To be fascinated by tidy people

Omg OP - the thought of that scene is bringing me out in hives . I come from an untidy family but I am the neat freak. I guess we are just all different.

I had three DC under 6 at one time so I do understand things can get out of control.

That’s your experience and reality.
but I’m not talking about time. I’m talking about priority, I prioritise other things, not due to lack of time, it’s just not my priority.

Leaned here!
I grew up in a chaotic cluttered home and don’t want that for my DC
my home is not perfectly tidy but it’s easily cleaned / respectable and I can have people come in unannounced without freaking out.

watch sort your life out or find some Instagram tidying pages and that will get you started.

it really does create the most calming home and I don’t think it’s good to live with constant mess. Good luck

I’m not a naturally tidy person but I am married to one and have ended up becoming a very tidy person. Our house is messy for a couple of hours a day and otherwise spotless.

My number one tip is to have baskets for items that are in the wrong place- you can then have items in these rather than sitting loose (ie keys, lids etc) before they're put away.

My number two tip is batch cooking meals- the biggest advantage is that the kitchen only needs a big clean once (as reheating is less messy and uses less dishes).

Other things that have helped me have a usually immaculate home:

1. massively decluttering- getting everything we don’t need taken to a charity shop or listed on Vinted;
2. buying less clothes;
3. putting rubbish, packing, junk mail etc straight in the bin;
4. not holding onto things we might need some day;
5. buying hidden storage (ie our sofa has storage);
6. having large decorative bowls on shelves rather than loose items;
7. doing smaller loads of laundry less often;
8. having a dishwasher (but I’ve heard the tip of people with TWO dishwashers so they never need to be fully emptied and will add this when we move/upgrade kitchen);
9. only buying dishwasher proof pans etc;
10. clean up the kitchen BEFORE you eat;
11. never leave pots to soak- boil them on stove if burned on food won’t come off; and
12. electric scrubber brush for bathroom.

I think it’s whether you fundamentally believe someone’s possessions are a reflection of their personality.

My best friend has so much clutter it makes my teeth itch but I don’t think it remotely reflects the bright, interesting, warm hearted person that she is. She grew up in a cluttered home.

I also grew up in a cluttered home - my parents are very organised hoarders - and I ruthlessly declutter and keep a very tidy home as it honestly stresses me out. I’m not Mrs Hinch by any stretch, I’m not tidy by nature but I value a calm chilled home.

I have loads of basic shortcuts to being organised - eg I don’t fold and put away my child’s clothes unless they’re special items. Everything gets slung into baskets in their closet labelled “T-shirts” “jumpers” “shorts” etc so there’s no friction around putting away clean laundry.

Hi OP,

I am one of those tidy people! 😂 always have been, even as I child I loved tidying and organising my bedroom.

My Mum is very clean and organised too, did all her own housework, we always had fresh beds and towels growing up.

For me it’s something I do naturally, I enjoy it. I love for example emptying out, cleaning then reorganising my dressing table, going through our garden shed, or having a good tidy up of all my children’s art and craft bits.

I have a set weekly cleaning routine (dust, hoover, clean bathroom, kitchen & ironing). I then have tasks which I do less often and pick one or two each week depending on need, eg cleaning the inside of the windows, cleaning out the fridge, deep clean the oven, cleaning all the electronics. I also have bigger seasonal tasks, eg dust the inside of all radiators, wash internal walls, defrost the freezer.

I constantly declutter. I immediately bag up my children’s clothes once they are out of that age and season and instantly pass on to a friend/charity shop/clothing bin, whichever I see first. No hanging about! 😂

I now find cleaning really quick as these routines mean nothing builds up, so actually I can get loads done in 3 hours once a week. I certainly don’t clean every day.

I’m the same with gardening- 2 big landscaped gardens with loads of different beds, shrubs, plants etc, but doing 1-2 hours per week of pruning/raking/weeding now means my garden always looks tidy and I can get quickly back on top of it if we are on holiday or something. I work very quickly once I start!

For me, I love knowing where things are and being able to quickly find things. I find physical clutter overwhelming and can think more clearly and feel much calmer in a tidy home. I don’t like duplicate items- I only ever have 1 shower gel, 1 shampoo, 1 body lotion, 1 of each make up item, etc. I may have one extra stored out of sight, but only ever 1 out and in use.

In the quote history someone said tidy people spend all day tidying.

I think you have 2 issues. One is that as a mum with 2 small kids you simply don't have a lot of free time and you're always on so your energy can be low.

The second is that real tidiness is about organisation and having your house setup to support your life. From this example its clear your hallway isn't working for you. Could you create a drop zone that has a place for all the tings you mentioned here in your hallway. hooks to hang things in the hallway, A basket for shoes and perhaps a unit like a small ikea Kallax for the changing bags, nappy nags etc. Use a try on the top to corral keys, post etc.

It doesn't mean that it all magically gets tidy but having it easier to keep tidy is half the battle. Also focus on a couple of key areas in your home like the hallway so you don't feel embarrassed by your home. It doesn't have to all be perfect.

a key tip i heard one time and find really helpful was that if the furniture item that takes up the most surface area in a room is clear than the room looks tidier. So he Dining table, Kitchen Island, Bed and sofa. if they are clear of items then the room looks fine. So focus on these big things when it comes to tidying.

I grew up in a messy chaotic house,my late DM was very stressed by it, this was the,50s/,60s, late father wouldn't allow anything to be moved. I decorated my bedroom when I was 13 he was furious ..we'd lived in the house since I was baby, the walls were whitewashed. I wasn't allowed to have friends in .. it's made me tidy. I had 4 DKs,by the time the youngest was born, following year dgs, I looked after him and subsequent gks, worked mostly ft nights nursing. Had various animals,big gardens. Now an open plan bungalow, kitchen at the end of the living room, I can't sit down with a messy kitchen behind me. I don't spend much time cleaning, I do it as I go, don't let anything mount up. I don't have much storage now, I might 2 under stairs cupboards
You come indoors,coats in the coat cupboard,shoes in the shoe cupboard.
.

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I think lots of messy people have ADHD or undiagnosed ADHD. Their brains just don’t see the mess. Or they get distracted.. Cupboards stay open in my house as I just don’t see them.

I seem to spend a lot of time tidying. Only for it never to be properly tidy. Tidy people I think are just constantly tidying and I can’t do that. So they have a cup of tea and then put the cup in the dishwasher..mine stays out. Cause I’ve just moved on to the next thing. They do the whole ‘never leave a room empty handed’ thing.

I just run out of steam after about half an hour. It’s all so boring. Just constant picking things up and moving them to another place. Doesn’t help that nobody else in my family puts things away…

I’d love a tidy house though…seems impossible.

That’s why I said storage, as the name suggest it stores
I have had built in storage commissioned for each room. We put a lot of thought into storage solutions

So true. That resonates with me.

I’m incredibly lazy, but I also don’t like living in mess and clutter. It makes me feel like shit and stresses me out. I like order around me.

We live minimally, so we only own what we need with no excess. My 4 year old has toys he adores and plays with every day but he doesn’t have an indecent amount such that the house would resemble a Toys R Us. I couldn’t bear it.

He currently has a castle out that he built with magnet tiles and it is populated with little figures. He’s had it set up in our living room since the weekend. I like seeing his toys out and the house does feel lived in, it’s not stark and unwelcoming. But everything can be tidied up in 5 minutes flat.

Having minimal possessions also makes hoovering and dusting very quick and easy.

I am so happy someone is fascinated by me 😆😆😆

i am a bit of a cleaning freak, its probably someone’s nature, so i wouldnt be too hard on myself. It is what it is.

with two young kids (4 yrs old and 6 months old) and a puppy it is definitely challenging by i have my own system i stick to.

• thursday - kitchen day (front of the cabinets, microwave, moving whats on the counter to wipe everything etc etc)
• friday - bathrooms/toilet day
• saturday - dusting, toys, proper hoover including skertings, sofas, chairs, mopping properly

on daily basis we clean the kitchen obviously but its just quick wipe, dishes etc. I have a cordless hoover downstairs so give a quick hoover every day (usually few times a day, after each meal etc and in the evening, just around the table and the kitchen, 10 seconds job) and have also a spray mop so give it a quick mop every evening without getting a water and floor cleaner ready etc

we put toys away every evening, usually my son does or with our help so nothing is where it should be but it looks tidy’ish and then we do it properly every week anyway.

i never leave things lying around, everything has its own space, or leave something on the stairs and its being picked up by whoever is going upstairs next.

i also dont have much clatter so it makes things easier.

but that feeling when everything is done, and you get to wake up on sunday and have a coffee in nice clean house…amazing!

I agree.

In my experience in child/teen friendship groups, there ends up being someone in the friendship group who has a nice house and becomes a host/social butterfly as a result.

Teens generally want a home that’s flexible enough to have friends drop in whenever - so having a gross or stinky home is embarrassing. That’s sort of social suicide especially when their mates have nice homes/decked out bedrooms to host people. If others have a better atmosphere at their own home, they aren’t going to come back to yours, so it puts you on the periphery when making friends.

I don’t have a clue it’s so so hard 😩 I wanted to get the whole house done today but it’s just not happening 🙈🙈 We have an almost 4 year old and it is absolutely impossible to tidy around him so it takes both of us really as we can’t both be doing a big task at the same time. I got about half of the living room done this morning and I’ve now come upstairs to try and sort out the landing and the laundry whilst my partner washes up and watches our child play downstairs and then we will swap so they can come upstairs and my partner can go through some of the clothes that need putting away whilst I finish tidying the living room (including the new mess from our child playing 🤷‍♀️😂) and hopefully the kitchen too!! 🤞

I do think show home looking houses look very odd though as they should look lived in if there are people living there, especially children 🤷‍♀️

Well I had 3 and managed it!

Unless it was life and death I just carried on and my DC were fine .

I agree. It's usually an excuse given by lazy people.

I used to let DD play with toys all over the floor. Once she was in bed they went back in the toy box. It was a 5 minute job.

I only tidy my own mess.
It's quite easy to train DC to put things away, DH is a different matter.......

These things stand out from your posts.

1. You don’t like cleaning
2. You throw things down rather than putting them away
3. You don’t have routines so you’re pulled in different directions at once
4. You don’t mind living in a mess (or enough to get it under control).

What I do differently:

• I dislike cleaning too so I have a cleaner.

• I was brought up with “don’t put it down put it away” & brought my children up with the same. It saves SO much time and hassle in the long run.

• I have routines of x then y then z. On repeat daily. So stuff doesn’t build up.

• I do mind living in a mess and not being able to find things. I feel confused if there’s stuff everywhere.

• Boxes, storage systems, filing cabinets, LOVE them.

I periodically clear out the kids clothes every 6 months with what they’ve grown out of and replace with new sizes. The old stuff either goes on vinted or straight into a charity bag. If it’s not sold on vinted in a couple of weeks it goes in the charity bag too. I hate clutter mainly because my parents are hoarders! I never noticed it growing up, but now when I go there it gives me a headache.

’pottering’ (ie cleaning the living shit out of everything relaxes me. DH doesn’t like it, so I look forward to him saying he’s going out so I can get busy. Like Monica in Friends.

having said that, this is learned behaviour. In my line of work, everything is fastidiously clean - or it isn’t clean. I’ve stopped booking Airbnb’s because I have to clean it before I can enjoy it..

Never a truer word said! The amount of times, I’ve congratulated myself for getting up early on a weekend to tackle a horrifically messy home and then justified sitting down to consult my chores list on my iPad and then it’s no longer 9 but almost 11 😭

I'm a tidy person because I wouldn't ever be able to relax if I wasn't! It doesn't take long though...I empty/ fill the dishwasher when the kettle is boiling. I leave things on the stairs that the children have been trained to take up if they belong to them😂 if you're always tidy then there's never that much stuff to put back in place. Sports bags etc I would put straight in the washing machine. I find it hard to understand un-tidy people as I would be permanently stressed if I had to live in an un-tidy house!😂

So it’s just a case of you just don’t care 😱
BTW, what was the point of buying new furniture 🤷‍♀️ From what you describe a potential buyer must be hard pushed to buy a second hand sofa from the chaos you describe.