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Tips for Tidiness (And Finding Love In It)

  • Writer: Laura Gallaher
    Laura Gallaher
  • Jan 18, 2019
  • 5 min read

Welcome to the first blog that Jacob is helping write. Now, he always helps edit; I should call him the Editor and Chief of Walls Beams Love Dreams… but this is his first time actually writing. Woot woot!

Marie Kondo has taken over Netflix with her hit show Tidying Up. We’re only a few episodes in but are loving it. It got me thinking… we have a tidy home… like a REALLY tidy home. AND we don’t have to say “thank you” to get it looking nice. No offense to Marie… she’s adorable.


So, many of you know Jacob is the king of organization and cleanliness. When we started dating he used to face his water bottles (turn them all facing the exact same direction) in the fridge. They were also perfectly aligned by column and row. Over the last few years the addition of Grady and me has toned down his “cleaner instinct” but he continues to be the Chief of Cleanliness for the Gallaherd.

Here are a few tips I have learned over the last few years to make keeping a tidy home more doable…

  1. If you see a mess, clean a mess. This is my newest cleaning rule for myself. If I see a mess and don’t HAVE to be doing something else or go somewhere else, I clean it then and there. No excuses. I have found that when I do this the messes remain small and can be picked up in 15 minutes or less. If I don’t, the tiny messes tend to blur together into one disaster of a home. This wasn’t an easy habit to start, but after forcing myself to do it a few times it became second nature and now it’s hard to leave a mess (even when I really do have something else to get done).

  2. Do the dishes all day long. Use a dish, wash a dish. And maybe a few more while you’re at it. How often do you look at your sink piled up with dishes and just avoid it? If you wash dishes as you go there is no end of the day pileup to dread.

  3. The 15 Minute Clean. Every night before you go to bed take 15 minutes to clean. Pick an area and set a timer for 15 minutes. I like to listen to music or my favorite podcast while I do my 15 minute clean. The time goes quickly and my house is that much cleaner in the morning.

  4. The Stair Sort. When I clean I pick either upstairs or downstairs and do not let myself change levels unless absolutely necessary. Instead, I do the Stair Sort… As I clean downstairs I usually find a number of items that belong upstairs. Instead of going up and down multiple times I sort the items by destination (our room, Grady’s room, laundry room, playroom) on the stairs. When I finish downstairs I take the items, typically one load at a time, upstairs. This helps me keep my momentum and not get distracted.

Now, I’m still a newbie to this tidy living thing, so here are some additional tips from the Editor and Chief… errr was it Chief of Cleanliness…

Given the high pedestal Laura put me on (or was she making fun of me?) I will attempt to keep my advice on a high level, slightly philosophical, and give you a peek inside my disease.

As Laura alluded to in tip #1, it is much easier to maintain a clean home or workspace than it is to, infrequently, clean up disaster zones. My first tip is useful if you’re like most people and find yourself in a mess that you are completely overwhelmed by. This could be the aftermath of a fun, complicated meal you cooked with 37 pots, pans, and dishes or it could be a playroom that looks like, well, it had a child in it in the last 5 minutes. It’s simple and useful in any overwhelming situation: start small (where you are) and build momentum. It may seem out of order but begin by organizing the mess. Put things that go together, together. When you get that first organized pile pulled in, put it away! Then suddenly you have a small, beautiful, piece of heaven/clean space. You did it! Feels amazing, right? Do it again and again… The idea is that you see doses of improvement almost immediately and build momentum with many small victories. Before you know it, the room you began to clean is spotless and you’re looking for more things to put where they belong. After all, that’s where they belong.

Just because something is put away doesn’t mean it’s where it belongs. What I mean by that is, if things are “where they belong”, in places that make sense and grouped with other things that make sense, you know where it goes and it shows a level of respect you have for your belongings. This is important for two reasons:

  1. If things are easy to put away and put where it makes sense they go, you’ll actually want to put them away instead of leaving them to rot in open space. Trust me, try it. It becomes something you want to do, if not downright excited to do! Also, finding things becomes so much easier and all the energy you would normally waste looking for something or getting frustrated because you can’t find something gets channeled into keeping things where they belong. This is wonderful because, after all, that’s where they belong.

  2. If other people see the way things are wonderfully put away and organized in your clean, beautiful home they will respond accordingly and WANT to respect this, put things away, and will actually know where they go (because they go where it makes sense). Now, if “people” are tiny humans, it may take some time for this to work. Be patient.

My last tip is for people who have the same disease I do and share a home with a loved one (and have likely been cheering as they read along) who doesn’t. Ready? Chill out. Trust me, this is A LOT harder than it sounds, it goes against the way every ounce of your soul functions. But chill out. A happy spouse makes a happy house and when blending personalities it’s important to show a little grace and realize that maybe… you need to chill out. Try to communicate why you are the way you are and give yourselves some time to find each other in the middle. Has our house ever been as clean and orderly as I would like for more than an hour? No. But what’s more important to me than a clean home is that we are on the same page and functioning as a team; because if we are, we can do ANYTHING. It’s true that you are only as happy as the least happy person in the relationship and if you show a divided front to a tiny human, they will exploit that faster than they mess up your newly tidy home. She’s going to come around any way, once she sees how perfect your way of living is, so just be patient. :)

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