One thing I know how to do is to keep a clean home. I’ve passed along a lot of my habits to my husband over the years. The best one I’ve ever shared with him is the one touch rule.
It is amazing that when you start to use this simple idea, your house doesn’t get cluttered as quickly. Let me explain how it works by sharing a real life example of how my husband use to walk in after work each night.
He would walk in and lie his keys and briefcase on the table. His jacket would go over the edge of the chair. One of our kids would come up and want to color with markers and so he would slide all items down to the other end of the table. Once dinner rolled around, he would take all items and place them on the counter.
In a period of less than an hour, he ended up touching the same items three different times.
I asked him if he would try my method instead — even if just for a week. He relented and said he’d give it a shot.
For the next week, he walked through the door and placed his keys on the key rack by the door. He walked to the closet and hung up his coat and placed his briefcase on the closet floor.
I asked him if he felt it was easier to touch it just once and he admitted that I was right. He said it made so much more sense to just walk through the door and put everything away rather than toss it aside and move it two, three or even more times before it finally found it’s home.
My kids do a good job with this too. When they get home from school, part of their routine includes putting backpacks on the bench and shoes on the floor next to it. They also hang up their coats on the rack. It helps us have one less item to clean at night and makes the mornings so much more efficient.
One other tip I always recommend when it comes to keeping a clean home is to speed clean at night! Just set the timer and everyone can help out and clean what they can in just 30 minutes!
A clean home is easy — when you get yourself (and your family) trained to follow the one-touch rule!
Check out these other posts about cleaning and organizing:
15 Secrets of People with a Clean Home
How to Organize and Keep Kitchen Counters Clutter Free
Free Cleaning Checklists (Weekly, Monthly and Yearly)
Tracie is a stay at home mom to three young children; ages 8, 9 and 12. In November 2007, she and her husband decided to eliminate their debt and made many changes in their lifestyle to do just that.
Heather says
New reader here. This is such a great tip! I think I am worse than my husband, so maybe I should try this tip out myself. 😉 We, too, do a speed cleaning each night. It is so much easier to clean throughout each day or night than waiting until you have “time”.
Tracie says
Welcome!!! You sure aren’t alone there. It can be a challenge to get yourself into the habit of doing this, but it really can work when it becomes natural.