Is your house a mess? Here’s how to fix it

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You probably know the feeling: your house gradually becomes a mess, until you can no longer stand it. Only then do you do something about it.

Afterwards, you wonder how it got this bad. The funny thing is that it escalated slowly, and it would probably have taken less effort to put everything back where it belonged.

Being more aware of which systems lead to which results can help you avoid this situation!

Systems thinking

A system might sound very abstract, but it is actually quite simple.

A system is a chain of actions and consequences, followed by more actions.

No action really stands alone. Everything is part of a larger system.

The only question is where you draw the boundaries of particular “subsystems.”

Breaking tasks down and treating them as systems gives you a better understanding of:

  1. The actions you normally perform in sequence.

    1. Which steps in the process might be a little harder.

  2. The steps you would like to take, but that do not happen.

  3. The results or consequences of this.

Mapping this out adds a wonderful tool to your toolbox: the ability to adjust things and try something new.

Household tasks are perfect for practice

Eventually, you want to be able to apply this principle to everything, but household tasks are a perfect starting point.

Household processes are easy to fix
Why?

  • They are fairly simple.

  • They consist of a number of consecutive tasks.

  • There are plenty of variations you can try to improve the process.

Tidying your home feels good
Once you have a success in this area, the result is IMMEDIATE. How good does it feel when your home is tidy, there is nothing lying on the floor, and the other surfaces are clear too?

Let’s take a closer look at the laundry

As an athlete, this is a recurring source of “misery.” I do four sports: triathlon (running, cycling and swimming) and horse riding.

You can imagine how many loads of laundry that creates. After a four-hour bike ride, throwing something on the floor sometimes feels easier than taking the right next step.

That brings us straight to the starting point:

Knowing what the next step is

For the object you have just had in your hands, what is the logical next step?

With running clothes, for example, are you clear on whether that shirt:

  1. Could be worn once more and needs airing out.

  2. Really needs washing now.

  3. Actually needs to go because it no longer fits.

  4. Needs washing later, but cannot be worn again, because you want to batch your laundry.

Depending on that decision, the object, in this case a running shirt, goes somewhere different. But you should never just throw it on the floor!

My laundry system:
Using the example above, if it needs airing out, I hang it up in the laundry room.

For one of the other steps, I put it in a separate laundry basket. Since I do not have much room for four laundry baskets, I use Decathlon bags that I keep in the laundry room.

You can never have enough Decathlon bags.

In any case, the next action is always clear, and this system works for me.

It takes a little searching to find where things break down for you, but there are often clues. One is finding out where processes get stuck. That needs attention!

Looking for processes that get stuck

When one of the processes above stalls or does not happen, the laundry piles up!

To keep your home tidy, you need to work out which specific actions are not being done, or are being done poorly.

For those actions, you need an alternative or a simpler approach.

When your home is a mess, the transitions are not smooth

The example above applies to every process in and around your home.

Trouble keeping up with the dishes, for instance, might come from finding it hard to wash up straight after eating.

You often just want to sit and relax for a while, and the washing-up gets forgotten.

What I do in that situation is quickly rinse everything and wash the large pans before I serve the food.

That keeps it manageable, because the big pile of dishes you are dreading becomes much smaller.

How you simplify and adapt your processes will be different for everyone. The basics are the same:

  1. Find out where the processes get stuck.

  2. Come up with a MANAGEABLE and effective next step.

  3. Try it out and adjust.

Habits