In one house, T-shirts are stacked and sorted by color; in another, a wrench accidentally ends up in a toy drawer. In one apartment things hang neatly on hangers, in another they fall out of the closet. So why do some people have perfect cleanliness at home, while others have eternal chaos and chaos? What do the former know and what do the latter lack? Knowrealty spoke with professional space organizers and found out the top 7 reasons why our apartments are cluttered.
1. Bad habits
Has your father been too lazy to hang clothes in the closet over and over again, leaving them on the backs of chairs and beds? Or did mom collect unnecessary, but for some reason terribly dear to her heart trinkets, placing them on shelves, where over time they took up more and more space and brought less and less use? In this case, you probably won’t have a craving for minimalism and the habit of putting everything back in its place. “If parents lived and raised their children in chaos and confusion, then their children can pass on the same attitude towards their home,” says Yuliana Myznikova, professional space organizer and author of the Stopbardac blog. Of course, you can’t go back to the past, but you can work on your new habits. “Think in advance where you use this or that thing, the place where it will not only be convenient for you to take it, but also where to return it. Tell the family where everything is kept, or better yet, sign it. If you don’t return things to their place, it will ruin all your efforts to organize the space,” says Yuliana.
Photo: Ella's Kitchen Company Limited
Another space organizer and author of the “Everything in Places” project Ekaterina Pushkareva also calls for starting to develop simple, but good habits in the name of order: wash the dishes immediately after eating, put dirty clothes in the wash and clean clothes on the shelf, wipe the sink or faucet after brushing your teeth. Little things like this will help you save a lot of time on cleaning.
Photo: Wicker Paradise
2. Internal disharmony
Why is this happening? Yuliana Myznikova says that lovers of disorder often insist that something will come in handy someday. As a result, more and more junk accumulates in the house, which literally clogs the living space. And the only way to change something is to decisively fight the “Plyushkin syndrome” and learn. Anna, for example, advises playing game The Burning House. What would you save first when running out of a burning house, except, of course, your passport, phone and laptop? The game will help you understand what is truly valuable to you, and parting with everything else is much easier in contrast. For the same purposes, Ekaterina Pushkareva advises using the “entry-exit” rule: when you buy a new thing, the same old one, or give it away.
4. Cleaning “once and for all”
Many people mistakenly believe that a certain amount of regularity is enough to then enjoy cleanliness the rest of the time. Not at all: the cleanliness of the apartment depends, first of all, on our habits. Mess doesn’t happen overnight, so even the most extensive cleaning once a month will not give you any guarantee of cleanliness. Anna Chernykh is sure: hope for general cleaning It’s not worth it, what’s more important here is to gradually form a view of things that would reflect the values that are significant to you. Then habits will change on their own: many things simply will not get into the house, while others will gradually leave it - into separate collection, into charity organisations, friends or landfill.
5. Congested surfaces
We have all noticed that if you remove boring pictures and old posters from the walls, scattered small things from the coffee table, and everything that happens to be there, the room immediately seems cleaner, more spacious and freer. It seems simple, but in reality everything turns out quite differently. The problem is that on free surfaces in the house there are always things that do not have a suitable place in the house. And it's obvious that they just need to find him.
6. Lack of a systematic approach
If you take out all the summer things in the spring, and don’t prepare the winter ones for storage and put them away, then scarves, hats, etc. will constantly fall out of the closet. ski boots, fur coats and down jackets,” says Ekaterina Pushkareva. Also, if you don’t have a clear idea of what exactly you need for your home, it’s easy to buy a bunch of unnecessary things that no one needs, which will then gather dust unnecessarily. So make shopping lists and cleaning schedules, put winter and summer things on the shelves in time before the next season - this will help you cope with everyday anarchy in your home. “For example, divide your home into zones and schedule on your calendar the dates and times you will be working out in different places apartments,” advises Yuliana Myznikova.
Photo: Rubbermaid Products
7. Storing different things in one place
There is a term "categorization". According to Yuliana, it reveals the essence of the principle of organized space, when things of the same category are located together and do not mix with objects of another purpose. That is home first aid kit in a drawer for documents and a box with wires in the buffet do not contribute in any way to competent organization of space, even if, as it seems to you, there is simply no other place in the apartment. Yes, you just need to think carefully about where and how to store items of the same purpose in one place as conveniently as possible, since this will not only make the apartment cleaner, but will also allow you to quickly find the things you need.
Daria Golovina
Ecology of life. Society constantly strives to maintain order in everything and everywhere at all costs. No more templates!..
We live in a very patterned and predictable world. Almost everything in it is neatly packaged and organized. Society constantly strives to maintain order in everything and everywhere at all costs.But all this is nothing more than an illusion.
We have been taught superficial ideas about symmetry.Life is actually unpredictable and chaotic, although it seems to us that if we “organize” everything, it will be much better.
But in reality it's the other way around. For example, you think that you need to buy a few more pants to have enough “for all time”. You buy more. And then it turns out that all the things no longer fit in the closet. And he is simply doomed to chaos. Thus, having created “order” in one place, you immediately create it in another.
You decide to throw all unnecessary things into the trash can. There seems to be “order” at home, but the world as a whole has become dirtier.
Here's what physicist Adam Frank says about this:"This is a law of physics. The harsh truth of life is that the Universe itself is chaos. How can you bring order to your home or your life if it goes against the nature of the Universe?"
In fact, no matter how much we try to keep our lives in order and our home tidy, nothing comes of it. There is always chaos here and there.
What to do? Say yes to the chaotic nature of this world. Come to terms with it.
People who always have a messy home are stigmatized. To those around them, they seem apathetic and leading a “wrong” life. But this is simply not true!
Disorganized people are better than everyone else. If only because they do not allow the false illusion of order to dictate their daily routine.
Jim Morrison spoke well on this topic:"I'm interested in rebellion, in chaos, in chaos. I think this is the path to freedom."
This doesn't mean that every aspect of your life needs to be thrown into chaos. Being organized is sometimes important and even useful. But you have no right to judge people living in disorder. Believe me: order is greatly overrated.
People who have a constant mess at home are not lazy. They are creative and brave.
Common sense tells us that cleanliness is the key to efficiency and productivity, but this is not true.
Eric Abrahamson and David Friedman, authors of the scientific bestseller A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, write:"Clutter is not necessarily a sign of lack of structure. You can work more efficiently at a desk on which everything is scattered than at a clean one. When a person has a mess on his desk, this does not mean that he works poorly. It means that he works so well, that he simply doesn’t have time to clean up.”
In other words, clutter can actually be a sign of efficiency rather than carelessness.
Kathleen Vohs, Ph.D., from the University of Minnesota, conducted a study and proved that people who tend to throw things around and accumulate garbage are actually more creative than everyone else.
Within this scientific work Vohs conducted one interesting experiment. She divided 48 volunteers into two groups and asked them to find creative ways to use a ping pong ball. One half of the experiment participants were placed in a clean, tidy room, the other half in a dirty room. In the end, both groups came up with an equal number of ideas, but the latter, according to the results independent assessment other students turned out to be more innovative and creative.
Vohs concludes:"We all want to become more creative people, experience insights more often. My advice to you: if you are in a stupor, move to a dirty room. This will allow you to go beyond your usual perceptions and produce fresh ideas faster. Order is the result of our desire for security, chaos is the result of our desire for a creative rethinking of the world."
Clutter, of course, has long been closely associated with creative genius. Disorganization and untidiness are condemned in society, but most of the great minds lived their entire lives in such conditions: Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, Ronald Dahl. Even JK Rowling can't clean her apartment!
They all achieved greatness despite the fact that their entire lives were full of chaos.
In general, if your parents punished you for not wanting to clean your room, then they made a mistake.
Society ignores the hidden benefits of chaos.
It takes courage to let go of the rules and live in your creative chaos.
Albert Einstein once remarked:“If a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind, then what does an empty desk mean?”
Creative people see the whole picture of their lives, rather than focusing on individual details. They go with the flow, rather than swimming against the flow. They easily adapt to changes. They know that time is too limited to spend on boring things like cleaning.
The simplicity and beauty of life are more important than visible “success” and feigned “discipline.” Passion is better than boredom.
Psychology of disorder: external and internal reasons mess in the apartment and how to deal with it
As practice shows, the cleanliness of most people’s homes leaves much to be desired. Moreover, many do not realize the reasons for the disorder in the house, because they seem to be cleaning with enviable regularity, but for some reason clothes and household items are still instantly moved to other places, and treacherous lumps of dust accumulate in the corners. Why is there a mess at home and most importantly, how to deal with it?
Many people say that with the birth of a child you can say goodbye to order in the house. Some say this with disappointment, others with warmth. Indeed, children bring into our lives great amount changes. And they are largely to blame for why the house is a mess. But you shouldn’t blame your baby for things being scattered around the house, dust not being wiped off, or dishes not being washed. There are a lot of reasons for a mess, starting with banal laziness and ending with mental illness. Blaming a child for the reasons for the mess is simple and very convenient, because then you don’t need to change anything: you don’t need to work on yourself, you don’t need to look for real reasons and eradicate them.
The reasons why the house is always a mess can be divided into internal and external. Depending on which cause prevails, you can select adequate actions to eliminate it.
External causes of constant chaos in the apartment and how to deal with it
To get started, learn how to get rid of clutter in your home caused by external reasons. They can be much easier to fix than internal ones.
1. I don’t like the house or apartment.
"Home Sweet Home…". Every woman dreams of saying this phrase, looking around her two-story mansion with a terrace, and winter garden. But what to do if you have to fight clutter in a rented one-room apartment?
As you can see in the photo, the mess in a small house is much more noticeable than in huge mansions:
Many women feel the need for their own home, a family nest, and do not want to restore order and comfort in an apartment or in a house from which they plan to move out after a while. They don’t feel like full-fledged housewives here, and they simply don’t understand why do something if it won’t last long.
How to fight?
What to do if the mess in the house is due to its microscopic dimensions, when there is simply no room to properly arrange things? “There is nothing more permanent than temporary,” someone wise said. It is unknown how long you will have to live in this house - maybe one month, or maybe more than one year. Agree, not washing or washing curtains for such a long time is not very good for the health of the whole family. Yes, we cannot change the color, but we can hang paintings and photographs to create home environment. Yes, we can’t throw out the owner’s old skis, but we can put a pot of flowers and herbs on it.
Life is today. This awareness is difficult, but it helps you enjoy exactly what is happening now, what surrounds you at this particular moment. You can create comfort and a truly homely atmosphere even in a train carriage, let alone the beautiful apartment in which you now live.
2. I don’t like furniture or storage systems.
Many people say: “If I had a dressing room, my things would always be in order.” Or: “We have such a small kitchen, let’s order a new one (add a balcony, tear down a wall), then it will be clean.”
Oh, that subjunctive mood! How many people does it stop from taking decisive action!
How to fight?
What to do if your home is a mess because you are missing comfortable places for storing things?
- Make the most of all available space.
- Organize storage areas correctly and functionally.
- Use non-standard and unusual ways to organize space (in addition to cabinets and shelves, there are also baskets, boxes, boxes, hangers, hooks and much more).
- Walk through furniture and construction stores, and you will be able to organize your space in such a way that you will always want to keep it clean.
3. I don't like my surroundings.
Two or more housewives on one house is a big problem for many young and not so young families. If there are strained relationships in the family, if you are afraid of doing something wrong, then, ultimately, you don’t do anything at all. Dividing the apartment into separate zones: I wash half the corridor, and my mother washes the other half - does not contribute to order and harmony.
How to fight?
How to deal with a mess in an apartment if you don’t like the environment with which you have to live under the same roof? Live apart! Eh, it's easy to say, but it's not easy paying off a mortgage for 25 years. If you can’t make your own family nest, then you need to try to build friendly and constructive relationships with those who live in the same house with you. To help you, heart-to-heart conversations over a cup of tea with buns, delimitation of powers and areas of responsibility, respect for the older generation and patience.
Look at the photo - it’s easier to clean up the mess in the house together:
The psychology of clutter in the house: internal causes and how to get rid of them
The internal reasons for the constant chaos in the apartment do not lie in external environment and our environment, but in ourselves: our habits and characteristics, upbringing and perception of the world, ourselves and home.
1. Laziness.
It is believed that laziness is one of the most common causes of clutter in the house. This is exactly what most women think. However, behind this little word there are many other deeper concepts and conditions that prevent us from “flying” around the house with a vacuum cleaner and a rag with a smile. Laziness is not main reason, but only a symptom.
What can be hidden behind the feeling when you don’t want to do anything?
Fatigue. How often do we confuse laziness with banal fatigue! Run to work, cook lunch, work with the children, pay attention to your husband, don’t forget about your favorite hobby, report on the work done on self-development in in social networks, and you also need to run to your mom’s and help your friend with the move, and after all this, you still want to put things in order in your child’s toys and polish the floors with a sparkle in your eyes? We doubt that anyone can do this!
Physical fatigue can manifest itself in very specific symptoms: headaches, drowsiness or, conversely, insomnia, joint pain, digestive problems.
Much more insidious is psychological fatigue, when the heap of work makes you want to crawl under the covers and sleep, sleep, sleep... Lack of interest in anything, apathy, mood swings, tearfulness - this is exactly how our body reacts if we cannot cope with emotions, problems, tasks.
Lack of motivation. Very often we are too lazy to do something because we don’t understand why we need it.
Lack of interest. Most often we are too lazy to do things that are not interesting to us. When you are not interested in something, you do it through force, the body resists activity that is meaningless, from its point of view, and laziness sets in.
Laziness as a manifestation of the “excellent student complex”. An inveterate perfectionist reasons like this: “If I can’t do something perfectly and 100%, then it’s not worth taking on.”
How to fight?
What to do if your home is constantly a mess, and it is caused by your own laziness? First, find out what is hidden behind it. If it's fatigue, then you should start with your health. Get examined by doctors, change your diet to a healthier one, exercise in moderation physical activity, rest more, arrange days of “doing nothing.”
If the matter is a lack of interest and motivation, then you need to take care to find in household chores positive points, attractive aspects to you, or to start motivating yourself by going to a cafe or beauty salon.
The “excellent student complex” must be combated systematically and ruthlessly. First, you need to learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes and allow yourself to be “imperfect.” You need to learn to enjoy not only the result, but also the process of household chores itself. Under no circumstances should you compare yourself with anyone, especially with some non-existent ideal. You are real normal person, allow yourself to make small mistakes and mistakes.
2. Disorganization.
“I can’t clear the rubble on the balcony because I don’t have enough time!” Irrational use of time is the scourge of many housewives. Instead of paying attention to the house, we watch the next TV series; instead of cleaning up and finally getting rid of old and broken toys, we spend hours on end on social networks.
How to fight?
Realize that the time we waste will never come back! Conduct a detailed timekeeping of the day (preferably over several weeks) to find out where we spend our precious time. Master planning and organization systems. Don’t attribute everything to the fact that you are a creative person, and all these frameworks and plans do not suit you at all. They'll do! You just need to experiment a little and make an effort to find or create your own housekeeping system.
3. Perfectionism.
“Now I’ll put everything on the shelves, and the child will come running and scatter everything - no, it’s better not to bother at all.” We want to do everything 100%, we want ours to be as clean as our friend’s, who has no children at all or has already grown up. A job done halfway or even 70% is perceived by us as a disaster, and self-criticism begins: I’m such a bad housewife.
How to fight?
Minimum plan and maximum plan. When planning your affairs, try to always make two lists: a minimum plan and a maximum plan (you can make one list, but highlight the minimum plan in color or something else). If you manage to complete the first of them, and this is not difficult to do, because it only includes really important and necessary things, praise yourself and tell yourself what a wonderful, organized and successful housewife you are. If you have the strength, time and desire to work more, then proceed to the maximum plan and do not reproach yourself when this fails, because the main part of what was planned has been completed!
What if…? When starting a project or business, ask yourself: what if I can’t handle it? What happens if, for example, I fail to cook the most tasty pie with fish, like grandma's?
Answer options could be:
- we will be left without lunch (but we can reheat yesterday’s soup);
- my husband will again make fun of my culinary abilities (it doesn’t matter, he does this lovingly and always delicately);
- Quite expensive fish will be spoiled (hmm, maybe then it’s better to use canned food first?);
- and so on.
Having painted a picture of failure in your head, you will understand that the world will not collapse, no one will scold you, you will be able to move on with your life and cook fish pies.
We're slacking for one day. Psychologists who work with perfectionists advise having a “hack day” once a week. For example, don’t cook a three-course meal, but simply fry potatoes or cook dumplings. It's important to make sure that the world doesn't turn upside down if we do something without giving it our all.
Once you become familiar with the main internal and external causes of clutter, you will find something to do, for example, write down those that apply specifically to you in the table below and come up with a plan to combat them.
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Why is my apartment a mess? |
How will I deal with this? |
Actually, that's all you need to know about the nightmare going on in the teenage abode. If you are not ready to come to terms with this, but intend to do something and crave details, then family psychologist Marina Slinkova will provide them for you.
Marina Slinkova
Psychologist at the Center for Systemic Family Therapy
Hygiene issues
A family in which the child is part of adolescence, faces the problem of redistribution of power and revision of agreements. The rights and responsibilities change - not only for the teenager, but for all family members. Keeping your room tidy is not a matter of hygiene. In any case, this is not primarily a matter of hygiene (although you may not think so).
Are you afraid that your child will get used to living in a mess and will forever remain dirty? Most likely, this would be the case if the whole house was always a mess. But then why did the idea suddenly arise to demand order in a single room? If in your bedroom there are books on the bed, socks on the table, and shoes wandering throughout the house, if the kitchen is filled with boxes and jars that “will come in handy someday,” and the bathroom is always open toothpaste, then why does your son’s or daughter’s unmade bed make you so nervous?
If there is a familiar order throughout the house, then the child will have the opportunity to compare and choose between order and chaos. In the vast majority of cases, young people eventually come to the idea of order.
How to respond to clutter
How to respond to clutter
Cleaning a teenager's room relates specifically to his interests and does not directly concern you. You can close the door and not see the mess in his room: your things are not there, which means they cannot get lost. You can invite guests to someone else’s territory only with the owner’s permission, which means you won’t have to blush for the mess.
It turns out that you feel irritated not so much because of the clutter as such, but because there is a place that is now beyond your control.
Of course, if your teen's things are scattered outside his room, you can insist that he clean them up. He wants freedom and independence - for God's sake. But without an attempt on the freedom and territory of parents and other family members.
Your child is now experiencing a transition from a child's perception of the world and himself to an adult. Now it is important to separate situations that affect the interests and life of a teenager, and situations that affect the interests and life of parents and the family as a whole. It is necessary to define spheres of influence in advance and provide for sanctions for invading foreign territory. If it was not possible to stipulate in advance, then there is no point in making claims after the fact. It is better to discuss this some time later and make any necessary amendments. Relatively speaking, if a teenager scratches the kitchen table while sawing his gadgets, then he is not subject to immediate shooting. But when your anger boils over, you need to discuss sanctions for the future. But - equally! - if you decide to rearrange the disks in his room from the table to the shelf or re-sort the laundry in his closet, then you have also invaded someone else’s territory. At the very least, it's worth apologizing.
Mess as a form of protest
Mess as a form of protest
When you clean up the mess in your son or daughter's room, you arrange his room for yourself. And even when you, supposedly demanding independence, call on him to restore order himself, then we are still talking about order in YOUR understanding. And the child thinks something like this: if I clean the room, it will no longer be mine, it will be like yours. It turns out that in a family there is an equal sign between order and dependence on parents: cleaned up = obeyed.
“It’s impossible to find anything in his room,” my mother is indignant. Indeed, it is difficult to navigate someone else's territory, but perhaps your child is trying to develop his own system of placement in space.
You like it when all your things are in their usual places, at hand - then you can easily find them, quickly get down to business, can instantly get ready and take everything you need... But we forget that we arranged and optimized our space through trial and error. Why don't you allow your child to go the same way?
You can often hear from mothers: “I’m tired of looking for his scattered things.” But if you are tired, then why on earth would the child eliminate the “tiring” factors? Let him feel the discomfort of the mess himself. Don't get involved in the search, just sympathize. Let me emphasize - sympathize, not gloat.
You can't change how teenagers think or act, but you can definitely change how you react to things. This means you will get a different reaction from children.
If your room looks like it's been haunted by an elephant and your door won't open, your bed has huge piles of clothes on it, and your closets are filled with trash, you'll find living in your room impossible. Cleaning a truly messy room requires persistence and a methodical approach to putting away each item. But don’t despair, you can do it, the main thing is just to start!
Steps
Start
Cleaning up heaps
Put dirty clothes back in their place. Most likely, you have a lot of clothes, toys and other things left. So far you have removed only the most difficult places. Pick up dirty clothes from the floor and put them in your laundry drawer, if you have one. Take clean clothes and fold them somewhere. Also, don't leave dirty clothes lying in the hamper, but wash them! If there are empty clothes hangers scattered around the room, hang them in the closet
Put away the toys. If you are still young, you have toys and you are reading this article, then take your toys and think about whether you need them? Maybe they're in enough good condition to give them to charity? Put your toys in three piles: those you will leave in your room, those you will throw away, and those you will donate to charity. Now take these piles out of the room, we will return to them later.
Put away the dishes. Dirty dishes are common in a dirty room. It is likely that somewhere in your room there are glasses with sour milk at the bottom, as well as plates smeared with sauce. Go to the “Tips” section if there are ants, cockroaches and other insects in your room. Either way, put the dishes away and wash them. Wash it well and don’t forget to put it in a cabinet for storage. next appointment food. Take a sponge and wipe away marks from glasses (from neglecting coasters), as well as marks from food and drinks. Fine! You've done the nastiest part of cleaning. Now let's move on to the next step.
Remove the fakes. If you don't DIY anything, then skip this step. These items include paper, stationery(pens, pencils, scissors, rulers), as well as things you use for creative hobbies. If you are a creative person, buy cabinets specifically for these things
Dusting
Cleaning things
Cleaning shelves
Cleaning your pet's home
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If you have animals, clean their cage/aquarium. For the sake of your pet's health, you should do this weekly.
- If you have fish, make sure the water is clean. If not, then read the article “How to Clean a Fish Tank”. When you clean him, don't forget to feed him. Make sure they are all healthy.
- If you have bird(s), take them out of the cage for a while. Remove the newspaper from the bottom of the cage (or sand if you have it instead of newspaper), throw it away and replace it with a new one. If the cage still stinks, take the sponge again and clean the cage inside and out. Return the birdie's toys to their place, and then return the birdie itself. You now have a clean birdcage!
- If you have any reptile (iguana, turtle, snake, etc.), be sure to clean up their feces. If you have a turtle, read How to Clean a Turtle Aquarium.
- You can even have a rabbit. In this case, we recommend reading the article “How to Clean a Rabbit Hutch.”
- Play some music while you clean your room.
- Start cleaning as early as possible. The sooner you clean your room, the sooner you can get back to your fun.
- Spray your room with air freshener or add some incense to make your room smell nice
- Try to clean your room at least once a week to prevent it from getting super dirty again!
- Does your room have windows? Take window cleaner and wipe them down. Then take a wet rag and wipe the window sills
- Try not to litter your room after you clean it.
- Take some wet wipes to wipe down your closet, bookshelf, or nightstand.
- Don't read messages on your phone. If you pick up your phone to play music on it, lock it! Your phone is your biggest distraction
- Watch out for insects. Ants and cockroaches carry serious problems. Some people are afraid of them, and they will also eat your food. If you have them in your room, try to get rid of them before they crawl into your kitchen pantry and eat your grains. Buy insect repellent spray
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