Cleaning and organizing play a key role in our everyday lives. They usually go side to side: if your home is messy, it’s probably lacking a little bit of both cleaning and organizing.
However, when it comes to priorities, what do you do first?
The thing about cleaning
Cleaning is an everyday activity whether you like it or not. Every time you take a shower, or do the dishes, or brush your teeth, there’s cleaning involved. Nothing beats taking a hot shower and feeling brand new to start your day off. Cleaning is, for the most part, methodical and consistent: you pretty much clean the same every day, and then maybe once a week or a month you deep clean each room.
You are taught since you were little to clean yourself and your surroundings. That’s why it’s very uncommon for us to go a full day without brushing our teeth or doing the dishes, or without changing clothes unless we’re having a busy or complicated day.
It’s also a steady routine: most people clean a similar number of belongings, or rooms, or take roughly the same time doing so.
Scientific studies have proven that cleaning your home is correlated with positive affect, that is, experiencing positive emotions, to be in a good mindset.
The thing about organizing
Organizing, on the other hand, it’s a much more variable practice because it’s based on three factors: the number of stuff you keep, the average time that your rooms stay tidy, and the frequency of organizing. And this can vary a lot depending on the size of your home, the number of rooms, your belongings and the way you interact with them, and so much more.
You might be a very organized person, yet it takes you hours to go through your entire office or closet every time you declutter. Or you might be more of a sloppy kind of individual and put your entire home in order in just an hour or two.
Research also tells us that if you work in a messy environment, you’re less accurate than in a tidy environment. If you’re working from home and you noticed you’ve been making errors often, this might be the reason.
Related: The 20-10 Method for Cleaning Your Home
Organizing and Cleaning As Part of Your Well-being
As the aforementioned studies have shown, cleaning and organizing play a key role in your well-being. But this is also true the other way around. Having extremely unorganized or dirty rooms over extended periods of time might be happening in the first place because you are feeling unmotivated, overwhelmed, or constantly tired.
This means that you might need to take a step back and consider how to improve your current mindset. If you achieve to do so, this will reflect on your environment eventually. The secret to both organizing and cleaning is to start slow and build a habit rather than having ups and downs.
Being consistent with a decently kept home is much better than doing a cleaning spree once every 6 months and then going back to clutter and mess. And this can only happen if you also stay more or less consistent with a healthy state of mind. Place your mental wellbeing first and then you’ll be seeing your rooms clean and tidy sooner than you think.
Read more: Dividing Housework for Happier Homes
Conclusion
Organizing and cleaning are just two sides of the same coin. They are important for you to stay focused, to live in a healthy environment for both your body and your mindset.
If you have to choose between one of the two, what do you like doing most? You might have more fun or feel more at peace organizing rather than cleaning or vice versa. You can’t be everywhere at the same time so it’s up to you to decide whether you lean towards organizing your rooms and your belongings, or if you prefer cleaning and sanitizing. And you can always keep your home clean and tidy by hiring a professional cleaning service, and problem solved!
Just remember to balance out your organizing and cleaning days and start small if it’s not part of your routine. Good luck!
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