Clean House Wednesday: Less Mess

...the clothes lay in piles on top of  the college students' bed.
Janet glanced at it hesitantly, wishing it would disappear on its own.

by: Janet King

Keeping a home clutter and mess free is not an easy task to keep up with, especially when you have a whole household to tend to, and that takes up most of your day, and cleaning up clutter is brushed aside.
The key is to make spare time, then you have the time to actually sort through and organize the piles of laundry, de-clutter the pantries and cupboards, and tidy up messy rooms (however, children must learn to tidy their own rooms, you shouldn't do it for them. Rather obvious but I wanted to state that point.) .
First of all, don't look at the messy home from one view point- the point of view that has all of the clutter in one giant boulder; it will only glare back at you and will seem as too much of a daunting task to undertake, and you will procrastinate and put off de-cluttering for another day, and then you will never get around to doing it. It sounds strange, but it's true.
You must organize and scrape away at the boulder one step at a time. Little by little you will get the job done. It is very easy and less daunting. However, if you wish to attack that pile of laundry now and get it over with, by all means, attack! The sooner, the quicker, the better. But, you must fold the clothes neatly so that you won't have to refold them again due to hastiness and sloppiness.
Every time you come home with baskets full of groceries, stack the canned goods neatly in the pantry right away. The summer jams and preserves should already be nicely organized and stowed away in the pantry. Be sure that they are labeled (ie. the year it was made; what kind of jam it is; etc.)!
The cupboards usually don't look very cluttered, but it wouldn't hurt to align the cups neatly in a row to make them look more organized.
For a fresh, quiet time in the day, hang up the laundry on the clothesline while enjoying the Island breeze frisking at your hair.