with these things for awhile, they will become second nature.
And most importantly, you’re going to feel a huge weight lifted off your shoulders.
Daily Non-negotiables
Do the dishes. Look, I get it, doing the dishes sucks. But it mostly just sucks when you have to spend 30 minutes scrubbing old crusty food off because you haven’t done the dishes in three days. It’s really not that bad if all you have to do is quickly wash a few pans and the plate you just used. And if you have a dishwasher, it’s even easier. All you have to do is rinse it and put it in a drawer that literally washes it for you! And yes, I am talking to myself right now.
Make the bed. Maybe this seems trivial, but just trust me. A lot of the most successful people in the world recommend this, so I don’t think either of us are too good for it. You know how satisfying it is when you actually do make your bed? Or when you fold the blankets down before cuddling into it? Imagine that pure joy every single day.
Put things back where they belong. This is one our moms all tried to instill in us at a young age when she made us put our toys away. It was important then and it’s important now. Everything in your home deserves it’s own little home. Honestly if you put everything back after you use it, you don’t have to spend 3 hours at the end of the week collecting everything to be put away. Imagine what you could do with 3 hours and a clean home.
Put your clothes away. Is this basically the same thing as the last point? Yes. Is most of the mess cluttering your bedroom floor clothes? If you’re me then yes, so I thought this point needed emphasis. C’mon Brittney, how hard is it to put something on a fricken hanger?
Have a designated spot for your keys. How often do you have a panic attack in the morning when you’re running late and you can’t find the damn keys? Yeah let’s avoid that moving forward. Our keys are on hooks hanging by the door. They’re not cluttering any tables or counters, and they’re ready for me in the morning when I’m rushing out in a frenzy.
Sweep the kitchen floor. Because no one likes ants or bits of food on the bottoms of their feet.
Weekly Non-negotiables
Change your sheets. Imagine a world where your bed is made every day and you get to snuggle into fresh sheets every week. That’s a world I want to live in.
Clean the bathroom. Maybe you think I’m gross but I can’t be the only one who lets this slip sometimes and then one morning is struck by the “sudden” soap scum coating the bathroom sink. And let’s not even talk about the toilet, especially if there’s a man in the house. Just take 15 minutes out of your morning once a week to tend to your bathroom. If you’ve been putting everything back where it belongs like you’re supposed to, all you’ll have to do is wipe everything down and scrub the toilet.
Water and tend to your plants. Because you can’t keep using “I’m just not a green thumb” forever. Eventually you gotta come to terms with being a plant serial killer. And this isn’t just limited to watering - check for pests and prune if you need to.
Vacuum. You might need to do this more often if you have pets or kids, or if you wear your shoes in the house. But this should at least be done once a week. Or else, before you know it, it’s six months down the line and you’ve suffocated your carpet your own hair. Just me? Okay.
Wipe things down. The coffee table, the appliances in the kitchen, your side table. You allergies will thank you.
Do laundry. And actually fold and put it away. On the same day. You’re adulting now, and you’re days of going commando are behind you. Gold star.
Clean out the fridge. Avoid the embarrassment of some helpless guest unearthing your moldy take-out from a month ago. But also that’s just gross and never fun to scrape out of your Tupperware. Also, it clutters your fridge which dooms other foods to go to waste because you forget about them. Keep your fridge clean and organized, and drastically reduce your food waste. Money in the bank, baby.
Allow yourself to be human
Okay so I know these are supposed to be non-negotiable. But let’s be real, we’re all human. So maybe sometimes these are a little bit negotiable.
I understand that every day is going to be different and some days you just won’t have the energy, whether mentally or physically, to get to everything. That’s okay. Be gracious with yourself and know your own limits. You don’t have to be guilty for not accomplishing everything all the time.
When you’re exhausted from a long week and all you can do is collapse into bed, the wold isn’t going to end just because there’s a dish in the sink.
The important thing here is to keep your excuses as bay. You’re going to be tired at the end of the day on a lot of days. But most days you’re still going to have enough in you to wash a couple of dishes. You wouldn’t leave a pile of dishes for a roommate to clean up in the morning, so don’t leave it for future you either.
The days that you negotiate your non-negotiables should be an exception to the rule, not the rule itself. Know yourself; know what you’re capable of even when you’re tired and know when you’re actually run dry and a break is the healthiest thing for you. Not the easiest, but the healthiest.
Action steps
In the next 15 minutes … Make lists to remind you to do this things, or print them off and hang them up where you can see them until they become habit. Then go do them if you haven’t already.
In the next week … Complete your weekly non-negotiables. Also set a block of time to declutter some things and make sure all of your things have a designated place so you always know where to put them back.
Work on consistently … Get in tune with yourself. Do you tend to make excuses for yourself to get out of doing these things? Do you actually not have time for them, or are your priorities just in the wrong place?