Cora's Cottage

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We have all heard different theories and methods on how to keep our homes decluttered and clean, but many of these suggestions come with a long list of to-do items that simply are not sustainable for more than a couple of days or weeks at best. But what if we could find a nightly rhythm that would help to reset our homes?

I started taking this approach about a year ago after learning that clutter can affect the amount of stress I feel, and can cause me to procrastinate tasks. (Both these studies are summarized in this NY Times article) While neither of these findings came as a shock to me, seeing science back up what I was feeling made me realize I needed to actually do something about extra items and clutter in my home. And just a few changes to my nightly routine has made a world of difference for me.

To make my nightly rhythm of resetting the house more effective, I first looked at the things that caused me the most stress. For me, those were the items that did not have a home such as mail left out, clothes not folded and put away, and shoes not lined up by the door. Some of these items we already had the tools fix, such as a shoe tray to line the shoes up by the door, but others we didn’t have the tools to correct. For those items, I started by purchasing what we would need to give them a home, such as cute, decorative baskets for cookbooks.

Once I had the items I knew I would need to give the clutter a home, I started implementing a nightly routine …. and better habits when I arrived home each evening. Instead of coming home and throwing my shoes wherever they landed, I would carefully line them up on the shoe tray. The mail had a home in a cute container I had already that had been sitting empty, collecting dust. Instead of coming home and just leaving a tornado of a mess behind me with all my things from the day, I took 5 to 10 minutes to put everything away as I went into the house to start my evening.

Just the small step of not creating a bunch of clutter upon arriving home made a world of difference, and this was the only baby step I took until it became habit. Once I had mastered putting everything away as I went, I added a nightly reset to my kitchen.

The kitchen is by far the most used and abused room in many homes. No matter how hard I try, the counters always seem to be covered in coffee stains, crumbs, and something sticky … and we don’t even have kids yet! To help combat the mess that seems to accumulate on the counters, I started implementing a nightly reset by decluttering and wiping down all the counters each night. This was not a deep-cleaning session where I removed all the appliance and other more permanent items off the counters, I just removed the items whose homes were not the kitchen counter and simply wiped around the items that did belong there like the coffee machine, fruit basket, toaster, recipe box, and utensil holder. Each morning I am waking up to a fresh start with a clean kitchen which also means I am coming home from work to a clean kitchen!

Since the first two baby steps went so well, I decided to kick up my nightly kitchen resets a notch by making sure that I had an empty sink each night. This was a super easy task, as we run almost all of our dishes through the dishwasher, but it made a huge impact on how clean my kitchen felt. Making sure all the dishes were in the dishwasher each night also allowed me to start wiping down the sinks each night during my counter wipe downs, making them sparkly and clean too.

My nightly kitchen reset rarely takes me more than 10 minutes each night and often times only takes me 5 minutes because I have instinctively started to implement a “clean as you go” mentality since I know I will just be doing it during my nightly reset if I don’t do it as I go. Since my kitchen reset takes me so little time I added two more steps to my nightly reset.

1. Start a load of laundry if needed.
2. Prepare for the next day.

Deciding to be proactive about laundry instead of waiting until the weekend has made world of difference in my ability to be spontaneous and more relaxed on the weekends. If I simple start a load of laundry when I get home or before bed each night, I rarely have laundry to do on the weekends, or if I do, it is only a load or two that can be started before bed or first thing when I get up in the mornings rather than taking me all day. (Yes, there are only two of us, but a mechanic produces a lot of laundry lol).

Preparing for the next day doesn’t really do a lot for decluttering, but it does help to lower my stress level in the mornings because I have already planned out my outfit and my breakfast, meaning I can spend my morning enjoying my breakfast instead of scrambling to decide what to wear and what to eat before rushing out the door. The one thing this habit does do for clutter is that it keeps me from having clothes strewn all over the closest and the bedroom because I can’t decide what to wear in the morning.

Currently, I am adding straightening the dining and living room to my nightly reset, as this only takes a minute or two each night. Once, I have mastered resetting the dining and living room, the only other item I plan to add is wiping down the bathroom sink each night. With all of these items on my nightly reset I am spending 15 to 20 minutes each night resetting the house. While this gives me enough time to feel that I have a decluttered home, it doesn’t take so much time that I dread doing it each night.

Now that I have been doing a nightly reset consistently for about a year, my husband even jumps in to help! He has learned my routine and knows that I have a small list I like to get done before bed which has lead to him doing his own sort of nightly reset and preparation for the next day that has benefited us both greatly! The power of rhythms, routines, and habits can make a huge difference, and you may not even realize how much when you start!

Happy decluttering and rhythm creation! Share you ideas to keep the clutter from sneaking into your home below!