Get clear on your goals

There are different types of home care: know what you're aiming for.

via Nico on Unsplash

I’m a fan of categorization. Of classification. Of anything that helps the world feel more organized. Clearly. Don’t even get me started on Myers-Briggs.

As we go back to school and/or ponder the remainder of the year, I’m here with a gentle reminder that there are distinct ways to care for your home, and it’s vital to understand which one you’re doing.

Often when facing a disordered space, the lines get blurry and you just go in bushwhack style. There is a time and place for this chaos method, FOR SURE.

But when you have a little time and space, it’s helpful to know your objective so that you can, you know, achieve it. This is also an excuse for me to heavily link to some juicy posts, so let’s get to it!

Tidying

This is picking this up and putting them back in their homes. It is NOT figuring out new homes for items (that’s organizing). I include resetting your space and running your daily processes in this category.

Remember that the goal isn’t “tidy” at all times; it’s “easily tidied.”

Organizing

This is strategic work. Here is where you implement the heart of the 5S approach, where you analyze and systematize your home (playroom example). Here’s an example of how to bring this approach to a kitchen and to an entryway.

When organizing you notice the inflows and outflows of your home and build a plan to manage them.

Organizing is where you build and tune your House Machine.

Decluttering

As much as I love organizing and could do it endlessly, there is one home management step that I’d elevate as the single most important: Decluttering.

Decluttering is the one non-negotiable step. Truly. We feel shame about our clutter but we all struggle with it.

You need to declutter before you can do any of these other things effectively. Decluttering is so impactful that you could almost JUST do decluttering, skip everything else, and manage ok.

When someone contacts me to help them with their space the first thing I want to know is have they decluttered yet. And if not, they can do that themselves or else I can sit there while they declutter, because we won’t be doing anything else till they complete this prerequisite. ✔️

Cleaning

This is completely different from “stuff management,” which is the focus of the other steps. This is scrubbing toilets, cleaning floors, wiping counters, removing grime.

I’m not a cleaning expert (truly there is no better money spent for me than what I pay my wonderful cleaners), but I do know that quality cleaning is only possible if you’ve decluttered, tidied, and organized. So if you want a clean house, you gotta do the other stuff too. Sorry, it’s true!

Packing & Moving

I add this because too often I see people try to collapse decluttering and tidying into packing. “Oh, I’ll deal with that when it’s time to pack (or unpack).” But no no no, the moment of transferring items from one home to another is not the time to suddenly scrutinize what you need vs not.

It’s inevitable that during a move you’ll uncover things you didn’t know you had and need to make decisions about, but you’re better off doing as much of this as possible beforehand.

I’ve moved several times in my life and after some truly painful experiences shipping boxes cross-country, I now try to live lightly. I aim to live in a way where my STUFF won’t stop me from making a move. Inanimate objects don’t get to dictate where and how I live my life.

Puttering

Once you’ve done the majority of the decluttering, organizing, and tidying, there’s usually just little bits left to do at any given time.

This is a golden opportunity for puttering: wandering around your house, peeking in cabinets, doing a little of this and a little of that. I love to putter.

Just know puttering is not productive if you have serious work to do — you’ll just expose yourself to stressful piles and not be in a mindset to productively tackle it. So proceed with caution.

Now You

Have I got the categories right? Did I miss anything? Share your favorite of the house management styles in the comments.