6 simple habits for an effortlessly tidy house

Does your home ever feel like it’s one step away from total chaos—no matter how often you tidy up?
I’ve been there too. For years, I thought the only solution was a massive weekend cleaning session or another Pinterest-worthy organization overhaul. But the real secret? It’s in the little things — the small, repeatable habits that quietly keep everything running behind the scenes.

In this post, I’m sharing 6 simple habits that have made a huge difference in how my home looks, feels, and functions. They’re not time-consuming or complicated. In fact, they’re the kind of habits that slip seamlessly into your day and slowly build a home that feels effortlessly tidy — even in the middle of real life with kids, messes, and all.

If you’re craving a home that feels calm, functional, and just a little more under control, these tiny habits might be the exact thing you’ve been looking for.

simple habits to keep you house tidy without effort

1- Don’t leave the room empty-handed

A great simple habit to develop for an effortlessly tidy house is to scan the room for something that needs to be brought to the place you’re going next. I like to move things in the direction of where they should go, and when I do actually need to leave the room and go that place I will grab those items and bring them to their established homes.

This is something that once you start doing it, you very quickly don’t even have to think about it: it comes natural.

2- Don’t wait for a “decluttering session” to get rid of things

It might be good to have decluttering sprints once in a while and go all in on an area of your house. But the most sustainable way remains to develop the simple habit of putting aside on a daily basis what you don’t use.

Imagine: you go to you wardrobe to grab some clothes to wear for the day, and you discard, like everyday, a couple of sweaters that don’t fit you well or that you just don’t enjoy wearing anymore. But for some reason, they’re still in your wardrobe!

Who says that you have to dedicate a day and a time to go through all of your clothes and finally declutter those two sweaters? Why can’t you just take them out and put them in that basket of things to donate? It won’t even take you a minute. And tomorrow you won’t have to push them aside when choosing something to wear.

It might seem small, but if you do this in many areas of your home repeatedly, your house will feel more streamlined and your brain will feel less tired.

Can it really be that simple to declutter? Yes it can, like everything you just need to practice. Notice all those objects in your house that you see everyday but never use, or don’t even like.

This means that you need to have a place to actually put the things that you want to get rid of. A basket or a bag tucked away in the corner of a closet will do just fine. Once it’s full then deal with it: donate or sell what’s inside.

3- Take note of what’s not working (and improvements you could make!)

Another simple habit for an effortlessly tidy house is to not settle for systems that don’t work for you. While you’re doing even the smallest task, take the time to notice when there is some friction in the process. Write it down if it’s not something you can fix right away!

It could be that when you empty the dishwasher, you hate the fact that you have to go across the kitchen to put the glasses in the cupboard.

This is an example of something that you would need to take note of, as fixing it will take some time: you will have to rearrange your kitchen in a way that makes more sense. But at least writing it down, you started to take care of it. Then when you plan your week or your day, you can actually integrate this task and solve this tiny issue but that affects you everyday.

It could be that you don’t hear the washing machine when it finishes and you always forget to put the clothes in the dryer. So you end up in the evening with a washing machine full of stinky wet clothes.

You can solve this by putting an alarm on your phone every time you start a load. Easy, nothing required. You can start right now.

Here’s an example from my own life:

I have a cordless vacuum, which is great, but with two dogs it gets filthy very quickly. So I actually need to clean the vacuum quite often (not just empty the container). And I always avoided this task because you need a coin to open the head and pull out the brush, and some q-tips to clean all the little crevasses. And just the idea of having to take out my wallet, pull out a coin, go to the bathroom, take some q-tips… the moment was gone!

All I needed to do was put a coin in a bowl with a handful of q-tips and put that bowl close to the vacuum charging station. That’s it. The friction is gone. I now don’t pull off cleaning my vacuum.

Sometimes there are some really easy solutions that we can implement even right away. The more we train ourselves to think that way, the smoother it will be to run our home.

4- Have Reset Routines

Our house is meant to be lived in. I personally wouldn’t want a house that’s always perfectly tidy because it would mean that there’s no life in it. But to avoid getting to a point of overwhelm, the secret is to reset often.

Middle of the day resets

I like to think that our houses should be able to go back to a tidy state (not perfect!) in no more than 10 minutes. If it takes you longer, you probably have too much stuff, and / or no designated homes for all your stuff.

Evening reset

Some say that they “close down the kitchen or “close down the house”, I like to say that I put it to sleep! What does it mean?

Kitchen all clean and ready to go for a new day.

Couch and pillows straightened up, blankets put away.

Kids toys all put away: easy to find toys = kids more likely to play with them (just think of cooking in a messy kitchen!)

Waking up to a tidy house really helps feeling good in the morning, and it ensures that you don’t let it reach a point of overwhelm. You start with a blank slate: everything is possible. You don’t start already feeling behind.

Morning reset

Just like you reset your day area at night, reset your night area in the morning. Open up the blinds, the shutters, the curtains. Open the windows to get some fresh air into the house. Make the beds and put away the clothes.

If your house is ready for the day, the more likely you will feel ready too!

5- Put your clothes away immediately (or have a system so they don’t pile up)

If you can bring yourself to immediately put your clothes away at night, then great! Personally, I can’t. Tried many times, never stuck with it… So instead I have the habit of putting them away in the morning when I “wake the house up”.

The important thing here is that they do not accumulate. Because once you start having a pile of clothes, it becomes overwhelming and it tends to just get worse from there. And the less likely it becomes for you to tend to it.

So build a habit around that: either right after you change or everyday at a set moment. Put your clothes away and it will never be a problem.

6- Put things back where they belong

A simple habit for an effortlessly tidy house is to put the things you use on a daily basis back in their designated homes, always. That’s where I think a lot of us get trapped into the habit of leaving things out. Because we’re going to need them again soon! But what’s the result? A cluttered house…

The secret to being able to actually put things back EVERY TIME is to have simple organization systems in place. Systems that will make it just as easy and practical to put things away then to leave them out.

The broader the categories are, the more chances for you to actually put things back in their designated home.

If you try to sub-categorize too much, your brain will feel overwhelmed by the task.

Example: have ONE basket for all hats, gloves and scarves. When you come home you don’t have to think: you can just throw everything in ONE basket, and there’s no thinking or extra steps involved.

This way there is really no reason for you to throw those items somewhere else… Because it wouldn’t be easier or take less time to throw them on the kitchen counter than it would to throw them in that basket.