Dreading spring-cleaning? The six tricks experts swear by

When it comes to maintaining a clean and tidy home, some people take pride in the results of their efforts. Others enjoy specific chores, such as vacuuming or doing the dishes. Then there are those who grit their teeth and suffer through these tasks – or put them off as long as they can.

Why do some people find it so hard to motivate themselves to get – and keep – their home organised and clean? Research has found that hesitation and indecisiveness are among the biggest impediments to dealing with household clutter. And if you give in to that indecisiveness or hesitation, clutter and messiness may lead to even more indecision and procrastination, creating an unfortunate self-perpetuating cycle.

“If you have a chaotic home environment where things are in the way or in different places from one day to the next, it’s much harder to form habits that will work for you because you’ll have to think about something that should be much easier,” says Wendy Wood, professor emerita of psychology and business at the University of Southern California and author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. “Good habits are more likely to develop if we set up a home environment to make daily habits easier.”

Owning cleaning tools you enjoy using helps make the process enjoyable.Credit: iStock

Indeed, one of the optimal strategies for gaining control of home maintenance is to make cleaning and tidying more automatic so you don’t have to think about it. Another is to use some of the principles behind the science of behaviour change to essentially train yourself to do household chores easily. Here’s how.

Arm yourself with the right stuff

Create a kit with cleaning solutions, sponges, dusters, brushes, microfibre cloths and whatever else you might need, and keep it in a designated spot, says Patric Richardson, a laundry and cleaning expert and author of the book House Love: A Joyful Guide to Cleaning, Organising, and Loving the Home You’re In. “Having the right tools and knowing how to use them makes the process easier and faster.”

Create a plan of action

“In general, we follow through on our goals when we have a concrete plan instead of a vague intention,” says behavioral scientist Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. “If you break a goal into bite-size components, it’s more approachable.”

So rather than deciding to clean your entire home on a particular day, focus on one room at a time or even one task at a time (such as cleaning and organising one drawer in your kitchen or dresser). “If you do something to get some instant success, you’ll feel competent and a lot of times momentum will take over, so the tasks feel less onerous,” says Wendy Grolnick, a professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester and co-author of the book Motivation Myth Busters: Science-Based Strategies to Boost Motivation in Yourself and Others.

Link the right behaviour

This is about creating “implementation intentions,” which spell out the when, where and how of what you’ll do to keep your home tidy. Research has shown that implementation intentions help people stick to their goals and reinforce habits they’re trying to develop. As James Clear noted in his book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, “Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity … [about] when and where to take action.”

Implementation intentions solve that problem by creating cues that trigger a particular action from you, Grolnick says. This way, “you’re taking out the indecisiveness about how you’ll proceed,” she adds. To that end, it helps to come up with if-then statements: If ____ happens, then I’ll ____. Some examples: If I get out of bed, then I’ll make it right away. If I walk into a room and see things on the floor, then I’ll pick them up. If I’m done working for the day, then I’ll tidy my desk before leaving my home office.

Similarly, you can engage in what’s often called habit-stacking or piggybacking – linking an action you want to adopt to something you already do on a regular basis. This way, you won’t have to set aside time to do that additional task. For example, you could link doing the dishes to clearing the table after a meal. Or wiping down the bathroom sink to brushing your teeth. Or emptying all the rubbish tins in your home to taking the garbage outside on pickup day. When you let one action become the cue for another, it improves the chances that the new action will eventually become automatic, Grolnick says.

Listening to one of your favourite podcasts can help create positive associations with cleaning.Credit: iStock

Create a specific time frame

After you’ve pinpointed specific tasks, decide how much time you’ll spend on them. If you want to overhaul your closet, you could devote 10 minutes each day to different aspects of the task: cleaning the floor and dusting the shelves and rods, organising your clothes and putting together a donation pile.

Or, let’s say you have people coming over. You can quickly tidy your living room with “a 10-minute clean,” Richardson says. Set a timer and swing into high-energy mode: put anything that doesn’t belong in the living room in a laundry basket (that you can stash in another room), use a damp microfibre cloth to dust tables and lamps, vacuum or sweep the floor, straighten up what’s on the coffee table, then plump the pillows on the couch. Think of it this way: “You can do anything for 10 minutes,” Richardson says.

Make the process more enjoyable

If you dread doing a household task that needs to get done, a strategy called “temptation bundling” can help, Milkman says. The idea is to let yourself engage in a special pleasure only while you’re doing the chore, to help make it a habit. If you need to fold laundry or clean the kitchen, you could listen to a favourite podcast, watch a TV show or have a phone date with a close friend while you do it. Or, you could treat yourself to a special snack or beverage while you work. “The simultaneity helps give you instant gratification,” Milkman says.

Similarly, Richardson recommends setting yourself up to be comfortable – by wearing fun footwear or comfy clothes – while you clean. Or buy really good smelling dish soap: “I think doing the dishes is like going to the spa,” he says. “It’s warm and steamy, and it smells good.”

Tune into the benefits you reap

Take a moment now and then to appreciate how much easier it is to find what you’re looking for when you consistently put items in the same place. “Habits streamline our daily life,” Wood says. Also note how much more relaxed you feel when you’re spared the visual stress of looking at piles of mail, newspapers and other clutter. Tuning into these perks of being more organised and tidy will set you up to positively reinforce these newly improved habits.

Washington Post

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