Having a large house can be fantastic, but it does come with some drawbacks.
It is often hard to keep the house as tidy as you would like – especially if your family members are not as dedicated to keeping things neat as you are.
So, what tips are there to keep your house tidy and what can you do to encourage your family to join you in the project?
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Get Some Of Your Things Into Storage
Harshness is required if you are going to keep a tidy house. Everyone collects things over time.
The possessions that everyone has tend to build up and before you know it, you have too much stuff and not enough space.
That is when clutter begins to develop and you are left with a messy house.
It is in this situation when you need to be a little ruthless. The first step will be to throw away things that you do not need.
Many items in your house will have been collected over the years and they are now just kept out of habit. Be brutal and encourage your family to do the same.
This will allow you to significantly reduce the amount of clutter in your house and it will become easier to tidy.
There will, of course, be things that you do not necessarily need to have on hand, but at the same time do not want to throw away – for example, sentimental items or a book collection that is in mint condition.
You are unlikely to ever actually use them, but still want to keep them. In this situation, it would be sensible to rent out some form of personal storage to keep your possessions secure.
A storage facility will ensure that you can keep your sentimental items and at the same time remove them from your house, significantly decreasing the amount of clutter that is in there.
Set Up A Job List And Give A Desirable Reward For It Being Carried Out
A desirable reward is not difficult to think up. What does everyone want in the modern world?
Internet access.
So, have a job list that is made up of things to do that will keep your house clean.
Tell the people in your home that unless they carry out their jobs, they will not be getting the wifi password.
It might seem cruel, but it is guaranteed to work and will make your job a lot easier when it comes to keeping the house clean.
Of course, you should be setting a good example and carrying out jobs yourself. This will make it a lot more difficult for people to argue about the jobs that you have allocated.
Just make sure you remember to change the password every day or you could end up losing the battle.
Encourage People To Tidy As They Go Along
One of the easiest ways to keep things tidy is to not make a mess in the first place.
If you can get your family into a habit of tidying up as they go along then your house will never get too messy.
This means that you will not be bogged down with large jobs because the household will only ever have a series of small jobs to carry out.
It also means that the house will be kept neat most of the time, which in turn will help develop some house pride within your other family members.
While you might have to continue nagging at people for a while, it will not take long until it becomes a habit and people will naturally clean up as they go.
So, plates will be taken to the kitchen as soon as they are finished with. The dishwasher will be turned on as soon as it is full, or the washing up will be done when it needs to be done.
All of these are very simple tasks that can develop into big jobs if they are left to fester. If you get your family into this habit, your house will never be far away from being clean.
Set Up A Family Cleaning Session
Once a week set aside 30 minutes where you will all come together to clean the house.
Everyone has a job and they have 30 minutes to get it done.
This will make it easy to get all the cleaning done because everyone is working together.
It also cuts down on what needs doing, instead of leaving it all to just one person.
