This world is the eternal arena of the struggle between order and chaos. And many of us are brave champions of chaos, although no one asked our consent. Now, if there were good fairies who would fly to the newborn, holding a notebook in their golden paws, and, sitting on the edge of the cradle, would ask: “Boy, do you want to never have two identical socks in your house”? - that would be fair.

And so it turns out that some are born into the world as rational and consistent neat people, while others are forced to waltz all their lives through reality, reminiscent of a training ground after targeted bombing, and on sound reflection one has to admit that this bombing was carried out by you personally, albeit unconsciously.

How many unfulfilled plans, how many securely buried plans, how many ruins of unfolded personal happiness cover the life path of a person who simply does not know how to properly organize his life! Nevertheless, even the absolute geniuses of mess and bedlam are not completely hopeless. Teaching yourself to order is somewhat more difficult than accustoming a cat to a toilet or even a screwdriver, but if a person has a clear goal, there will always be ways to achieve it.

Make lists

Let's say you decide to turn your life into a synthesis of order and rationality. To do this, sit down, open a new document in Word or take a piece of paper with a pen. Now write down in a column everything that you need to do: today, in a week, in the next couple of years (this activity is actually really exciting, especially if you approach it with a soul). Write down both big tasks (write a brilliant novel) and small ones (remove a soaked condom from a soap box). After a couple of hours and a couple of kilometers of text, take a look at the resulting list, shudder at its grandiosity and attach it somewhere in a conspicuous place - on the refrigerator or in the center of the desktop. Having formulated goals, we begin to realize them more clearly.

But that is not all. Now you need to make a second list, namely: choose from the available variety those five or ten things that you will do right now, as soon as you finish fiddling with the lists. Well, not now, but within three days. Each completed item with pleasure cross off both lists.

In this way, you will satisfy several evolutionary programs at once that snake in your subconscious: you will have goals in front of you, you will follow the clear orders of the leader (well, yes, the leader is also you, but what's the difference), you will experience satisfaction from the fact that the list becomes more and more streaked. And your inner classifier and systematizer will also praise the heavens for the fact that his existence is finally beginning to make sense.

Similarly, lists are needed at work. It is especially pleasant to compose them at the beginning of a working day and admire the solid crossed out lines by the end of it.

A great habit will be shopping lists (so we remember everything we need and do not buy too much) and estimated expenses (so we understand in advance that if we buy the same wetsuit, glider and binoculars with a record, then we will not rest this year in the Maldives, but in Sokolniki).

Experienced users also have:

• List of birthdays of all friends and relatives (not all of them are on Facebook and contacts).

• A list of acquisitions that I would like to make, but someday later.

• A list of books and films that you've heard good reviews about, but haven't had time to read yet. (Here, from a conversation, you accidentally found out that “War and Peace” is a wow work, and right there wrote down on the phone: “V and M.” And then, after a year or two, I ran through this list in my free time and with great pleasure played Winnie the Pooh and the Matrix.

• Urgent lists from the category "To do before departure" and "Need for the presentation."

• And many other lists, which, for all their insanity, make life very, very easy and streamlined. Lists should preferably be stored, corrected and updated. But if you get involved in this occupation, then you will guess about it without us.

Observe the regime and seasonal holidays

The regime is not in the sense that you get up strictly at seven, but go to bed at eleven, no matter what it takes. Everyone has different rhythms of life, different needs for sleep and rest, different ways of being, so there is no ideal regimen for everyone. And besides, there are people for whom the monotonous regime will only interfere with functioning to the fullest.

Nevertheless, get rid of the sensations “Tomorrow will be the same as yesterday” and “Where did six months of life go? Only yesterday was November!” you can, if you follow the rituals associated with the day of the week, time of day or season. It is not for nothing that humanity endlessly invents traditions and holidays for itself, lighting candles on Shabbat, going to Mass on Sunday, decorating Christmas trees for the New Year, and by the end of autumn pumpkins and drinking “spring beer” under the petals of crumbling sakura. These rituals make us feel that, firstly, life goes on and changes, and secondly, that with all this, life is under our control and it is predictable. A person who skimps on these rituals must either start his own “every second Thursday in March I stand on my head for half an hour and listen to Rachmaninoff”, or get used to a keen sense of disorder in life, when all normal people have Olivier and champagne on the tables, and you take birth at the wolverine. In fact, seasonal holidays are very, very organizing events.

Keep the house in order

Usually women take care of the house and everything that is in it. Not because we're sexist, but because a woman's home is more important than yours. For you, this is just a roof with a bed, but for a woman, it is an extension of herself. So most ladies vehemently insist on their right to decide where and what will be lying around, leaving us for self-expression, at best, a box of tools. But if you live alone, then you will have to organize space and time on your own. I must admit, many of us solve this problem very badly. The bachelor's lair is a traditional haven of trash, dust, pizza boxes, and general restlessness. Although for a relatively comfortable life, it is enough to follow only a few rules.

• Invite cleaners. At least once a month, or better - once a week. A few hours of work by a professional will lay the foundations of order for quite a long time, no matter how hard you screw it up afterwards.

• Devote 10 minutes a day to cleaning. It doesn’t matter what exactly to do - wash the dishes, scrub the tub or vacuum the carpet. Ten minutes a day will not only save your apartment from becoming a horror movie set, but will also gradually bring it closer to that wonderful moment when, looking at your watch and noting the time, you will understand that there is nothing to do, in general: apartment looks flawless (there is no trick here, the fact is that people who regularly clean the house automatically get used to putting things in their place and spreading much less dirt). A robotic vacuum cleaner is great for light cleaning.

• Half the people in the world, when they open their wardrobe, they say, “Oh, damn!” (or equivalent in foreign languages). Keep things in boxes: t-shirts with t-shirts, jeans with jeans. It is ideal to place panties and socks in flat boxes with 12 or 24 cells (Ozon and similar sites are full of such devices, if anything).

• Fold bed linen in one of the pillowcases of the same set.

• Take your laundry and dry cleaning. You yourself will never reach such heights, even if you have a washing machine of the highest category in your partners. Take things with holes, loose zippers and lost buttons to a clothing repair shop - this is much more profitable than buying new clothes.

• Call the window cleaners in spring and early winter.

• Keep a trash can in every room.

• Any surface will look clean and shiny if you wipe it with a cloth with furniture wax polish: a metal refrigerator, a ceramic sink, a painted floor or a plastic chair. Even if things are still covered with a thick layer of dirt and dust, they will still shine (and then the dirt and dust will be easier to wipe off).

• Destroy the inconvenience. If you have a constant source of petty annoying problems at home (a drawer stuck in a chest of drawers, a crooked kitchen shelf with frying pans falling off it, a sparking switch, a corner that everyone knees at), be aware of its presence and get rid of it. The author of this text personally knows a family in which loose tiles on the bathroom floor regularly injured the legs of all family members. It took them five minutes to reattach it. And ten years before.

Tidy up your computer

Living in the era of everyone sitting with their noses in the monitor, we are forced to organize not only reality, but also virtuality.

• Passwords Only very stupid people keep passwords for their emails, accounts and websites on their computer. Slightly smarter people keep passwords in mind, but they get confused and forgotten all the time. And the smartest ones have a special file called, for example, "buttercups-daisies" and write encrypted passwords and mailboxes there literally from all their registrations. Ideally, you need to have five or six familiar passwords: one super-complex - for example, for Internet banking, a couple of simpler ones - for mailboxes and game accounts, a couple of expendable ones for registering in online stores or on porn sites. The cipher must be exceptionally intelligible to you and extremely incomprehensible to everyone else.

• Security And since we are talking about strangers in the computer, antiviruses are not a thing that can be neglected. You yourself know this, we just reminded you.

• Heat You can be paranoid and monitor the temperature of the processor and video card every week (using the AIDA 64 utility or its equivalents), but it's easier to be pragmatic than paranoid and get into the habit of opening the case once every couple of months and dusting parts and holes. In general, a modern gaming computer is a thing worse than a central heating battery, and it is better to place it in an air-conditioned room. It will be more comfortable for both him and you.

• Protection Uninterruptible power will not only save the fragile inner world of your computer from cataclysm as a result of a short circuit. It will also allow you to save all files in a dignified manner and close programs correctly even when the electricity is cut off tightly.

• forethought Always make copies of all files that are of value to you. And store them in a place where viruses, hackers and tragic coincidences will not get them. Use an external hard drive (not a flash drive!) And clouds.

• Sanitation of space If you are not a blogger looking for popularity on scandals, then ban and remove from contacts citizens who write nasty and stupid things to you. Even if you don't seem to care, your subconscious mind can get angry and grunt from this.

10 rules of highly organized matter

1. Visit the dentist once a year, even if nothing bothers you. At least once every three years, go through a medical examination (most insurances include this option, but you can also use the services of free medicine).

2. Keep all documents in one place, preferably in an iron or tin box. All certificates, certificates, property documents, etc. And also scan it all into files. Now even a fire will not turn your life into perfect ruins. In the second box, all warranty books and checks for equipment will fit perfectly.

3. Keep your workspace empty and clean. It would seem that this is impossible advice, but it is not. Dismantling papers and cups is a matter of a few minutes. In the end, you can just brush them into a drawer, let them go wild there - the main thing is that you do not see them. The feeling of space and order helps to concentrate on work, and the need to constantly contemplate the rubble and the pigsty usually makes us feel dissatisfied with ourselves and our existence (albeit often unconsciously).

4. Calculate how much an hour of your working time costs. Now, if you need to do something (connect the washing machine, re-tile the bathroom, clean the windows), figure out how long it will take and multiply by the cost of your hour. And after that, think about whether it would be more profitable to call a professional for this job, that is, a person who, by definition, will be able to do this much better than you. However, if you are interested in laying tiles and having fun washing windows - to your health, have fun.

5. Try to make fewer meetings with friends in cafes and restaurants, unless you plan to eat there. It is ideal to combine friendly meetings with events that you already wanted to attend: exhibitions, presentations, concerts and lectures. It's also great to take buddies out for a run or to the gym (which is why it's good if your club has a system of one-time guest visits).

6. In the car, you can listen not only to music, but also to audio books and lectures on topics that interest you.

7. Make a will. Even if you are 18 years old and you only have a couple of brilliant playlists from your property. A true control freak will never let things go wrong after his death.

8. Label all boxes. A black marker is the most necessary thing in the house and in the office. The marker, together with white tape, will also help to mark cables and electrical wires.

9. Break each large business into several small ones. Not “I need to get a passport”, but: 1) “I need to find out how and where passports are made today”, 2) “I need to take a picture for a passport”, 3) “I need to collect documents for a passport”, 4) “I I need to apply for a passport." Surprisingly, many overwhelming tasks can be broken down into many small, tedious, but quite doable items.

10. Do not turn your head into a garbage can and do not hope that it will always come to your rescue at the right time. Write down everything you can forget.

Manage money wisely

Having money in itself is not a defense against chaos - on the contrary, big money entails abundant problems. Nevertheless, giving financial advice to the reader of a magazine is a rather pointless exercise, since very different people read us. And no matter what the gurus of family accounting say, the financial behavior of the owner of a large business is very different from the financial behavior of a person whose financial situation is very suitable for the old expression: "And we have a flea on a lasso in our pocket." Therefore, only the most general recommendations are relevant here.

• To hoard or not to hoard? Of course, in a country whose currency can depreciate by half in a day and periodically shows such tricks, accumulation is an ideal thing in its senselessness. Nevertheless, the rule “put aside 10 percent of what you earn” can be followed here. Only it is better to store the deferred in more reliable currencies and preferably in different ones. And yes, in the event of a crisis, banks very quickly realize that the issuance of money needs to be stopped. Therefore, either a safe deposit box (which, honestly, also does not give special guarantees in case of serious problems with this bank), or an old felt boot on its own mezzanine. Although, if the house is robbed ... In general, as we wrote, money is always a problem. True, a little less than their complete absence at the right time.

• Keep all the checks Competent financial policy is greatly facilitated by summing up the monthly balance. So we not only understand where the whole salary has gone, if only we managed to buy sprats for the cat, but we also teach ourselves to correlate expenses with income. If you save all receipts in a box, and open Excel at the end of the month, you can come to absolutely amazing discoveries.

• Limit your spending If you are already compiling a financial report, you can notice exactly where you are chic. Are bamboo toothpicks really that much more pleasant to you than spruce toothpicks, even though bamboo costs three times as much? Why do you need triple-thick paper towels? Who do you want to hit with them? Mankind (and journalists among them) came up with a lot of "golden" rules like "a car should not be more expensive than a six-month salary, and a suit - a month." But have you ever seen a person observing them? We don't either!

  There is a more general and actually practical golden rule: 50-20-30. That is, half of a citizen's income goes to vital and inevitable expenses; 20 percent - to pay debts or to a piggy bank; 30 percent with a clear conscience should be thrown away on wine, women and a collection of motorcycles, that is, on anything that brings light and joy. If these thirty percent are not in your budget, life will slide into a blues, and work will lose all motivation.

• Cheap shopping is fun too People sometimes spend money just because they enjoy spending money, making purchases, and considering acquisitions. It's called shopping therapy. If you urgently need such therapy, then it makes sense to go to eBay or AliExpress, limit the upper limit of purchases to one hundred rubles and plunge into the sweet agony of choosing socks, clothespins, paper folders and bottle nozzles. So you can heartily shop for an amount that will not undermine even the tightest budget.

• Deal with debt Debts burden all people, and most of all they oppress debts that need to be repaid to acquaintances. To calm your conscience (and acquaintances, by the way), there is an excellent method - to return at least a little, at least a ridiculous part of the debt, but do it often.

Although strict Soviet housewives assured their daughters that the mess in the house is solely the result of laziness and personal lack of concentration, psychologists have long debunked this myth: people are divided into several types, and different personality types organize the space around them differently.

CLEANING AS A HABIT

There are those for whom structure and keeping order are easy, they are uncomfortable in a mess, and cleanliness is an important part of their character.

There are those who are more comfortable in order, but among the personality traits there is no ability to adhere to routine operations - it is more difficult for such people to maintain order, therefore, in their house, disorder most often gains a critical mass (each has its own mass), after which cleaning is carried out, but the result takes a long time does not hold, and the circle repeats.

There are also those who, in principle, are not able to maintain cleanliness in the space around them and do not worry about this at all.
However, if you still don’t like the mess, but you are not naturally clean, you can try to deceive your character and instill habits in yourself, say the activists of the Fly Lady movement. Only 10 habits will allow you to painlessly maintain order in the house.

Habit #1: Always make your bed

It was not in vain that my mother always demanded to put the bed in order before school - nothing adds to the feeling of a mess like crumpled linen on an unmade bed does. Making your bed is a matter of 10 seconds, it is the simplest and easiest habit of all!

Habit number 2: clean soap smudges from the walls of the shower or bathtub after each shower

Took a shower - rinse the walls with water to remove soap smudges, and wipe them with a special roller for showers. It takes 5 seconds and keeps the bathroom fresh - a very healthy habit that would be good to instill in all family members.

Habit #3: Wipe down the bathroom sink every night

I brushed my teeth - tidy up the sink so that soap smudges and traces of toothpaste do not freeze on it. It's easiest to keep the tile cleaner and sponge right in the bathroom so you can quickly apply it, rinse it off, and leave your bathroom looking its best. The whole procedure takes 30 seconds at most.

Habit number 4: leave the kitchen clean in the evening

Fly Lady community activists claim that cleanliness in an apartment starts with a clean kitchen. Like, the kitchen gets dirty in the first place, and you need to start a war on clutter right here. The procedure for Fly Lady is as follows:

• wash the dishes or load them into the dishwasher (never leave dirty dishes overnight - the rule of cleanliness)
• apply the cleaner on the sink in a thick layer, leave to act
• wipe all surfaces with a damp sponge
• Rinse the cleaning agent from the surface of the sink, wipe it dry
• take out a fresh kitchen towel, send it to the laundry

With proper skill and consistency, the whole procedure takes from 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the volume of dirty dishes.

Habit #5: Wash dishes while cooking

All people are divided into two groups - someone cooks and multiplies dirty utensils around him, someone washes everything in the process of cooking. Chistyuli - from the second. The rule "used - washed" allows you to choke the mess at the stage of inception.

Habit #6: "Evening rounds"

All the same Fly Lady activists advise you to make it a habit to spend every evening “five minutes of cleanliness” - before you go to bed, you need to go around the apartment and sort out fresh rubble. Send scattered things to their place, fold magazines and CDs, park children's toys. Just 5 minutes every evening will help keep your house clean until the next general cleaning.

Habit number 7: do not produce clothes outside the closets

Dirty - in the wash, wearable - back in the closet. This rule allows you to wean yourself and loved ones to produce mountains of clothes on chairs and armchairs that fit so harmoniously into the overall atmosphere of the mess. This routine takes about 5 seconds of time - just in the process of exposing yourself, control yourself and send the things being filmed not to the chair, but to the right place.

Habit number 8: ventilate the room

One of the unpleasant properties of bardach apartments is a musty smell. The apartment can be relatively tidy, but this smell will betray the slut faster than scattered things. Make it a rule to ventilate the apartment every day for 10-15 minutes, this is good for health and to maintain an overall feeling of cleanliness.

Habit #9: Dusting extremely dusty surfaces every day

Every home has surfaces that attract dust faster than others - plasma panels, monitors, glass (including a mirror), etc. Special rag with antistatic impregnation + 2-3 minutes a day to get around all the "dusty" places and brushing off accumulated during the day will allow you to maintain the overall feeling of cleanliness for a long time.

Habit #10: Involve everyone in the household to keep things organized and invest in technology that makes life easier

No need to suddenly become clean, it's bad for the psyche, say Fly Lady. Sometimes you really just don’t have the strength to sort out a fresh blockage or brush off the dust - it’s not scary, it will wait until tomorrow. The main thing is to make the above steps your habit, for which it is enough to force yourself to follow the routine for three weeks.

After 21 days, making evening rounds and wiping down the bathroom sink will become second nature, activists say. And one more thing: one should not try to repeat the feat of Hercules and clean the Augean stables alone, one should try to instill the habits of cleanliness in all households (although what exactly is the feat of Hercules - cleaning or instilling such habits in husband and children - this, of course, is a question).

Buying good appliances that cut down on the time and effort to keep clean is not a waste of money. For example, investing in a good steam cleaner (a device that cleans various surfaces with hot steam) will help you cut down on hours of time that you would otherwise spend scrubbing tiles, plumbing, etc. (for example, Karcher SC1, the main love of “jet housewives”). We do not live in the 19th century, and it is foolish not to use everything that is designed to make our lives easier.

And so that work on your habits does not stop, and laziness does not take over, FLY LADY advises you to make something like a cleaning schedule, where you list the main routine and the frequency of various manipulations for yourself. It is enough to stick to this schedule for a month to get used to the new routine.

Maintaining order requires a lot of time and effort, and even more of them have to be spent if cleaning has not been carried out for a long time. But modern housewives are armed with several effective techniques that make cleaning a quick and even enjoyable experience. These include step-by-step tidying up according to a pre-planned plan, as well as the use of the Lady Fly system, which is popular all over the world.

In the process of cleaning, it may turn out that there are not enough gloves, for example, or the vacuum cleaner has failed. Such problems can significantly slow down the restoration of order. Proper preparation will help to do all the work quickly and in an organized manner:

1. First, you need to assess the scope of work and decide where to start. If you plan to perform many different actions, then you need to make a complete to-do list. This helps to objectively determine which activities will take the most time and how you can rationally distribute the load during the day. For example, first of all, it is worth sorting out the dusty things in the cabinets, and only then vacuum the carpets and wash the floors, otherwise they will have to be washed again by the evening due to the dust that has settled during cleaning.
2. It is necessary to determine what tools and materials will be needed in the process of general cleaning. As a rule, the standard set consists of several pairs of gloves, lint-free cloths or microfiber cloths, floor cloths, a broom, dustpan, mop, glass and mirror cleaner, carpet cleaners and washing bathtubs and toilets. Before starting work, make sure that the vacuum cleaner is functioning properly.
3. Before putting things in order, you need to try to organize the work so that the household members distribute some of the responsibilities among themselves. Even young children can help by watering the flowers or collecting their toys. If none of the household members expressed their readiness to work, then it is necessary to make sure that they at least do not interfere with cleaning.
4. It is necessary to allocate a certain, clearly marked time for global cleaning. If on the same day you need to cook dinner, iron clothes and perform a lot of some other actions, then putting things in order should be postponed. This rule applies only to general cleaning - for the usual washing of floors and wiping shelves that take an hour or two, there is no need to set aside a special day.
5. In order for cleaning not to be a burden, you need to tune in to it accordingly. Psychologists advise you to pick up your favorite music in advance, put on comfortable and beautiful (suitable for household chores) clothes and imagine how cozy and beautiful the house will become. You should not start such global work with poor health or a sore head, because in the future it will be associated with negative emotions and cause only hostility. But you shouldn’t tune in too long either - if you planned to start cleaning at some point, then you need to do it without delay.

Step by Step

The inhabitants of small apartments often face difficulties in cleaning due to the tightness of the room. But even in houses with a large area, a lot of things accumulate over the years that were not thrown away for one reason or another. It must be remembered that the more items in the house, the more effort you have to spend during cleaning, not to mention the fact that it is very difficult to create even the appearance of order in cluttered rooms.

Psychologists say that while a person is surrounded by a lot of old things, there will not be a place in his life for new joyful events.

Freeing up space

Feng Shui experts recommend getting rid of 25 unnecessary items daily. This doesn’t mean throwing away entire closets of clothes—little things like a half-dried bottle of nail polish, torn chains, or expired cosmetics also fall under this rule. Within a week of following this advice, the room will begin to seem more tidy and spacious. This is especially true for those whose apartment is very small - after all, the owners often forget to get rid of unnecessary trash in time.

But if there are a lot of things in the house that are really needed, then before cleaning, you should purchase special vacuum bags designed to store clothes. Things that are now out of season are put into such a package, and air is pumped out of it using a vacuum cleaner or a special pump. Such an item takes up very little space, so even in conditions of space shortage, the entire wardrobe can fit on several shelves. But keep in mind that in such packages the clothes are very wrinkled, so before the start of the season it will have to be ironed again.

For clothes made of natural fur, this method is not suitable, because it will cause irreversible damage to the product. If the house does not have wardrobes for storing fur coats, then you should ask if there are special storage facilities in the city where you can donate winter clothes for a fee. They are regularly treated against moths and maintain the necessary temperature regime, which is optimal for the safety of products made from natural fur. In this way, space in the apartment will be saved at the same time, and things will retain an attractive appearance for a longer period.

You can purchase organizers designed for a more compact arrangement of small items - underwear, socks, ties. Before you put your wardrobe in boxes, you need to sort it out. All old and worn clothes that have not been worn for many years, torn clothes and items with stains that could not be washed off should be immediately put into a garbage bag.

The generally accepted rule is that if a garment has not been worn for several years, then it will most likely not be worn again.

It is unlikely that a thing is a favorite if it has been stored on a shelf for many years, so it is worth getting rid of such clothes and freeing up space in the closet. The same rule applies to kitchen utensils - pots with broken handles or damaged enamel, bent forks, cups with cracks will not be used by a good housewife, so they should also be thrown away. The empty shelves in the rooms and in the kitchen should be wiped with a damp cloth, left open until completely dry, and only then stacks of clothes and linen or other items should be placed on them.

Cleaning various surfaces

After you have put things in order in the cabinets, you can start washing the external surfaces in the house. The usual sequence of actions is as follows:

1. Use a soft, damp cloth to gently clean all lighting fixtures. Part of the dust will inevitably fall on the floor and be scattered around the surrounding room, so the chandeliers should be washed first. Under no circumstances should a wet cloth be used while the lights are on. All electrical appliances must be disconnected from the mains both during washing and until the surfaces are completely dry.
2. Then they wipe shelves, window sills and other horizontal surfaces, as well as various objects standing on them - figurines, caskets and decorative dishes. Household appliances (TV, music center, system unit, monitor) should be cleaned of dust using specially designed wet wipes. Wiping with an ordinary damp cloth can scratch the surfaces, and the damage will not be immediately visible, but over time a network of small scratches will become noticeable, which will significantly worsen the appearance of the devices.
3. After that, they start cleaning mirrors and glass surfaces - window blocks, doors in cabinets and lockers, mirrors in the bathroom. To wash them, you should purchase a special tool and a small mop with a telescopic handle. This will make it possible to reach even the farthest parts of the outer side of the windows and wash all glass surfaces quickly and without streaks.
4. Then put things in order in the bathroom and toilet. Over time, dirt deposits and rust streaks can accumulate on the toilet and bathtub. To whiten plumbing, rather aggressive detergents are usually used, which are a mixture of surfactants with a 3-5% alkali solution. It is necessary to work with such liquids in tight gloves. First, you need to study the label of the product to determine if its composition is suitable for cleaning the coating of a particular bathtub or toilet bowl.
5. Lastly, clean the carpets and wash the floors. You can do the old fashioned way - roll up rugs and go knock them out on the street. But this method is very physically difficult, and in the arsenal of a modern hostess there are many special tools that allow you to clean carpets right on the spot. When using a cleaning fluid, it is advisable to keep the windows open - this way the rugs and walkways will dry faster. If the house has a modern washing vacuum cleaner, then the task will be even easier - you need to pour the product into a special tank, and then vacuum the carpets. With the help of modern household appliances, you can immediately wash the floors in all rooms.

If there are pets in the house, then washing and disinfecting the cage or tray and other accessories used by the pet are added to the listed steps. Soft toys that a cat or dog likes to wear in their teeth should be washed regularly. Rubber toys also need to be washed from time to time in water with the addition of dishwashing detergent.

Ways to make work easier

Many people find it very difficult to complete a large amount of work at once. For those who find it easier to do the work in small parts, the Lady Fly system was invented.

Its main principles:

1. You need to devote a small amount of time to each task - usually 15 minutes. For example, 15 minutes is devoted to washing the sink, the next 15 are wiped the shelves, then the floors are washed in 15 minutes. If you managed to do some operation, for example, in 5 minutes, you should definitely thank yourself for the success and note (at least mentally) your achievements.
2. If 15 minutes have passed, and the case remains unfinished, you still need to move on to the next section of work. There you also need to work no longer than the allotted time.
3. For the whole week, not excluding working days, you need to draw up a schedule of planned work. Their volume should not be large in order to keep within the same 15 minutes.
4. The whole house should be divided into certain sections or zones and highlight those that require constant attention. For example, the sink needs to be washed almost daily, but it will take only a couple of minutes to maintain cleanliness instead of the usual fifteen, and the freed time can be devoted to your hobby or a cup of aromatic tea.

Positive aspects of the Lady Fly system

The Lady Fly system is popular all over the world due to its simplicity and efficiency. There are several other positive aspects of such an organization of work:

1. Homework does not get boring, because a change of occupation every 15 minutes makes the work varied.
2. A person does not get hung up on performing the same operation (this is an important plus of the system for perfectionists). According to the Lady Fly system, you can’t wash one pan for hours, but you need to move on to the next business. It is important to understand that even if the dishes are not completely washed, they will still be much cleaner than before.
3. Thanks to this system, cleanliness is constantly maintained in the house.
4. There is plenty of time to rest. Even the most tired person, having come home from work, is able to find the strength to devote 15 minutes to some action from the list planned for the week. As a result, by the end of the week, almost all household chores will be redone.

If guests unexpectedly appear on the threshold of the room, they will be pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness and order in the room, and the owners will not be ashamed to show their accommodation. Doing a small amount of household chores every day will allow you to complete even a seemingly overwhelming amount of work. It is important to remember that all household members should try to keep the house clean and tidy. Even young children need to be taught to clean up after themselves and help their parents. Then it will be quite easy to put things in order in the apartment.

Put things in order in the room - and the soul will become calmer, and there will be more order in life. When you know what and where lies, then life somehow becomes easier, especially if you no longer have to spend 20 minutes looking for your favorite scarf or pair of jeans. If you want to learn how to put things in order in the room, we have some tips for you:

Steps

Sort your things

1. Get all your belongings out of where they are now. This can be an unpleasant experience, and the mess will only increase after that, but only for a while. In addition, if you decide to re-clean up the room, you will have to start from scratch. And although a huge pile of things in the middle of the room may discourage you, rest assured that in the near future you will put everything in its place.

   • Get everything out of the closet. Things, shoes, in general, everything that lies there, and put it in front of the closet.
   • Get everything off the table. You can lay things out on the table.
   • Take everything out of the drawer. If this mess ends up being too much, hold off on it.
   • Everything that is in the other's room, also pull it out and put it on the bed or floor.
     • If pulling everything out at once is too messy and takes up too much space, then clean up gradually.

2. Put things in order. Before you start thinking about what to put where, find a few boxes and mark them appropriately. Crates and plastic boxes will also work, but boxes are best - just throw them away. Here are the marks you need to make:

   • ‘’ Use ’’ - put here what you more or less regularly use. Even if you used the item a month or two or three ago, put it here anyway.
   • ‘’Store’’ - put here what you can’t throw away (things with which pleasant memories are associated and all that), but also what you rarely use. You can also put things here that you won’t wear for a long time, say, sweaters in summer, and dresses and T-shirts in winter.
   • ‘’ Give away / sell ’’ - here put something that can still be useful to someone, but you already can’t. For example, a sweater that you no longer fit into, or an old textbook.
   • ‘’ Throw away ’’ - there will be a place for what no one needs, including you. If you can't remember what this thing is for, or when you last used it, throw it away, throw it away!

3. Try to throw out as much as possible. This is an important step. Yes, you will be tempted to cram "Use" or "Keep" into the box, but that's not our method. You will have to get into your soul and understand what you really need in life - from things, of course. Remember, the less things and objects in your room, the easier it is to put things in order.

   • Everything that is lying around idle, also put it on the bed or on the floor.
   • If it seems to you that you will no longer need this thing, but you don’t want to throw it away, maybe you should give it to a friend and relative?

4. Put all the boxes, except for “Use”, in their places. We can say that you have already put things in order in the room to a certain extent, so now it's time to get rid of everything unnecessary. And the sooner you do this, the easier it will be for you to clean up further. And here's what to do:

   • The first is the simplest. Take the "Throw away" box and throw it away.
   • Find a local church, orphanage, or other organization that accepts donations and donations, and take whatever you choose to donate there. However, be mentally prepared for the fact that they will not take everything. No need to be indignant, go to another organization or just throw away the leftovers.
   • Start selling what is meant to be sold. You can take everything to a flea market, you can sell everything through the appropriate online store.
   • Store the “Store” boxes. If you have a pantry or other dedicated storage space outside of the room, great. If not, then store things in a part of the room that you rarely use, say, under the bed or in the back of the closet. Just don't forget to carefully label the boxes so it's easier to find things next time.

   Get your things in order

   1. Tidy up your closet. The neater everything is in the closet, the cleaner the room looks. Use closet space wisely, sort things out by, say, seasons or colors. If you have a large closet, then you can store many other things in it - shoes, accessories, or anything else. Here are a couple of options for how you can put things in order in the closet:

      • The first step after you put things in boxes for use and storage is to take a good look at things again. If you haven't worn something ''for a year'', then it seems it's time to get rid of it. The exception is perhaps a very, very strict suit, which you simply haven’t had a chance to wear yet.
      • Sort things by season. Keep your winter, spring, summer, and fall items in one closet. If space permits, then store off-season items somewhere in the back of the closet.
      • Hang as many things as you can. Try to sort them by type.
      • Use the place under things - and under the hung things it is. You can put boxes there or make a shelf for shoes there.
      • If the doors in your closet open and do not roll back, then you can make a shelf for shoes or jewelry in the opening door. This is a great way to use closet space! If the closet does not have such a door, consider whether it is worth attaching such shelves to the bedroom door.
      • If there is room for a small chest of drawers in your closet, know that it could not be better!

   2. Tidy up your dresser. If you store things or accessories there, then there should be order so that you do not have to constantly turn everything upside down in search of the right thing. Here are some tips:

      • Tidy up the top drawers. Take out everything that is lying around in a mess there, and lay it out neatly.
      • Put top drawers to good use - don't just put everything in there that couldn't find a better place. Decide what you will store there - socks, comics and something else.
      • Tidy up the rest of the drawers. Set aside a drawer for underwear, a drawer for pajamas, a drawer for sports items, and a drawer for outerwear and underwear that you wear every day.

   3. Tidy up your desk. If you have a table in your room, it should be a model of order. Figure out how to put everything important in its place and get rid of the clutter.

      • Set aside a separate place for office supplies such as scissors, a stapler, and so on. Keep in mind that this should be an easily accessible place, because you will use these items quite often - and do not forget to put things back in their place, otherwise you will lose everything!
      • Set aside space for writing utensils. Get something like a small cup to store your pens and pencils in so you don't have to look for them for 15 minutes. And when you put your pens in the cup, make sure they all write, and throw out the ones that don't.
      • Get folders for papers. Different cases and papers - different folders and boxes. In one, you can store important but rarely used documents, in the other - what you use more often, and so on. And do not put papers from one folder to another, do not make a mess!
      • The less clutter on the tabletop, the better. Try to litter the table with photos and reminders to a minimum so as not to deprive yourself of your workspace.

   4. Tidy up the rest of the room. After you put your wardrobe, dresser and table in order, your room will already begin to look like a place where there is order. However, this is not the end and you still have a lot to do:

      • Make your bed. Order is when everything is in its place, and a pillow with a blanket is no exception. If there is a mess on your bed, chaos from pillows and, say, soft toys that prevent you from sleeping, it's time to think about whether you need to throw something out of this.
      • Tidy up the walls. Posters and paintings are for beauty, a calendar and a writing board are for organization. But old posters and torn photographs are still better to take off.
      • It is also necessary to restore order in the remaining interior items. Night table? Office cabinet? Bookshelf? Everything should be neat, tidy and logically organized - in tone with the room.
      • Everything that is left, put it in its place. If something is still lying restless - find a place for it.
      • Decided to clean up the room? Make sure you can finish the job!
      • Make your bed every morning after waking up. It helps to keep the room in order, inspires to do so.
      • Do not hurry. There is no hurry, the work must be done well and carefully.
      • Before you start putting things in order, imagine everything mentally - it will be easier to start. Yes, finish it too.
      • Make sure your parents don't mind. You don't want problems with them, do you?
      • Maybe paint the walls a new color? It's inspiring!
      • If you have a small room, then things from it can be taken out to other rooms in the house. If you do this, it will be more difficult to make a mess again.
      • To reduce the amount of waste paper accumulated in the table, pay bills electronically.

The apartment, just furnished, looks like from the pages of interior design magazines: all the elements are geometrically correct, the room itself simply shines with cleanliness, and small details perfectly place accents. But a month or two passes, and the question of how to clean up the apartment can be a very serious problem, especially if you are not neat and suffer from Plushkin's syndrome. A tangled lump of clothes in the closet and a little more on the back of the chair, a table littered with candy wrappers, dishes, papers and traces of your favorite hobby, the bed that you last made when guests arrived - at one fine moment there will simply be nowhere to put things, and that's it here begins our path to perfect purity.

It is impossible to call a room clean if there is garbage in it: even a small paper wrapper on the table can significantly spoil the view, and you, admit it, have accumulated a lot of such “good”. All this unnecessary rubbish most of all creates a feeling of untidiness, so we will get rid of it in the first place. You won't be able to complete the task quickly, and this process is quite laborious, so be patient, turn on peppy music - and let's go!

• Outright trash.

We send everything that should be 100% in the bin, we send it to the first package, and we bet there are a lot of such things: crumpled papers, cut off clothes tags, candy wrappers, used tubes of cosmetics, leftover materials after handmade, non-writing pens and felt-tip pens, spoiled food, “spam” accumulated in the corridor from the box and receipts from the supermarket. You will part with these items quickly and without regret, and the room will already become a little cleaner.

• Hidden trash.

If you do not reduce the number of things that clutter up the room, then the return of the mess will not keep you waiting, so now you have a more difficult task: go through all the drawers and shelves carefully in search of things that do not serve you or the room in any way. At first, it will seem to you that these are very necessary things that should not go to the landfill, but do not forget to ask yourself how often you use this item and whether you need this item at all.

The box from the TV that you bought 5 years ago, with a maintenance ticket, is in the trash, because the warranty period has long expired. Expired cream - there too. A glossy magazine bought on a trip will also keep them company, unless, of course, you have accumulated so many of them that you can turn them into waste paper.

By the way, if your work involves a lot of accumulated paper, like teachers or students, waste paper is a good way out, which will also be good for the environment. At this point, sort out the sheets that you no longer need and cannot run through the printer on the other side, and take them to a collection point when there are a lot of them.

• Garbage for you is a benefit for others.

There are things that one simply cannot raise one’s hand to throw away: this moth-eaten carpet from the times of the USSR will lie behind the sofa in a huge dust-collecting roll, and the old TV is a technique that at one time cost crazy money! We hasten to disappoint you - all this has long passed into the category of rubbish, and even in the post-apocalyptic chaos, in case of the occurrence of which you, apparently, store all this, the benefit from these things for you will tend to zero.

And yet there are people who will be glad that it will never serve you again: donate the carpet to the animal shelter, where they will insulate booths, and the TV will certainly come in handy in a godforsaken nursing home. It will be much easier to part with an unnecessary thing if you know that it will go to a good deed, warming or delighting someone who is less fortunate than you.

It is very important at this stage to sort the clothes and get rid of what you definitely will not wear. Things you don't need will be gladly accepted by organizations that help orphans, the elderly, the disabled or the homeless.

Step 2: Sort what you need

Now that only the necessary things are left in the room, you have to sort them. Here we will again act in 3 stages, which will allow us to cope with the task quite quickly, literally in half an hour.

• Put it in place.

Now your apartment is a large container with things mixed up, where a mug, a sock, an air freshener and fish food coexist on one square meter. To get started, take things to where they should be: plates from the table to the kitchen, a jacket from the back of the chair to the closet, a bath towel to the bathroom. There is no need to put things in order right away, for now we are preparing material for the main work, dividing the space into zones, or locations.

• Wash dirty.

Now in each location we put dirty things in order, because they are in second place after garbage in terms of their ability to create a musty atmosphere in the room: we wash dishes, wash things, remove dust from old hairspray ... So, wait a second. When was the last time you used it, why did it get so dusty? It seems that someone was not attentive enough at the stage of "cleaning" the premises from trash. Quickly carry the trash bag - the varnish goes to the candy wrappers and the TV box.

• Organize locations.

Well, now in each location you need to put everything in order: hang clothes on hangers, beautifully arrange bottles in the bathroom, carefully fold books and papers on the table. In order to organize the space efficiently and correctly, there is one important secret: little things and papers should not be randomly scattered, since large-scale littering usually begins with them. Buy simple cardboard or plastic boxes or organizers for correspondence, in which you could put all sorts of printouts, paper clips, skeins of thread, jewelry or a collection of lipsticks, otherwise they will be scattered all over the room very soon.

Step 3: Polishing

Things have been reduced, and the rest are neatly arranged where they belong, and the room is already a little easier to breathe. But this air is still filled with particles of dust and dirt, which means that it is time for traditional wet cleaning. In order to clean up the house, wipe the dust, vacuum and wash the floors, for a greater effect, change the bedding, making the bed after that, wash the curtains and wash the window.

Look at your apartment now. Isn't it wonderful to live in such a perfectly clean, bright and spacious place? We understand that it will not be easy for everyone to keep rooms this way on a permanent basis, so here are some ways to organize and motivate yourself to make cleaning easier in the future.

• Remember, we shared an apartment by location? It can be a dressing table, a kitchen cabinet, a wardrobe or a desk. Make a list of locations and clean one of them every day. The volume of such work will absolutely not frighten, which means that the chance that you will begin to postpone this activity is greatly reduced.
• If someone else lives in the apartment besides you, you can arrange a cleaning competition - who will clean a certain area with the highest quality or fastest? True, it will work if this person is also not the cleanest neighbor in the world. If your neighbor is very sensitive to order, on the basis of which you may even have quarrels, then give him certificates for cleaning. So you will be forced to get out so as not to offend a dear person, and he, in turn, will serve as a kind of indicator that it is definitely time to do this.
• If there is housework that you just can't stand, then it's best not to put it off until the last minute. Start with this activity, even if it slightly breaks the order of our article, otherwise the task risks not being completed.
• Invite your friends over! Preferably ones you don't talk to very often: co-workers or old school friends you haven't seen in a while are best. These are the people you most likely want to impress, especially if this is their first visit. Not only will this event serve as a timer, but the motivation is better than not to lose face in front of unfamiliar people, you are unlikely to find!
• Your apartment is now just shining! Take a photo of it in this form, print it out and hang it in a conspicuous place. Many girls are motivated by photos of models or themselves at the best of times to lose weight and eat right - it is likely that this technique will help you too.

Of course, this method cannot be called an express method of sorting trash, but with so many things, it is unlikely that you can get out really quickly without raking garbage under the carpet and throwing things without looking into the closet. But by sorting things according to the tips above, you will really free up space, get rid of unnecessary trash and be able to more easily maintain perfect order in the future. Inspect things at least once every six months, and your room is less likely to turn into a multifunctional warehouse. Remember that nothing contributes to the atmosphere of comfort as cleanliness and lack of trash, and now you know how to deal with the already accumulated stocks.