Home Economics 16

Greetings, friends and guests of my blog! Your home is extremely clean and tidy a rare event? Many will agree that sometimes there is nothing shameful in this, because some have small children who throw everything everywhere and run around the house with a piece of bread, some work from morning to evening, and some simply do not know how to maintain a house in order.

Home is the place where you want to relax after a hard day at work, where you want to bring friends and invite relatives. We call home our nest, but where have you seen a nest in which the devil would break his leg? In general, if you haven’t cleaned and organized your house yet, then let’s get started!

Useful for women:

If you are tired of everyday cleaning of the house, washing dishes, washing, ironing, and it seems there is no end to it all, then I will tell you a few secrets that will help keep the house in impeccable order.

Secrets of cleanliness for housewives

Cleaning the house should begin not when everything is completely cluttered and there is nowhere to go, and it is impossible to find anything, but when a certain corner of your home requires it. For example, in kitchen cabinets food piled on top of each other is also not the best... In this case, you should pay attention to the kitchen and carry out a thorough cleaning. By looking into every corner, putting everything in its place, and wiping the grease off the cabinet doors, you can forget about cleaning the kitchen for a while.

According to the flylady system, you shouldn’t spend more than half an hour a day on cleaning, but personally, it doesn’t work out that way for me. I spend a little more time cleaning any part of the house, on average about 40 minutes. The next day I take, for example, the children’s bedroom and put it in order, of course, not without the help of the children. follows from an early age. Thus, spending very little time, I do a general cleaning of one or another part of the house.

Order in a cleaned room lasts on average 5-7 days. Of course, you can bring shine to your entire home in one day, and not stretch it out over several days, but personally, I don’t have a whole day for cleaning, since I’m full of other worries.

If the stove and sink always sparkle with cleanliness and freshness, then no one will ever notice that you rarely clean the kitchen (again, the Fly Lady system). Plus, a dishwasher will be a very good helper for you. With it you will save not only time, but also the amount of water spent.

Regarding washing, I think no one has any problems anymore; washing machines do it for us, but ironing clothes takes a lot of time. There are also secrets here. In order not to waste time ironing certain types of linen, in particular bed linen, towels, bedspreads, wash them with conditioners or, as they are also called, fabric softeners. Fabric softener softens it, reduces wrinkles and you can do without ironing, but if you still prefer ironed laundry, then conditioner makes ironing easier.

Find out:

Don't waste time ironing children's home clothes. is necessary only if the child is an infant, and for older children it is enough that the clothes are washed, well rinsed and dried. You can purchase washing machine with dryer or dryer separately. This is a great thing to help a modern woman, a housewife, who does not want to waste precious time on such a boring and thankless task as ironing.

As a rule, you usually don’t get around to cleaning closets with clothes. Once you get rid of unnecessary and unworn items for a long time, you will make your life much easier. Also, it is advisable to distribute things by season into summer and winter. It will be much easier for you to find the right thing without turning the entire cabinet inside out.

To ensure that cleanliness and order become faithful companions in your home, devote very little time to cleaning, but every day.

It is possible that one day a moment will come when it wouldn’t hurt to spend the whole day cleaning, but believe me, if you follow the above tips, then this moment may not come, and in our fast-paced times this is most welcome, because you don’t want to Spend the entire day of your day off cleaning.

I am attracted to the flylady system, in the process of studying its basics, I picked up the article interesting video, I suggest you familiarize yourself with it.

You can order products free from toxic components for cleaning and maintaining order in your home. Here.

Did you find the information useful? Then share it with your friends on in social networks and save the blog to bookmarks. I wish you success with your housework!

Ideal order in the apartment is always the key to a good mood among household members, because no one will look for things and no one will be ashamed to bring guests into the apartment. In addition, the order of objects in the house helps to concentrate, putting everything on the shelves in your head. You should also put things in order if you are moving out of a rented apartment; you don’t want people to think of you in some wrong way (as if you are slobs and slackers).

Today in our article we will help you put your apartment or house in perfect order by doing everything quickly and correctly.

11 secrets on how to clean up your apartment

1. Focus on dust. It is impossible to avoid it, since it penetrates us from all places - windows, doors and even vents. We bring it on the sole of our shoes and, of course, outerwear. You can get rid of such dust using a vacuum cleaner, but set it to wet cleaning so that it does not spread dust throughout the entire space. By removing the dust, you can move the things you need. There is no need to do the opposite otherwise, for example, you can move the bag to another place where dust will already accumulate, so it will remain there for a long time, and it is better not to breathe such air. The place where dust is most visible (especially to guests) is the surface of tables, chairs, televisions and window sills (there is especially a lot of it here, as it blows from the window). Dust can also form on the wallpaper (rarely, but if it appears, it means you have been cleaning the rooms for a long time), vents (it is better to remove them and thoroughly clean them from cobwebs, dirt, etc.). The top ones deserve special attention. ceiling corners, where cobwebs can usually be found.


2. The first thing our guests pay attention to is the floor. Therefore, you should start by cleaning the floor. Thoroughly clean the carpets (if any), sweep and wash the floor itself (parquet, linoleum, tiles, etc.). It is better to focus on those places that are most contaminated - the hallway and living room, but this does not mean that you can forget about hard-to-reach places, such as areas under the bed or sofa.


3. If your apartment is small, then try to take out the trash more often. There is no need to install separate buckets in the bedroom, living room, etc. for this. The fact is that the trash can will be easy enough to notice, but garbage left on a table or nightstand will also haunt you. Therefore, immediately accustom yourself to one bucket (in the kitchen) and daily removal of garbage bags, although the more often the better, because it does not give off the most pleasant smell in the house, which spreads very quickly.


4. Get rid of things you don't need. Now that the living room and corridor are in order, take care of the objects that surround you. Order is, first of all, the rational use of space in the house. When the house is a mess, there are a lot of things in it that we don’t need. Of course, you are unlikely to be able to throw them away, so we suggest doing it this way: purchasing a large box in which to put all the necessary things. Moreover, identifying an item by necessity is quite simple: put in a box all those items that you have not used for a month, two or more: lamps, pens, magazines, accessories, small equipment (an old mobile phone, for example), etc. You can also place some decorative elements in the box (vases, mugs, figurines, glasses that you don’t like much). After filling the box to capacity, seal it and write today’s date on top. Take the box to the garage, basement, or at least to a closed balcony. And believe me, most likely, you will not look into this box for at least a year (due to necessity), and, therefore, all the collected things are really nothing more than trash for you. After one year, you can safely sell these items.


5. Once you've removed everything you need, surround yourself with the things you use regularly. Have you ever noticed that you take out all the necessary items from cabinets, shelves and even other rooms, when there are things nearby that you do not need at all? If this is so, then you should urgently reconsider the entire set of objects surrounding you. He is unfaithful. Try to surround yourself by putting in a visible and convenient place only those things that you use, and not those that should be located according to generally accepted canons. By completing this step, you can easily avoid a mess in your apartment, because there will be no unnecessary things, and the necessary things will not create problems for you.


6. A clean apartment in which everything is at hand is not ideal order. So now it’s time for us to start hiding unnecessary items from the eyes of outsiders. Come to terms with the idea that there will be guests in your home from time to time, that is, essentially strangers. These may include: people from a repair service, neighbors, inspectors (gas and electricity), friends, colleagues, acquaintances (friends of your children, parents or spouses), etc. They may all have different understandings of order and cleanliness, but in general, there is a rule - to hide from strangers personal life, so try to distribute things in the house in such a way that even if strangers come to your house at night, you do not feel awkward. So how to do this?! Quite simple! Get into the habit of “always hide personal items!” It doesn't matter if it's money or bed linen. Documents should never be left in plain sight. Small things like glasses, watches, mobile phones, bracelets and other things should also have their place, preferably in the bedside table. When changing clothes, put all things in the closet, and dirty linen or clothes in a special basket. Washing should not take the whole day. It is also better not to leave dishes dirty, but to wash them immediately or put them in dishwasher.


7. Keep the kitchen clean. The order in the house can often be determined by the kitchen; if it is clean and well-groomed, then most likely the rest of the rooms in the house will not be dirty. This is often where most of the guests come, drinking tea with you or stopping in for a short conversation. Therefore, this implies several rules that the owner should not forget about if he strives to restore order throughout the apartment. First, as we already said, wash the dishes immediately after dinner, and don't even think about leaving dirty dishes anywhere in the house. Secondly, clean the refrigerator, both inside and outside. outside. It attracts the most attention due to its size and frequency of reference to it. There is no need to store spoiled products in it that are already expired or are not suitable for cooking in themselves (they smell bad and look terrible). Third, thoroughly wipe all cabinet handles and kitchen appliances(For example, microwave oven), so that the guest does not get dirty by accidentally touching something. Fourthly, ventilate the room more often so that not only the order and cleanliness in the kitchen is visible, but also the smell does not bother us.


8. If you have already started tidying up the rooms of your house, then you should not bypass the bathroom.


9. It will be very strange if everything in the house radiates cleanliness and order, and the bathroom somehow stands out from the general background. There should also be a pleasant smell, a clean floor, fresh towels, soap and bottles on the mirror should look clean, and the sink should have a good drain so as not to create discomfort for the guest and yourself. Now it’s time to think about the order and cleanliness of the “Holy of Holies” - the bedroom


10. . You can feel the order not only by arranging all the items in their places, but also by changing the bed linen, removing small debris from the dressing or coffee table, arranging books or magazines on the bedside table, and also ventilating the rooms themselves. Naturally, here we no longer mention cleaning the room itself. Pay attention to mirrors too. If you are a pedantic person who loves order and cleanliness, you will not feel sufficiently comfortable seeing dirty stains on the mirrors (from touching or cosmetics).


11. If it is difficult for you to constantly remember what and how should be folded ideally, then we advise you to once create the ideal order (that you would like) and capture it on. Such a picture will help you perform all the actions every time, which will tell you what else you have not done to keep your home in order.

• When cleaning up your home, check the technical components of all appliances at the same time.


• Here we are talking about various equipment, for example, televisions and computers. Check their connections to the outlet and other connectors. Is everything inserted correctly, is there any play or problems (especially with the electrical part, so that there is no short circuit later).


• Divide the entire apartment into several zones (living room, bathroom, corridor, etc.) and restore order gradually in each zone, do not try to clean everything at once, as you will definitely forget something.


• Train yourself to clean up your house, at least 15-20 minutes a day, then you won’t have to spend whole days on it once a week or two.


• Before you put things in order, make a list of things you need to do that day and gradually start doing it.


• If you want ideal frequency and comfort in the room, try to make all horizontal surfaces as clean as possible, and also to have a minimum of objects on them.


• Never leave an item in plain sight unless it can be hidden in a locker or closet.


• It’s better to put things in order while listening to fast and favorite music (you can even dance along to it), this way the process will go faster and more interesting. Do not turn on the TV under any circumstances, especially when watching an interesting program or film/series, as you will definitely get caught up in watching it and forget what you wanted to do in the first place. After watching, you are unlikely to want to get involved in the process again.


• Our editors of the online magazine site recommend finding a separate place for each item, since in this case it will be easiest to find it and also put it in its place. Which will accordingly save time and nerves.


• Use space wisely! Don't forget about the small shelves that you have in your closet or even coffee table. For example, we always forget about the bedside table on which the TV sits, but it often has a lot of shelves on which you can put remote controls for household appliances, a magazine with a program, your favorite movie discs, etc.


• If you are overtaken by laziness in putting things in order, then you can come up with some kind of motivator, for example, invite dear guests tonight or tomorrow, to whom it would be very embarrassing to show the apartment in this condition. Then your laziness will go away, and the desire to clean up your house will quickly appear!


• Eradicate this “Sovdepov” habit of hanging clothes on doors, chairs and other pieces of furniture. Accustom yourself to order, then you will have to restore it less.


• Place aroma candles or special air fresheners throughout the rooms, which will create not only an externally pleasant environment, but also rid the apartment of unpleasant odors.

Although strict Soviet housewives assured their daughters that disorder in the house was solely a consequence of laziness and personal disorganization, psychologists long ago debunked this myth: people are divided into several types, and different types Individuals organize the space around them differently.

CLEANITY AS A HABIT

There are those for whom structure and maintaining order come easily; they are uncomfortable in a mess, and cleaning is an important part of their character.

There are those who are more comfortable in order, but among their personality traits there is no ability to adhere to routine operations - it is more difficult for such people to maintain order, so in their house the disorder most often gains a critical mass (everyone has their own mass), after which cleaning is carried out, but the result takes a long time does not hold, and the circle repeats.

There are also those who, in principle, are unable to maintain cleanliness in the space around them and do not worry about this at all.
However, if you still don’t like clutter, but you’re not a clean person by nature, you can try to deceive your character and instill habits in yourself, say activists of the Fly Lady movement. Just 10 habits will allow you to painlessly maintain order in your home.

Habit #1: Always make your bed

It’s not for nothing that my mother always demanded that the bed be put in order before school - nothing adds to the feeling of a mess like crumpled linen on an unmade bed. Making your bed is a matter of 10 seconds, it is the simplest and easiest habit of all!

Habit #2: Clean soap smudges from the walls of the shower or bathtub after every shower.

If you take a shower, rinse the walls with water to remove soap smudges and wipe them with a special roller for shower cabins. It takes 5 seconds and keeps the bathroom fresh - a very useful habit that would be nice to instill in all family members.

Habit #3: Clean your bathroom sink every night

If you brushed your teeth, tidy up the sink so that soap smudges and toothpaste stains don’t harden on it. The easiest way is to keep the tile cleaner and sponge right in the bathroom so you can quickly apply it, rinse it off, and leave your bathroom looking great. The whole procedure takes 30 seconds at most.

Habit #4: Leave the kitchen clean in the evening

Activists of the Fly Lady community claim that cleanliness in an apartment begins with a clean kitchen. Like, the kitchen becomes dirty first, and this is where you need to start the war against clutter. The procedure for Fly Lady is as follows:

• wash the dishes or put them in the dishwasher (never leave dirty dishes overnight – cleanliness rule)
• Apply the cleaner onto the sink in a thick layer and leave it to work.
• wipe all surfaces with a damp sponge
• rinse the cleaning agent from the surface of the sink, wipe it dry
• get something fresh kitchen towel, used send to wash

With proper skill and consistency, the entire procedure takes from 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the volume of dirty dishes.

Habit #5: Wash dishes while preparing food

All people are divided into two groups - someone cooks and multiplies dirty utensils around them, someone washes everything during the cooking process. Clean ones are of the latter kind. The “used - washed” rule allows you to stifle the mess at the inception stage.

Habit #6: “evening rounds”

All the same Fly Lady activists advise making a habit of nightly “five minutes of cleanliness” - before going to bed, you need to walk around the apartment and sort out fresh rubble. Send scattered things back to their place, put away magazines and CDs, park children's toys. Just 5 minutes every evening will help keep your home clean until the next spring cleaning.

Habit #7: Don’t keep clothes outside of closets

Dirty clothes go in the wash, wearable clothes go back in the closet. This rule allows you to wean yourself and your loved ones from creating mountains of clothes on chairs and armchairs, which fit so harmoniously into the general atmosphere of a mess. This routine takes about 5 seconds of time - just control yourself during the process of unmasking and send the things you are removing not to the chair, but where they should be.

Habit #8: Ventilate the room

One of the unpleasant properties of barrack apartments is the musty smell. The apartment may be relatively tidy, but this smell will give away a slob faster than scattered things. Make it a rule to ventilate your apartment every day for 10-15 minutes, this is good for your health and for maintaining a general feeling of cleanliness.

Habit #9: Dust off particularly dusty surfaces every day.

Every home has surfaces that attract dust faster than others - plasma panels, monitors, glass (including mirrors), etc. A special antistatic rag + 2-3 minutes a day to get around all the “dusty” places and brushing away what has accumulated during the day will allow you to maintain a general feeling of cleanliness for a long time.

Habit #10: Involve everyone in your household to maintain order and invest money in buying equipment that makes life easier

There is no need to suddenly become a cleaner, it is harmful to the psyche, Fly Lady claims. Sometimes you really just don’t have the strength to sort out a fresh rubble or brush off the dust - no big deal, it’ll wait until tomorrow. The main thing is to make the steps described above a habit, for which it is enough to force yourself to follow the routine for three weeks.

After 21 days, evening rounds and wiping down the bathroom sink will become second nature, activists say. And one more thing: you shouldn’t try to repeat the feat of Hercules and clean the Augean stables on your own; you should try to instill habits of cleanliness in everyone at home (although what exactly is the feat of Hercules - cleaning or instilling such habits in your husband and children is, of course, a question).

Buying good household appliances that reduce the time and effort required to maintain cleanliness is not a waste of money. For example, investing in a good steam cleaner (an appliance that cleans different surfaces hot steam) will help you cut down hours of time that you would otherwise spend scrubbing tiles, plumbing fixtures, etc. (for example, Karcher SC1, the main love of “jet housewives”). We don't live in the 19th century, and it would be stupid not to take advantage of everything that is designed to make our lives easier.

And so that you don’t stop working on your habits and laziness doesn’t take over, FLY LADY advises making something like a cleaning schedule, where you list the main routine and frequency of various manipulations. It is enough to stick to this schedule for a month to get used to the new routine.

1. Wash dishes immediately after use. Of course, no one likes to wash dishes, but thanks to this rule, it will be easier for you to maintain order in the kitchen and it will take less time. While washing, do not think about “burning” matters or restless feelings: pay attention to the temperature of the water, the texture of the surface of the dishes, the rainbow shimmer of light in the soap bubbles - and these 10 minutes of routine dishwashing can become your daily meditation and distraction from obsessive thoughts.

2. Leave surfaces clean every evening. No matter how minimalist your kitchen or bathroom design is, it will never look clean if there are scattered items scattered across countertops. Always put things in their place, and to do this you need to think about a suitable storage system for each room. Special organizers will help you with this. By thinking about such questions, you yourself will notice how your thoughts come into order.

3. Be very strict about what you bring into your home. Avoid things you don't really need and regularly get rid of accumulated clutter. Every item should be useful or bring you joy.

But it often happens that expectations about a thing are not met. Think about why you crave an item that you don't really need? Perhaps this impulse contains echoes of internal fears, envy or loneliness? Regular decluttering (getting rid of junk) will help you sort it out and bring you closer to a clean, spacious home.

4. Sort “waste paper” immediately. A pile of papers may not have time to accumulate if you immediately assign a place to each of its components (letters, bills, newspaper clippings). Here you should think about whether advertising brochures and old magazines that are stacked on the table are really important? Books you're not interested in reading? Think about what information is really useful and interesting for you, and what is just information noise.

5. Clean a little every day. While you are cleaning, concentrate on muscle contractions, body position, the temperature of the air around you and your own breathing. These small moments of self-care will significantly reduce the physical manifestations of stress. Even 15-20 minutes of cleaning a day (one area, one drawer cleaned) can make a big difference.

This approach can yield greater results in the long run than spring-cleaning once every two months, and less energy will be spent. In addition, such regular but conscious distraction will help you feel satisfied with the result, even a small one, achieved.

Photo: Gina Zeidler, Minette Hand, Hayley Kessner, Emily Billings, The Home Edit, Natalie Jeffcott

What woman doesn’t dream of her home becoming an oasis of cleanliness and order? And such a simple question forces them to reconsider their attitude not only to cleaning, but also to the very definition of what cleanliness in the house is. After all, this is a relative concept. No room can be absolutely clean! Relative order can be established easily if you follow some rules.

Cleanliness and order in the house: features

What do you need to know and do in order to achieve cleanliness in the room? First of all, these are the types of cleaning:

• fast – daily;
• main – once a week;
• general – once a month.

There is also forced cleaning, which becomes necessary if the house has not been kept in order and clean for a long time. Urgent cleaning is a process during which order is restored immediately after dirt or disorder.

To keep your home always clean, you must follow some rules. These include:

• don’t put all the work on your fragile shoulders, involve your children and husband in caring for the house;
• introduce children to the desire to be in a clean room from the diapers, then they will learn the habit of putting their toys and books away, making their bed in the morning, clearing dishes from the table, wiping crumbs off it;
• It’s more difficult with a husband, because he has already developed his own stereotype of behavior and attitude towards housework responsibilities, which he acquired in childhood;
• got up in the morning, put things in order on your planet called home, pack your bed, put things in the closet, clear the table;
• In the evening, be sure to wash all the dishes: dirty dishes, especially those left overnight, attract a lot of negativity into the house;
• pay special attention to daily care of the sink, stove, bathtub and toilet - the most problematic places in the house;
• at the end of the week, try to tidy up more thoroughly, but if the above tips have been followed throughout the past week, then you won’t have to spend your well-deserved rest on weekends on such a tedious task as general cleaning.

Prepare all necessary chemicals, household appliances and devices in advance so as not to be distracted by searching for the right things. After all, this will take extra time, and can also ruin your mood if, at the right moment, you suddenly are not in the house, for example, detergent or some other little thing. But the most important thing: when you start cleaning, tune in to the positive, anticipating in advance the pleasure that you will receive from contemplating the cleanliness, order and comfort created by your own hands!