Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThis
Get Into Action
3. Give cleaning a starring role. Incorporate cleaning routines and procedures into your everyday life. This may be the single most important thing for achieving the spick-and-span home of your dreams. It means making your bed every morning (and teaching your kids to do it too). It's always wiping your feet at the door; putting dishes directly into the dishwasher; having a mail-sorting routine that puts bills, catalogs, coupons, and correspondence immediately into their right place. With routines like this, you can keep the time spent housecleaning to a minimum.4. Be strategic. Have plans to keep your home clean and neat. Neat means counters are clear, coats are hung up, clutter is under control. Clean means the floors aren't muddy, the corners aren't cobwebby, the doors aren't smudgy. While the two often go hand in hand, it is possible to have a messy home that's clean, or a neat home that's dirty. Neatening and cleaning need not happen together. But it's certainly easier and faster to clean a room that is neat.
5. Understand the special requirements. When it comes to cleaning the things you own, be mindful of the details. What materials are your carpets, furniture, appliances, curtains, and clothes made of? The more you know about materials, the better you'll be able to clean them. When you make purchasing decisions, take into consideration how the items should be cleaned.
6. Don't despair at messes. Rather than fret over a spill or stain, see the order and cleanliness that can emerge from them. Visualizing the result in advance is one powerful tool for clean thinking. "Before-and-after pictures are very motivating," says organizing pioneer Harriet Schechter, owner of MiracleOrganizing.com and author of Let Go of Clutter. But when you're still in the "before" stage, you have no "after" picture to inspire you. By visualizing, you can make one.
Pick a spot in the house that bothers you because it's dirty or disorganized. Conjure up an image of order or cleanliness. You might even draw a picture, Schechter suggests, or write a description.
Take visualization a step further and create a small clutter-free area, just to see how it feels. Pick a desk or table that bothers you and put all the stuff on it into a box. For the moment, don't worry about sorting it. After the table or desk is clear, dust it, wash it if it needs it, and just savor the feeling: clean and orderly!
Advertisement 
feeds instead
