We all make mistakes – it’s just human nature! However, a mistake isn’t valuable unless you learn from it, and we’re here to help you learn from your cluttering habits! Minor gaffes like forgetting to change your car’s oil or common laundry mistakes can add up to a major problem. The same goes for clutter! Some organizing mistakes can be unavoidable in the moment, but acknowledging that these lapses are creating a bigger mess is the first step to finding a simple solution.
Watch for these little clutter mistakes in your life and prepare to be wowed by what a few shifts can do to stop clutter build-up!

Not Folding Clothes

The accumulation of clothes – clean or dirty (or in between – hello bedroom chair!) – outside closets and dressers is a leading cause of bedroom clutter. Sometimes, putting clothes in their correct place or washing them immediately isn’t always possible, but not folding these in-the-open clothes makes the problem look much worse than it is. A pile of clothes on the floor sends a chaotic message, whereas a neatly folded stack in a corner or on a chair says you’re a tidy person… even if you’re actually not. The next step, of course, is to put clothes where they belong right away.

Letting Clean Dishes Sit in the Drying Rack

Anyone without a dishwasher or with a large assortment of hand-wash only dinnerware knows that drying dishes is a pain. Enter the drying mat or rack: a clean place for dishes to air dry, no dishcloths required! Of course, if those clean dishes don’t get put away once they’re dry, there will soon be a clutter problem. Drying every dish may be a tall order, but putting away dry dishes the next morning or before your next meal is an easy, quick fix. Tidy up the rest of your kitchen by keeping your sponge squeezed out of excess water on the side of the sink, and tuck away your favourite Nellie’s One Soap to an easy-reach spot.

Buying Extra Supplies

Planning ahead is usually a clutter-buster, but when it comes to surplus toiletries, cleaning supplies, and more, planning to far ahead can encourage clutter! Having an extra roll of paper towels on hand in case of a big-time spill is smart… having 18 extra rolls is a little excessive and can strain storage space!
Avoid buying more toothpaste, toilet paper, and other household essentials until just a few days before they’re actually needed. If buying in bulk is a necessity, set aside a specified storage spot for overflow.

Allowing Mail to Pile Up

This one goes for magazines, newspapers, and other recyclable paper-based reading materials. Setting aside bills, greeting cards, and other important mail items for the weekend or a slow night is to be expected. However, letting these to-be-dealt-with items pile up for weeks or even months at a time with the promise to read them eventually encourages a mess. Set aside time each week to flip through the mail and cut down on subscriptions that aren’t being read.

Leaving the Shoes Out

Taking off shoes at the door is smart. Leaving a pair at the door for quick trips to the corner store or walk the pup is even smarter. But letting the entirety of your shoe collection pile up in the entryway, garage, mudroom, or kitchen is a habit to kick! Make a household rule that only one or two pairs per person is allowed in the space, and encourage everyone (including yourself!) to take extra pairs to their permanent spaces, even if that’s at the bottom of the closet, at the end of every day.

After the craziness of the holidays, it’s nice to spend some time puttering around the house and getting things back in order. Although the two biggest holidays of the year are still just around the corner, we’ve written up this list of the 7 things to clean after the holidays so you can get a head start!

Fridge & Freezer

It’s amazing how much food we can actually pack into the fridge over the holidays! It’s important to try to keep your fridge fairly organized, but over the holidays sometimes you just need to shove something in wherever it’ll fit. Now, you can take the time to go through everything and make sure that nothing is tucked away in the back that you’re missing. While you’re at it, take everything out and give the fridge a good clean. The One Soap is perfect for soaking and scrubbing drawers and storage containers, while the All Purpose Cleaner is ideal for spraying and wiping down with a cloth or paper towel. Toss out any old or expired food and draw up a meal plan to use up any leftover food.

Carpets

There are always at least a handful of carpet stains that magically appear after the holidays! You obviously want to treat any stains as soon as possible, but sometimes you simply don’t notice them or don’t have time. You can create a strong, toxin-free carpet cleaner using the Oxygen Brightener! Here's how:
Create solution using 1 tablespoon per 16 oz (500 ml) of water. Soak up excess liquid before applying solution to stain. Use only enough to cover stain area, wait 1-5 minutes, soak up with white towel. Repeat if necessary. Ringer thoroughly with water and blot dry. Vacuum once dry.
Have a stubborn stain? Take the WOW Mop to it. The oscillating pads lift up stains with ease.

Upholstery

Like the carpets, upholstery can take a beating during the holidays from all the use and abuse. The earlier you treat the stains the better – don’t leave these ones too long! Depending on the material, you can use the WOW Stick, the Oxygen Brightener, or – if nothing will work – take them to your local dry-cleaners.

Vacuum & Mop

The vacuum is one of those hard-working appliances that we often forget to clean. Especially after sucking up all those pine needles! Be sure to give your vacuum some TLC before taking it for a spin around the house. When it comes to hardwood, laminate, or tile, use the WOW Mop for a sparkling clean! Lightweight and easy to use, it’s perfect for a quick deep clean of your floors – plus it can be fun for your little ones to use if you want to get them in on the cleaning action!

Bathrooms

With all the friends and family coming and going, the bathrooms are in desperate need of some love. Use our handy bathroom cleaning guide to get the job done – bonus marks if you give the toilet a deep clean too!

The toilet is one of the most-used seats in your home and – no surprise, here – one of the ickiest! But rest assured it doesn’t take tons of time of loads of elbow grease to get that porcelain throne sparkling clean. Here’s your no-fail, no-germ-left-behind guide to get the job done!

Get Your Supplies

This is not a job where you want to stop mid-task to get some extra paper towel. Instead, have all your tools within arm’s reach.
Nellie's All-Purpose Spray
Paper towels
A sturdy pair of cleaning gloves
Nellie’s Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Tiff-bristle toilet brush

Make the Outside Sparkle

When cleaning the commode, most people tend to focus on the bowl’s interior, but every inch of the toilet deserves attention. Use the All Purpose Cleaner and liberally spray the entire exterior, including hard-to-reach areas like the base and underside of the seat. Also be sure to spritz the walls behind and beside the toilet.
Major key – let the cleaner sit for at least five minutes. Give it time to do its thing, and then wipe away While you wait, move on to cleaning the interior.

Clean the Inside

With the Nellie’s Toilet Cleaner, apply the cleaner around the interior of the bowl, up against the rim. Allow it to set for a few minutes, and then scrub with a toilet brush and flush to rinse. And just like that, your toilet is fresh and clean, and all without harsh chemicals, phosphates, dyes, perfumes, and SLS and SLES.

Even on the longest, worst days, every one of us can take five minutes to make a room look a bit better (and hopefully, as a result, feel much better too). Whether you’ve got guests coming over and forgot to clean, or you just want a nicer looking space, you can make a major impact in just five minutes! Here are five things you can do quickly to make a big change.

Let in more light during the day or dim the lights at night

Is it daytime? Throw open every curtain, roll up every blind and try to get as much natural light into your home as physically possible. Though that might seem to shed more light on a less-than-clean home, when you've got great natural light flooding in through windows, everything just seems nicer. Have a few more minutes? Give your windows a quick swipe to let even more light in. Is it nighttime? Do the opposite. Turn off overhead lights and focus a room into dimly lit pools of warm glow from lamps and candles.

Break decluttering rules

We often argue against things like junk drawers and overflowing baskets, but when you've only got five minutes, ignore all those rules and start tossing clutter into hidden spots as quickly as you can. But only if you promise yourself to declutter those areas when you've got more than five minutes to spare.

Straighten things

I don't know what I do in my home that makes every chair, book and table askew all the time, but just the simple act of aligning things back to where they belong can bring order and pleasantness to a room. So readjust any ottomans that aren't where they go. Realign any tables (especially that coffee table) that have been nudged out of a place. Adjust a stack of books or magazines. Even straighten any crooked art pieces. It's not about trying to always live in a state of perpetual perfection — these little straightening movements are just easy things to do to create a pleasant effect on the overall feel and look of the room.

Pick up or dust visible dirty spots

It might be the coffee table, it might be that rug made of a material that is like a dust bunny magnet — use whatever tools you have at hand (even if it's just your hands) to quickly remove the largest and most visible spots of dirty. Stray pieces of paper or trash that have fallen on the floor. A quick swipe of a table top that catches the light with the All-Purpose Cleaner, or a quick swish on the dusty floor with the WOW Mop. Yes, a full cleaning would of course make the entire room look great, but the 5-minute refresh is about keeping up the look of a clean home in between regular cleanings, and doing it quickly so you can get back to enjoying your beautiful home.

Spritz a good smell

Wait a minute, this post title says "look" nicer. Well surprise! Our noses are tied to our eyes in such a way that a room that smells nice and fresh will magically look a bit cleaner and fresher to us. It's a powerful illusion, and the Wrinkle-B-Gone works as a perfect refresher for couches, pillows, and linens! Just spritz, smooth, and inhale a deliciously fresh lemongrass scent.

Preparing for big holiday dinners is by no means a one-day affair. If you're hosting, you've been getting your house and kitchen ready, and spent days making lists, shopping, and cooking. Once the feasting is over, the last thing you want to do is spend hours cleaning up—and you shouldn't have to! Here's our fail-proof, get-it-done method for getting your kitchen back in shape so you can relax.

First, Your New Motto:

Four Words: Clean as You Go

This should be a standard working-in-the-kitchen habit, but when you're making large portions of multiple dishes, the principle will save you from epic messes and keep your kitchen running smoothly even as you're still cooking.
Clean up small messes as you go. Put a paper towel under the teaspoon you're using to measure vanilla, and wipe spills from counters right away with the rag you have at arms-length. Also clean cooking utensils as you're done with them. We recommend filling one side of the sink with hot water and the One Soap and toss used tools in there until you’re done cooking.
If you've split your preparations into a few days' time, cleaning as you go is especially manageable. The goal is a clean kitchen at the end of each preparatory task.

Get a Helper, if You Need to

Solicit the help of a friend or family member who can wash dishes while you're cooking. This will save you time and energy, and you'll be giving someone who wants to help the opportunity to be useful and keep you company while you're working
When it comes time to clean after your meal, let everyone who wants to lend a helping hand. But don't be afraid to communicate how you want things done: If your china doesn't go in the dishwasher, let your helpers know how to handle it or give them another task.

The After-Thanksgiving Plan

Clear the table

First things first: Clear the table thoroughly. This is an easy way to have others pitch in. Try to have a close family member or someone familiar with your household involved so they can immediately put away things like salt and pepper shakers, etc. in the right places. Have helpers scrape any uneaten food from the plates into the compost and toss any paper napkins as well. Make sure the table is all the way cleared, to the point that it can be wiped. Now you've got one all-clean space and you can turn your attention to the kitchen itself.

Put away leftovers

Besides the food safety reasons for not leaving food out for too long, getting the leftovers put away first thing allows you to move on to the next step of sorting the types of dishes you will need to wash.

Soak pots and pans

Inevitably, there will be some cooking items that you weren't able to "clean as you went." Soak difficult-to-clean pots, pans, and any empty serving dishes that are aren't being used to store leftovers with hot water and the One Soap. Depending on your kitchen's layout, consider setting these soaking dishes on the stove top while you address everything else.

Hand wash and load the dishwasher

While heavily soiled dishes are soaking, tackle the rest of the pile. You're going to batch process so everything goes as quickly as possible. Again, this is a great job for helpers. Wash items that require handwashing, if there are any. Finally, you'll be left with dishes that, since they're already clear of food bits, simply need to be loaded into the dishwasher. Load them, and start the wash cycle with the Dishwasher Powder!

Wash the big stuff

Only one big washing task is left in your nearly-clean kitchen. While you might be tempted to stop here, remember that cleanliness begets cleanliness and it'll be easier to encourage yourself and others to maintain a clean kitchen if it's clean in the first place. However, definitely don't be afraid to delegate! Since all the other dishes and food are put away, you'll have plenty of room to scrub the roasting pan, etc. and when you're done with these, you are just about couch ready.

Give the kitchen a quick clean

Ride the momentum of whipping a kitchen into shape and give your counters, the outside of your fridge, and your sink a quick clean. Your floors could also probably use a cursory clean-up. Don't deep clean by any means, but getting your kitchen in tip-top working order will prevent a messy kitchen from overshadowing your post-meal glow. The All-Purpose Cleaner will take care of any mess, leaving you with a sparkling kitchen once again!