Tag: chores

Tips for keeping your home and family super organised

Tips for keeping your home and family super organised

Do you feel like your family and home are in constant disarray? If you’re looking for tips to help control things, read on! In this post, we’ll share some easy ways to keep your home and family super organised. From decluttering to creating a daily routine, these tips will help you regain the peace of mind you crave. Let’s get started!

Have a permanent donations bin in your home

A dedicated donations bin in your home can easily keep your family and home organised. Donation bins are great for quickly sorting and storing items you no longer need so that you can donate them and reduce clutter in the home. When setting up a donation bin, make sure it’s easily accessible to everyone in the family but also out of the way if you do not want it in view. Try labelling the bin with simple signage such as “Donate Here” or “Give Away”, so there is no confusion when anyone wants to use it. After the bin is filled, consider donating the items regularly and replace what was given away with anything else you find around the house that needs to be donated instead of thrown away or stored. If a donations bin still needs to be part of your family’s organisation toolkit, take a few minutes to set one up and start collecting unneeded items that could be rehomed!

Menu planning

Menu planning can be a great way to stay organised in your household. It is convenient and cost-effective, as weekly or even monthly meal plans can help cut down on trips to the supermarket, reduce food waste and harness leftovers. Menu planning also helps alleviate dinnertime stress as you can plan for busy weeks when cooking can become an unwanted burden. Start by thinking of meals everyone likes, including simple options everyone can make. Then, plan dinners for the week and can use leftovers for lunch the following day or for another dinner. If meal prepping is something that works with your routine – making those meals on Sunday when you have more free time & space – then do it for shorter amounts of time throughout the week, including packing your lunches in advance, batch cooking a few nights’ worth of dinner and pre-made components to include in a salad, sandwich or wrap each day. Setting yourself time goals will set you up for menu planning success while allowing variety while keeping things organised.

Have designated personal spaces for everyone to keep their belongings

Creating designated personal spaces for each family member is an easy way to organise your family and home. Allocate a cupboard or wardrobe to each family member where they can keep their belongings such as clothes, bags, shoes and any other personal items. You can use fitted wardrobes, storage boxes, lockers or separate areas delineated by coloured drawers. Once allocated a space, encourage each family member to put their items away when not in use — this will also help them feel more responsible for keeping their area clean and tidy. When it comes time to do chores like cleaning bedrooms or changing sheets, this will be faster and simpler since everyone knows where their things should go. Designated personal spaces with creative organisation methods enable you to stay on top of clutter before it compounds, allowing for order instead of chaos.

Create a visual family schedule

Keeping your family organised can be a daunting task, but if you create a visual family schedule it can make it much easier. A visual family schedule is a great way to keep the entire family on track and know what is happening throughout the week. It can also help foster independence in children and teenagers as they learn to use the schedule to plan meetings, appointments and extracurricular activities. Visual family schedules also act as helpful reminders for everyone in the household, so there are no unwelcome surprises on important dates or days when specific tasks must be done. Creating a visual schedule at home takes some simple planning – get creative with colourful dry-erase boards, printable calendars or even wallpapers taking up some space on your fridge. However, these mediums make organisation fun for kids and show that you can have an incredibly organised household with a bit of ingenuity!

Involve the whole family in cleaning & household tasks

Keeping a busy family and home organised can seem like an overwhelming task. However, involving the whole family in household tasks is a great way to share the workload and keep your home tidy. It’s important to give each member of the family ownership of their tasks, so assign housework based on skills and interests. Build teamwork by setting specific goals for each cleaning or organising task or introducing incentives for reaching those goals. Try assigning tasks to various family members regularly, or create a rotating schedule throughout the week so everyone has an afternoon off each week. Giving everyone individual tasks will help ensure all areas of your home stay organised and free of clutter; remember to keep it fun and ensure everyone is doing their bit!

Keeping a family and home organised is an important task to maintain. The key components to staying organised are planning meals, allocating designated personal spaces for each family member, creating visual family schedules and involving the whole family in household tasks. With these tips, you can keep your home clean and clutter-free without all the stress.

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How to keep your home clean during a busy family summer

How to keep your home clean during a busy family summer

Summertime is the best, isn’t it? Spending lots of time outdoors, barbecues, sea, sand, picnics… the list of fun activities you can do in the summer just goes on and on. Following in the wake of the Coronavirus crisis, when last summer was virtually ‘cancelled’, we have all the more reason to have a blast this year.

While summer is all fun and games, it can be hard to keep your home clean during this busy season; especially if you have kids or pets – or both! Your home can quickly become a dumping ground for toys, sand, grass, wet towels and other summertime debris! So, how can you keep on top of your home chores without sacrificing fun days out in the sun? In this post we’ll take a look at how to do just that. Strap in for a summer of fun, here we go!

Cleaning products

Clean during the evenings

Most of us think of cleaning as a daytime ritual, right? We set aside a few hours during the day to clean up the house, tidy, do laundry and generally set things straight. However, during the summer, you may find that your weekends are filled with fun social engagements that require you to soak up the sun at every opportunity – and you shouldn’t miss out on that!

An easy alternative is to change your cleaning ritual so that you mainly clean during the evening. This allows you to spend as much time as you want having fun outside during the day, and still helps you to keep up with your indoor chores.

Robot vacuum cleaner

Get an automated vacuum cleaner

Another way to keep your home clean during the busy summer months is to let your tools do all the work. An automated vacuum cleaner will clean up your floors without you having to lift a finger. Your only responsibility is emptying and charging the vacuum cleaner, while your new machine does the rest while you are out having fun! This is a perfect summer solution to the grass and sand that will inevitably make its way onto your floors this year.

Room full of clutter

Minimise your home’s clutter

If you want to keep your home clean with minimal effort, then it’s time to get minimal! The less clutter you have lying around the house, the easier it will be to give the place a once-over at the end of a long summer’s day. Clutter gathers dust, gets in the way and can generally increase the feeling of having a dirty or over-filled home.

So, before summer really begins, make sure you spring clean your home and get rid of any unwanted belongings. You could give them to charity, auction them off or recycle them – just ensure you don’t go into the summer of 2021 with excess baggage in your life.

Final thoughts

Summer is built for fun, not chores. If you want to reduce your chores while keeping your home a clean, clear and healthy environment for all, use this guide to help you achieve that harmonious balance this year.

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The most common areas of the house that get dirty and how to keep them looking new

The most common areas of the house that get dirty and how to keep them looking new | H is for Home

The build-up of dirt, dust and grime is unavoidable, and something with which home-owners must do constant battle. Some areas of the house tend to require more regular attention than others, however, and it’s worth looking at ways to clean them more quickly and efficiently (and therefore more regularly).

White bathtub with stainless steel taps and white towel thrown over

Bathroom

Perhaps the second most important room in the house when it comes to cleaning is the bathroom. These are places where we clean ourselves, and thus they’ll need to soak up a great deal of dirt. This will quickly ruin the look of the room. There’s no point investing in quality bathroom tiles if your beautiful tiles and tile patterns are going to have filthy grouting between them. Particularly vulnerable is the grouting around the shower area, which can be dealt with using a vinegar solution. Chrome fittings tend to show up more dirt than stainless steel ones, and thus they’ll require more regular attention.

Kitchen with wooden worktops and white tiling

Kitchen

Any area where food is prepared is vulnerable to dirt. Surfaces used to chop vegetables, slice bread and butterfly chicken breasts are likely to pick up a surface of dirt over time. More troublingly, whenever anything is cooked, tiny food particulates will float through the air and settle onto any available surface, and thus just about everywhere is vulnerable. Wipe down every surface regularly, and have a bottle of spray cleaner to hand for surfaces. Ovens may require an occasional deep-clean to keep them in good condition. Taps, being as they’re handled regularly (and often by grubby fingers) will act as a magnet for grime, and so should be treated to a scrub every now and again.

Bedside with white linen

Bedroom

If you’re like most people, you’ll be sleeping on your bedding for eight hours a night, and shedding thousands of skin cells in the process. Changing the sheets & pillowcases every week should therefore be considered mandatory. The same is true of carpets, which should be vacuumed regularly, and occasionally treated to a deeper steam-clean.

Windows

Windows attract dirt, much like any other surface. The difference is that it shows up more here, as it’ll restrict the amount of light that gets into the interior. You might scrub windows with a vinegar solution and some scrunched-up newspaper; it’s abrasive enough to clear surface imperfections without damaging the underlying glass.

Man holding a mobile phone

Personal items

There are some items that you’ll be touching almost constantly. Of these, the most obvious is probably your phone. You’ll be rubbing your thumb across the screen’s surface several hundred times every day, and leaving greasy prints as you do so. You can’t do much about that, but you can remove the dirt and grime that might have accumulated on the device with the help of a quick wipe with a clean cloth. The same applies to keyboards, handbags, wallets and every other item that’s regularly picked up and put down.

3 incentives to get on top of the housework

3 incentives to get on top of the housework | H is for Home

When was the last time you gave your home a thorough clean? If it’s been a while, you might have excuses as to why you haven’t.

  • I’m too tired after work
  • I’ll crack on with the chores another day
  • I have more exciting things to do with my time
  • I don’t know where to start

And so on and so on and so on…

Are these excuses familiar to you? It might be that you have other excuses that we haven’t considered too. Still, you shouldn’t let your excuses deter you from your housework for long because there are some very good reasons as to why you need to get on top of it. Check out our list of incentives below.

Illustration of a woman holding a mop

#1: You’ll be happier when it’s done

A tidier house leads to a tidier mind, so the sooner you get on top of your chores, the happier you’re probably going to be. Because let’s face it, does the sight of dust on your TV, pots piled high in the sink and grime around your bath fill you with feelings of joy? We’re assuming not, so get on with those tasks that need to get done. Not only will you feel happier when you have a cleaner home to live in, but you might also feel happiness because of the satisfaction that comes with a job well done.

Illustration of a man holding cleaning products

#2: You’ll be able to invite people around to your home again

Rather than risk the embarrassment of other people seeing the mess that has accumulated in your home, you might dissuade your friends and neighbours from visiting you. You might make excuses as to why your mum shouldn’t come round too, especially if she’s house-proud and prone to making critical comments when she runs her finger through the dust on your living room sideboard. So, let this be another incentive to get on with the housework. As soon as you do, you’ll be able to improve your social life, and you’ll no longer make excuses to your mum as to why she can’t come around to visit you!

Illustration of laundry and detergent

#3: Your home won’t be placed under quarantine

Okay, so we’re exaggerating a little with our heading, but as this house cleaning guide suggests, if your home is unclean, it will become a hotbed for germs and bacteria. From the mould that’s gathering in your fridge because of the food stains on the shelves to the bathmats that can become a breeding ground for fungus, your home will quickly become a health hazard if you don’t take the time out to clean. To preserve your health and the health of anybody who might share your home with you, check out the guide we linked you to and follow the advice within.

So, no more excuses! The sooner you get on with the housework, the better – for all of the reasons we’ve mentioned here. And it doesn’t have to be a burden to you, either. Check out our cleaning tips to make light work of your chores. Once done, you can then relax in your home, without having to compromise on your social life or your health.

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