You probably already know by now that I suffer from anxiety. One of the biggest reasons behind my simplification and de-cluttering journey is that I’m hoping my anxiety will decrease along with my possessions. Less clutter = less chaos, in my mind. And less chaos, of course, means less anxiety.
To put it simply: mess and clutter make me nervous and uncomfortable. It’s part of the reason I can rarely sit down and relax. When I’m trying to relax, I’m instead always running through my to-do list and looking around the house for what I should clean, organize, or put away next. It can be all-consuming. And the problem is, for as much as I HATE mess and clutter, our house seems to be in a constant state of mess and clutter, anyway. With two full time working parents and a toddler who runs around making messes, it’s hard to keep up. I knew there had to be something I could do to help, even if it was small.
A couple of months ago, when I decided to start the simplification process, I knew I also needed some quick wins. The whole process is going to take me anywhere from six months to a year, and while *I* know when I’ve made progress and have gotten rid of some things, it hasn’t really made an actual dent. In other words, I look around and the house still looks the same.
I wanted a way to control the chaos a bit NOW while we’re still in the throes of our big de-clutter, before our progress really becomes evident and more apparent. I decided to adopt a new nightly routine that takes me less than five minutes, but really helps me feel a bit more in control.
There are now two things I do every MOST nights now after I put Caleb to bed. They are:
Dishes
We used to let the dishes pile up in the sink all week, then I’d spend all of Saturday morning taking care of them. They’d overflow from the sink onto the counters and look atrocious all week, plus they’d start to smell. Instead of letting them pile up, I now do the dishes every night. We have a dishwasher, so this is fairly painless, fast, and easy. Each night, I rinse out the dishes / cups that have accumulated throughout the day, and load them into the dishwasher. VOILA! It literally takes me no more than two minutes, and I wake up to a clean sink and fairly clean kitchen every morning. I can walk into the kitchen and not feel that anxiety and sense of chaos I used to when I’d walk in every morning to a mess of dirty dishes.
Anytime the dishwasher gets full, I’ll run it at that point, and then the next night, I’ll unload it before beginning the whole process again. On those “unloading” nights, I usually just have to tack on an extra five minutes for that and then we’re all good. I try to unload it immediately so I can stay on track.
Living Room Toy Clean Up
Toddler moms, don’t you hate walking into the living room every morning to a mess of toys? This was my life EVERY SINGLE MORNING for the past two years. Now, before bedtime, I’ll sometimes sing the clean up song and encourage Caleb to put his toys away. He’s very slow and usually only puts one away at a time, but it’s still a good lesson for him. I’ll admit, I don’t make him clean every night, but I personally try to do some cleaning each night if I can. It usually only takes about 2-3 minutes.
I remove his toys from the coffee table and floor, put them into one of his toy boxes, and that’s it. Crap all over the coffee table gives me anxiety (seeing a trend here?), but that’s where he likes to play, and THAT’S OKAY! I just need to tidy it up at night. Now... give him five minutes in the morning and he’ll have dumped all the toys back out again, but he’s a kid and he’s supposed to do that. I at least feel good when I tidy them up a bit at night so we can start fresh every morning.
So that’s it: my new nighttime cleaning routine, and it takes me less than five minutes a day! It amazes me how much five minutes has really helped me to feel like I’m starting fresh every single morning. I think that as time goes on, I might start to add a couple of more little “chores” to this routine, but for now, it’s working really well because it’s such a short amount of time that I feel I can easily keep up with it every day, even when I’m (undoubtedly) tired. I do it because I know it’ll take me almost no time at all, and will help me feel better about going to bed and waking up with a slightly cleaner house.
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