Tips to help you develop good housecleaning habits

Part of the philosophy behind the right attitude to cleaning is to clean things immediately or at least to a regular maintenance schedule, so that you almost never have to do any remedial cleaning. Here are some easy ways to achieve this.

• If you hate cleaning and organising, why not try to change your attitude? Look for the beauty and value in those activities.
• Yogis have long taught the value of doing simple chores such as cleaning. They describe the benefits of 'karma yoga', or being in a meditative state of awareness as you clean or garden as being calming, focusing and centring.
• The idea is to let go of your mental clutter — the bad family dynamics, the bills that need paying, your dispute with your boss — and focus on the job at hand.
• Be in the moment.
• Even without the yoga philosophy, cleaning can help you to be more serene. If you're under a lot of stress, doing something mundane and methodical, such as cleaning, can often be very therapeutic and calming. It's a back-to-basics kind of feeling.

• This may be the single most important thing for achieving the spick-and-span home you have dreamed about. It means making your bed every morning (and teaching your kids to do it, too).
• It's always wiping your feet at the door; putting dishes directly into the dishwasher; having a mail-sorting routine that puts bills, catalogues, coupons and correspondence immediately into their right place.
• With well-established routines like this, you can keep the time spent house cleaning to a minimum.

• Neat means countertops are clear, coats are hung up, clutter is under control.
• Clean means the floors aren't muddy, the corners aren't cobwebby, the doors aren't smudgy.
• While the two often go hand in hand, it is possible to have a messy home that's clean, or a neat home that's dirty.
• Neatening and cleaning need not happen together. But it's certainly easier and faster to clean a room that is neat.

• What materials are your carpets, furniture, appliances, curtains and clothes made of?
• The more you know about materials, the better you'll be able to clean them.
• When you make purchasing decisions, take into consideration how the items should be cleaned.

• Instead, look for the order and cleanliness that can emerge from them. Visualising the result in advance is one powerful tool for the right attitude to cleaning.
• Before-and-after pictures are very motivating and energising. But when you're still in the 'before' stage, you have no 'after' picture to inspire you. By visualising, you can make one.
• Pick a spot in the house that bothers you because it's dirty or disorganised.
• Conjure up an image of order or cleanliness. You might even draw a picture, or write a description.
• Take visualisation a step further and create a small clutter-free area, just to see how it feels.
• Pick a desk or table that has bothered you and put all the stuff on it into a box. For the moment, don't worry about sorting it.
• After the table or desk is clear, dust it, wash it if it needs it and just savour the feeling: clean and orderly!