LisaGay's Profile

About the "stashing in the oven" thing ... here's an alternative.

Laundry baskets + Bathtub = Vanished clutter

I also think that if people want to see ME they can come anytime, and if they want to see my HOUSE they need to make an appointment.

But there are times when the clutter just has to GO AWAY, so I keep handy extra laundry baskets. I go around the house and toss in whatever doesn't belong there. Then into the bathtub and close the curtain. (If guests are going to open my shower curtain, then they don't need to be my friends anymore!)

On a good day, I'll skip the bathtub and actually put the stuff away. But the bathtub works when you don't have time (or inclination) to do that.

You can do this with dishes, too!

I've done the bathtub trick on housecleaning days, just so I can get rid of the clutter FIRST and then actually CLEAN the room and THEN go put everything away. I tend to get distracted when I'm putting stuff away, going from room to room, and never get to the actual cleaning part. So this keeps me on track.

And, unlike forgetting the dishes are in the oven, you will use the shower pretty soon and HAVE to put everything away.

Fly Lady has a great podcast of an emergency cleaning session. She'll walk you through a 45 minute "my mother-in-law will be here in an hour" cleaning. I highly recommend it. And I've been doing "swish & swipe" for decades, before someone came along and gave it a name. If you "swish & swipe" as a general rule throughout your entire home all the time, you won't need to give up hours of your life to "cleaning" your home.

We spend more time and energy worrying about the state of our home instead of just picking up as we go along (says the lady who keeps empty laundry baskets for stashing stuff :-)