A Tip to Help With Chaotic Cleaning

Welcome back friends and family. Today we are gonna combine cleaning with a little crafting. 

How many of us, while cleaning house, find things that belong in the kids rooms or the living room or the bathroom or even your room?  Well, in this post I'm going to show you how I've taken steps to combat this because this drives me crazy when I already clean like I have ADHD. Now I'm not saying anything negative about ADHD because both my kids have been diagnosed with ADHD so I understand how this can affect someone and their lives. I'm simply saying that when I clean I cannot stay focused on a task because I'm constantly picking things up and going to another room where I see something else that needs to be done and I start working on that, etc. I then forget to go back and finish what I've already started. I still struggle with this every time I clean but this little tip/trick has helped a lot. I also call this "Chaotic Cleaning".

I have found these great little bins at the Dollar Tree. I absolutely loved them when I seen them the first time but they didn't have 4 so I have a different one for the 4th family member (a.k.a. myself).  They are a great size.  They are roughly 9 inches wide by 7 inches high.  They do narrow at the bottom but are a nice square shape with comfortable handles at the top.

I used my Cricut but if you don't have a Cricut or another die cutting machine you can still make these look super cute and decorate them to match you décor or your personality by using precut stickers that you can purchase literally anywhere including Dollar Tree and Dollar General. I used the Star Wars font that I purchased from a website because we are huge Star Wars fans in this house and felt like it would be a fun way to put our names on our bins.  I also added the "Pick up your junk" phrase to them to remind the family to pick up after themselves.

I put each person's name on their bin in fun fonts and designs. Now as I am or anyone else is cleaning up, instead of going to every person's room and tossing items they've picked up into said room, they now just drop it in that person's bin.  It is then that person's responsibility to get their bin and put their stuff away every day. They then put their bin back on the table where we keep them.

Here is what they looked like after adding the words...........

This is what mine looks like, it's a different bin.............

When we eat dinner at the table (and we try to eat at the table a few times a week), we simply take the bins, stack them inside one another and put them in the floor in the corner. After we eat dinner and we've cleaned the table, we place the bins back on the table. 

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I understand this may not work for everyone but it helps us. I also realize not everyone has a place to put bins out like this on a daily basis. Here is a tip to help with your chaotic cleaning, if you fall in that category, before you start grab laundry baskets or some other type of container and set them up and fill those then once you are done cleaning take them to their proper rooms and put the items in the rooms. Then you can use the baskets or containers for what they were meant for. You can also just have a designated spot on the couch or table to put stuff you find randomly throughout your house, it doesn't have to be in any containers. This will hopefully reduce the amount of random stuff you find because the people in your house will be more conscious of where they are leaving things. 

I will also go through the house and pick up all the dirty dishes in one bin then take them to the kitchen (I have kids remember), or dirty socks, or shoes, or whatever and when I'm done picking up put those where they belong. Sometimes they just get put in their bins and other times they will be put in their proper place. In case you haven't realized it, I love bins!!  I have them all over my house.  

I hope this helps you in keeping your brain from freaking out when it comes to cleaning. I know it helps mine. Let me know what helps you when cleaning a chaotic household. What steps have you taken to make things easier?  What hasn't worked for you? Do you think this will help you or do you think this will make things more chaotic?  I'd love to hear from you, good or bad.