You know the phrase ‘mother knows best’? Well when it comes to cleaning and decluttering, we think ‘grandmother knows best’, is far more apt. After chatting away with my colleagues here at GH about new tips and tricks for decluttering we realised, while we didn't have many news ones, we had plenty of old ones - really old ones.
We all naturally began sharing the tips and tricks our grandmothers had once passed onto us. Tips that each of us still use today to help keep our homes spick and span, worthy of a visit from Granny. What was to one person second nature, and simply something her mother and her mothers mother before her had always done - had never occurred to another, and vice versa.
All the tricks were golden so I thought I would do the duty of a good granddaughter and share the good news. This way we can all have a home as clean, organised and cosy as grandma’s. Here’s vintage decluttering tricks that stand the test of time, and will have your home organised in minutes
1. Never leave a room empty-handed
My Granny had the same rule for cleaning up as she did for heading to a dinner party, never go empty handed. A mug on the coffee table, a cardigan over the dining chair, a book that’s somehow migrated to the kitchen. One stray thing doesn’t look like much, but clutter has a way of inviting its friends.
The rule is simple: whenever you leave a room, take something with you that belongs elsewhere. Don’t turn it into an elaborate house tour, either. If you’re already heading upstairs, take the clothes that need putting away; if you’re going to the kitchen, bring the mug. A basket on the stairs can catch anything that needs to go up, ready to be put away in one trip.
2. The "point of first use" principle
The “point of first use” principle began popping up in kitchen and home guides in the 1960s, and it continues to make total sense today. If the tea bags live on one side of the kitchen and the mugs on the other, making a cup of tea can leave a small trail of clutter behind it. The same goes for hairbrushes that never make it back to the bedroom or cleaning products that are always left beside the bathroom sink.
Give everyday things a home near the spot where you reach for them. Keep mugs near the kettle, tea towels close to the sink and the things you use to get ready together in one drawer or basket. It’s a small change, but when putting something away is just as easy as taking it out, less gets left behind.
3. The go-bag
There’s often a gap between deciding you don’t want something and actually getting it out of the house. That’s how perfectly good clothes end up collecting dust when they could be enjoyed by someone else.
It’s a very Grandma sort of solution: useful things shouldn’t go to waste. Keep a charity bag somewhere handy and add to it whenever you come across something you no longer wear or need. Once it’s full, put it by the door or in the car and take it with you on your next trip. The important bit is giving the bag an exit plan, so your good intentions don’t become one more pile to step around.
4. The evening reset
The end of the day is when little jobs start making persuasive arguments for tomorrow. The pan can soak overnight; the clothes can stay on the chair; the post can wait until the weekend. Then, somehow, tomorrow’s little jobs have made a big mess.
Grandmothers know not to rest till the job is done, and neither should you (within reason, of course). Try doing a quick reset before you settle in for the evening. Put away what’s on the kitchen worktop, hang up the laundry and take cups back to the kitchen. It doesn’t need to become a full clean: think of it as closing the house down for the night, so you’re not greeted by yesterday’s leftovers in the morning.
5. Start small, and consistent
This one follows a very vintage style of decluttering room-by-room but minimises for our hectic contemporary schedules. A whole room can feel like a daunting job; one drawer is much less dramatic. Choose a small spot you can finish in a few minutes, whether it’s the side table, the bathroom shelf or the kitchen drawer that’s become a home for batteries, takeaway menus and mysterious keys to nowhere.
Take out anything that belongs somewhere else, put back what you actually use and let go of anything that’s broken or no longer needed. Then stop. The aim isn’t to turn a five-minute tidy into an afternoon-long excavation; it’s to make steady progress without having to wait for a free weekend.
6. Give post its own day
Post doesn’t need to be dealt with the second it lands on the mat, but it does need a plan. Otherwise, that one envelope on the hall table soon begins to resemble the newest branch of The Royal Mail.
Old-fashioned housekeeping schedules often gave regular jobs their own day of the week. Try the same approach with paperwork: choose one day for your post. Sort through and keep incoming letters together in a tray until then. When your paperwork day comes around, split everything into three piles: act on, file and recycle. It turns a drifting pile into a short, predictable job, and means you’re less likely to miss a bill or spend Sunday hunting for the letter you were sure you’d put somewhere safe.