Secrets of Naturally Tidy People

[Seabird]

Calling all naturally tidy people - pleease give me some tips! My house is always such a mess. It seems to me that this is inevitable with 2 under-2s, but everyone else's houses always seem to be tidy. How do they do it????

The children are at my mum's this weekend and I spent 3 hours blitzing the kitchen but I know that within minutes of their return it will be back to its usual state. My sitting room is full of piles of papers to deal with, mail order catalogues I'm intending to find time to look through etc - what does everyone else do with these? (Look at them immediately they arrive? If I tidy them into a pile I never find them again.)

The weird things is that when I worked as a lawyer my office was always immaculate! (I'm now a SAHM.)

Do I need a System??

I will be sooo grateful if anyone can help!

i also don't make beds. and i never iron.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I used to be terribly untidy until I met DH. He spent five years in the navy and dislikes any mess. Now I am quite organised and my tips are as follows:

Sort the mail when it comes in. I have an in tray system and only things that need filed or actioned go in the in tray which can then be sorted weekly/fortnightly. All my bills are on direct debit so there is no danger of forgetting to pay them. I also have a filing cabinet which I would thoroughly recommend. Catalogues etc go into the magazine rack in the bathroom for glancing at whilst having a pee and the rack gets sorted every couple of months or so.

Make sure that everything in the house has a home and you are much more likely to put things away! If you don't have room for something, don't buy it or decide what you are going to ditch to make room or it.

I could go on, but this is probably just a repeat of what others have said.

Good luck
MB

What do you all mean by "making the beds" anyway? Do you have sheets & blankets as opposed to duvet? I have a duvet and if I want the bedroom to look neat & tidy I just straighten the duvet out and that's it??

I never mentioned laundry, that's done at breakfast too.

The best way is to move house every few years! I've done it 8 times in the last 12 years and we have very little in the way of 'junk'

It is apparently very unhealthy to make the bed straight away as you will have sweated at least 1/2 a litre every night! Lovely eh???

An Austrian guy told me that they always pull the duvet right back to let the bed air (or hang out of the window) so this is what I do now.

Don't let Lonelymum get wind of another duvet/sheets and blankets debate!

(Are you forces Albert?)