I’ve always struggled to keep my place clean and orderly.

It was never a priority to me. I was busy doing a lot of other things and I didn’t want to spend my free time organizing my place or cleaning it up. (I kept it acceptably clean…by a guy’s standards).

I know a lot of people like that too. As long as their place is not too dirty and their clothes are clean, they won’t invest the extra time in polishing their space.

But, now that I am older and wiser, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of having a clean and orderly place and the benefits of choosing such a lifestyle. Having an orderly place allows you to enjoy a de-cluttered living and working space, you save time by placing everything where it belongs, and your clean and orderly exterior will transfer that positive feeling to your interior. In other words, you will feel better.

Let’s explore some tips to help you get started on that path.

1. Fold Your Clothes

That’s how it all starts.

You walk into your bedroom or closet and there is a pile of clothes on the floor. Some of it clean and washed and some of it is dirty. But because it’s all in a pile, you have to pick up each item and decide whether it should go into the laundry basket or back on the shelf.

For most people, the sight of a pile of clothes on the floor time and again is enough for them to want to change. You’re just so sick and tired of seeing your clothes on the bedroom floor, in the living room, and on the bathroom floor. You’re tired of seeing your messy living room…and you want this to change for good.

An appropriate start, in my opinion, is with your clothes. Everything else can wait.

Here’s how to start:

1. Pick up your dirty clothes and throw it in the laundry basket.
2. Sort out your clean clothes between tops and bottoms, shirt and undershirts and begin to fold them.
3. Put your favorite clothes on the top shelves and least favorite on the bottom shelves.

And that’s all you need to see a noticeable difference in your bedroom and closet.

But you might ask, how can I get myself to want to fold my clothes as soon as they’re washed and dried?

Let me tell you this: you have to get in the habit of doing it. See this post to help you form new habits.

From experience, however, don’t leave it till late at night. Do it first thing in the morning after your cup of coffee or do it in the early evening or dedicate every Saturday or Sunday to clean up and organized your closet.

You have to find the groove that works best for you. For most people, getting things done is done best in the morning.

2. Your Living Room

The living room is the place where we spend most of our time. And because of that, it might be the messiest, dirties, most un-orderly room in your place.

People watch T.V in their living room. They eat in their living room. They take a nap and sometimes spend the entire night in that space. They hang out with their friends there and even do their work.

There’s a lot to tackle in that space.

The best tip I can give you for this space is this: don’t plan to tackle the whole thing at once.

Start with the most obvious and slowly tackle the less obvious. So tackle the stains on your living room table. Then ask yourself:

1. Do all the things on this table belong in the living room? Or are they there because you forgot to place them where they should belong? Decide if certain items need a new “home”. Some items must go in the kitchen, other items might need to be put in the storage room, etc.

If you haven’t cleaned up your living room in a while, then there are a lot of things in there than don’t need to be there. In fact, there might be quite a bit of things that you haven’t used in months and even years.

Identify these things and take them and put them in the storage. If the items in your living room have a special meaning to you, then see this article on how to declutter and simplify your life slowly.

Most of the time, however, putting these things in the storage will not only clear up your living room and allow more light to get into it, but you also have less “obstacles” in the way and more free space.

Do you still want a bigger house? Think again.

3. Save Time

You save a lot of time when you know exactly where everything belongs.

We all had that experience where we spent a good half hour just looking for a single item only to find it tucked away underneath the couch or somewhere random like the bathroom.

It’s worse if you have visitors over and you can’t seem to find your house keys because, as usual, you put them wherever you felt like.

Create a “home” for each item. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just have to be a space that is specifically designed for these things.

IKEA has a lot of small baskets, trays, pockets, and so on and so forth that you can use for this purpose… and save yourself a lot of time.

4. The Effect on Your Psychology

Slowly habituating yourself to become organized and following through on these commitments will transform your physical space and your psychology.

There is a sense of mental comfort in seeing your space clean and organized. You feel less anxious, less worried, less grumpy, and you begin to feel more joyful.

After spending my Saturdays cleaning up and organizing my space, I wake up Sunday morning to a wonderfully clean kitchen. I make my coffee there early in the morning, take it to the living room and pull out my laptop. Looking at the clean space around me as I sip on my coffee and brainstorming ideas for my posts is one of the best part of my day.