At time of writing, spring is well underway in the UK, and I am pumped!

This new lovely light is definitely illuminating dusty corners and gross windows and making me want to sort and clean my home. Now, I actually hate cleaning and outsource most of this, but I come alive when there is a tidying, sorting, decluttering or organising job to do. 

Something that comes up again and again when I speak to Fresh Nest Students, IG followers and clients is how to keep on top of daily life at home. So I decided to dedicate a whole post to this. It will cover:

• General tips around organising life, especially when you have children

• How to find a routine that works for you

• Tips and tricks for keeping on top of clutter

• What routines I recommend for people wanting to get a bit more calm in their life. 

I am also going to share what I do in my own home as well, with the huge caveat that what works for me may not almost probably will not work for you.

Tip one: Know what you want

What is the bigger vision, how do you want your home to feel, how do you want to move through your home? And ultimately, how do you want to live in your home? 

How do you want it to feel when you go downstairs in the morning and make coffee and make breakfast and how is the house feeling at that point? What about when you go to bed at night? What's the house feeling like then?

If it helps, think about three or five words that represent this. So when I run my decluttering challenges and in my Fresh Nest e-course, I get my students to come up with three to five words that represent how they want their home to feel and then to write them down and to literally pin them up somewhere they're going to see them every day because it's really motivating.

So have a little think about how you want your home to feel on a functional level and let that be really clear. Write it down, stick it up somewhere.

Tip two: Get everyone on board

This part is critical. You need to ask for the support and contribution of everyone in your household. They should all contribute if they are able to.

Tip three: Identify where you and your family spend the most time

Where does life get lived the most in your home? Is it in the kitchen? Is it in individual bedrooms? It's the kitchen for a lot of us!

Tip four: Where do mess and clutter gather the most?

This one’s fairly self explanatory! I’ll talk about clutter more later on in this blog post, so keep reading…

Tip five: Think about energy levels 

When do you most have the energy to tackle house jobs? For me, it's last thing before bed at night, but that might be the worst time for you. You might be better first thing in the morning, or a lunchtime blitz might work better for you, or doing it little and often throughout the day. But where for you, do you have the energy to actually tackle these jobs?

Tip six: Bring it all together and make a plan!

So now we know more about our home and what we want from it, we can make a plan that’s unique to our needs.

When we’re thinking about plans, your plan should have different versions of it. So for example, your plan A could be based on if you had the optimum amount of time, energy and help, and you can then tweak it when those things aren’t quite working out.

So one example for me is that my non-negotiable is putting the dishwasher on. Life feels so much more functional and easy if the dishwasher has been put on every night.

And then our plan A is also wiping down all the sides, taking the bins out, putting the toys away, sweeping the floor, wiping the hob. 

A huge important point to state at this point is to say that you will need to go over this plan time and time again.

It is extremely normal for things to get really bad and messy again before they get good again. In fact, for it to be like an up and down process. So don't panic or feel depressed. If you make this plan and it lasts for two days and then it all goes out the window, it's really, really normal. It's about adjusting it, adjusting the plan, making it work and just keep going.

A note on clutter…

Our stuff has a huge impact on home management!

So along with your general plan about keeping on top of housework and life, you need to try to incorporate some clutter stuff within that. Here are some ideas for you:

• As you move about your day and you come across things that you’ve not touched or used for a long while, deal with them there and then. Gather those up and put them in a box ready for a charity shop run at the end of the month.Incorporating decluttering into your daily life is the easiest way to get it done. 

• As well as doing this daily, you may need to do some more intense decluttering spats, which you could do, for example, one Saturday a month for the next few months. Just remember go get your family involved for the intense sessions!

• Manage the stuff coming into your home. That might mean like a spending ban or it might mean saying no to donations and offerings from friends and families. 

• Set up some self care strategies. For example, always playing music when you're tidying up in the evening or making sure you light the nice candles. Trying to center joy so rather than the overwhelm of the stuff that needs to happen, thinking about how joyful it will be when it's done, thinking about your deservedness of a space that is calm and beautiful and functional. 

And finally, here’s how I plan things in my home personally! This comes with the caveat that what works for me may not work for you. I’ve split these up into daily, weekly, and ad hoc.

Daily:

• Try and tidy up as we go. This is not always possible if you’ve got children and if life is busy, but when it is possible, we will try to tidy up after each meal.

• As previously mentioned, get our basic level of jobs done - for us, it’s making sure that the dishwasher gets put on every single night!

• I make the bed every morning without fail - it’s just something that brings me joy!

• I have a bag or box for charity donations on the go at all times. 

Weekly:

• Mine and Dave’s weekly chat! We have been having this now for over a decade about what’s happening in our life that week and the practical things that need to happen as well. This is an outcome of our January book process, which I mention in this podcast episode. It’s a really brilliant addition to our marriage and our family life, and I really recommend it if you are living in a partnered situation, if you’ve got family members, even in a housemate situation!

• Laundry. There is enough laundry in my family to easily put a wash on every day or every other day. But even with our fairly minimal wardrobes, we have enough clothes to last the week without having to put loads of washes on. I do all the laundry over the weekend and by Monday night, it’s all dried. And then Dave and I have a laundry folding date night!

• Meal plan. We don’t always manage this, but when we do, it makes life just infinitely easier. Connected to this too, I do a food delivery rather than physically going to the shops. I can manage the budget much better this way, and it’s just easier because it saves so much time.

Ad hoc:

• Doing a turbo unpack when we get back from holiday. I absolutely hate the chaos of suitcases and bags and piles of clothes everywhere, find it very, very stressful and actually so do my children. So we now do a turbo unpack. When we get in, things are straight into the dirty laundry, straight away back into wardrobes and the suitcases and bags are put away straight away.

• Before going on a holiday, I make sure the house is clean and tidy, including putting fresh bedding on as well - it makes it feel like a holiday coming home as well!

• When getting back from a holiday or at the end of the school holidays, giving myself some time to adjust to non holiday life. I try to give myself at least a day, sometimes more, to just have that time of being by myself, getting on top of the house, figuring out my calendar and giving myself a bit of grace.

I hope all these tips have been helpful for you! 

You will all have your own habits and routines in your homes, but I hope that maybe some of what this episode can do is give you some fresh ideas or a new take or something that you might want to add in to make things feel a bit smoother. 

Because living beautifully, it does come down to these daily habits, doesn't it? It's not just the kind of instagram ready photo shoots. It's about how we are living in our homes every day, how they are supporting our lives, and how our homes feel to be in.