A graphic of two women in a room full of boxes, one of them holding a hoover, the other wearing an apron
Episode 125 – Tidying or cleaning – what comes first?

In this episode, we are discussing whether you should tidy or clean first when beginning a project. For us, we strongly believe you need to tidy before you clean, and we will explain all of the reasons why.
Episode 371 – 10 Areas of Your Home Where the 80/20 Principle of Decluttering is Holding You Back
Episode 370 – Grief and Clutter with Emma Gray
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter of podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your hosts professional organisers, Ingrid Johnson, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:31  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 125 of the Declutter Hub Podcast.

Lesley  0:36  
I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:38  
If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. Now, in today's episode, Lesley and I are talking about tidying and cleaning. What comes first? Now, Lesley, it's interesting it is. Again, this is one of these things. You think people ask us about Kido podcasts. And we're like, ah, let's have an MRI. When we start to write things down, we got lots of things to say this is again, one of these topics, lots to tell about tidying and cleaning. And where does it all fit in with decluttering? And organising? And what makes sense to do first? Where do we start?

Lesley  1:21  
Now the interesting thing is Ingrid, when we first started doing our podcasts, which was all the way back in October 2018, can you actually believe that? No, I know, it's our 2021. That was 2018 1920 20 more years spanning four years, we've done this. Anyway, we are both it wasn't our first podcast, our first podcast was a kind of Hello, one for menu, wasn't it. But number two was the difference between decluttering organising and tidy in, it is so important to get that right. And so many people model all three of those together, as well as it being our number two or number one, actually, podcast. It's what we also cover that at length, in what we call our before you start costing our membership. So before anybody gets stuck into the courtroom, when you get into our membership, it's like being in a kid in a sweet shop, isn't it Ingrid? There's so many lovely things that we're like, Nope, can't do that got to do before you start cost before you do anything. So you learn the fundamentals. And one of those fundamentals is working out what's decluttering? What's organising, and what is tidying? And then conversely, what is cleaning, which we're gonna talk about today? So there's four things involved in getting your house, right. And where are the ballot? Where are the boundaries of those? And that's what we're here to talk about today.

Ingrid  2:39  
But yeah, that's very true, Lesley. And the thing is, we get a lot of questions as well, like, huh, I have never realised that tidying is actually something different than decluttering and organising because people just kind of throw them all in one big bowl together and kind of mix them up. But they're actually different things that you need to do at different times. So let's just start at the beginning. And let's just do a little recap of decluttering organising and tidying because once we've got that clear, then we can kind of go okay, where does cleaning slot in. So tidying is all these, I'm going to put this away, I'm going to tidy up my cushions, fluff up my cushion is going to put the glasses back in the kitchen to go into the hand wash in the dishwasher. That is tidying right picking up towels from the floor, putting a pair of trousers in the wash that's on the floor somewhere, just tidying up after your shelf.

Lesley  3:39  
Yes, I don't think there's a classic kind of decluttering quote isn't England called, which is a place for everything and everything in its place. Like if you want to think about that, quote, a place for everything is the Organising bit. And everything in its place is the tidy in bit, isn't it? Does that make sense to you? And yeah, yeah, put it like that. And we know what we're talking about in terms of that kind of thing. But it's really hard sometimes to kind of work that out if you're genuinely a messy person, and you've not quite got it nailed down and you'd like oh, that's when it gets confusing, isn't it? Because you're not quite sure which bits of it you should be doing and why and when and which bit comes first and so on. Yeah.

Ingrid  4:21  
And the thing is, when you look at that, quote, a place for everything, everything is placed. Nobody talks about decluttering. But if you actually want to put something away somewhere, you need to have place to put it actually in and that's why you need to declutter those cupboards, those wardrobes, those drawers, those Understairs cupboards, so the stuff that is out can be put away somewhere.

Lesley  4:46  
So the interesting thing is Ingrid that there's actually a pre bit of that is there's there's actually a thing that comes before place for everything. Everything is place it which is that you need to find a space that's big enough, so you have to declutter it first and Make sure that the volumes of stuff that you've got not too big to put them away. So tricky. That's tricky. I can understand why people get confused by it.

Ingrid  5:08  
Yeah. And the thing is, then you got cleaning in the mix. But of course, of course you clean daily, probably weekly, monthly, yearly. But then when you're decluttering, and organising your cleaning to and it's a bit like, when do you clean actually to how does this work with cleaning. So for example, if I declutter a cupboard in my house, or a drawer in my house, I take everything out. And I give that drawer a clean a Hoover it, and then I wipe it with a damp cloth. And then I put stuff back in. So I use that moment, I'm not going to do a massive spring clean at that moment. But I'm thinking to myself, if that is empty, that's the perfect opportunity just to give it a wipe. So you don't have to see all the cleaning is just ginormous tasks that you do once or twice a year, you can just when you empty your kitchen companies think I'm gonna look at my herbs today. Take out your herbs, get that shelf, a wipe, that is cleaning to the decluttering is you're going through your herbs and you're deciding what am I keeping? And what is out of date on what do I never eat and what can go the Organising is, how is the structure going to be when I put the herbs back? And I'm good? Am I going to put them back in loose? Am I going to get a little book through somewhere I don't care and then to shoebox, how am I going to organise it back in and then the project's done. And then you can go let me now also give the outset of this kitchen cupboard to clean because I've done this kitchen cupboard now. So some things you kind of you they're separate tasks, but they're all kind of interconnected with each other. And just because you're doing one thing decluttering doesn't mean you can do a little bit of cleaning, but just giving that shelf a wipe at the same time.

Lesley  7:04  
So let me just throw another spanner in the works to complicate things even further. Ingrid was supposed to be unravelling it, but I feel like I'm throwing all these things in. But I think it's useful to go through it for people so that people understand. And so, at the declutter hub, we talk a lot about resets Don't worry, we love a reset a daily reset a weekly reset, a seasonal reset and we talked about that all the time. And so when we're doing let's set let's just say daily reset then is that then decluttering organising, tidying or cleaning. For

Ingrid  7:37  
me a daily reset is a combination of tidying and cleaning. So a daily reset for me is an after breakfast, I make sure that all the breakfast items are put away in my kitchen and that I wipe my table. So that is tidying, tidying the items from breakfast away, but then wiping the table to make sure that when I do my next meal, which is lunch, I don't have to sit on a table full of crumbs and breakfast leftovers and smell stains or whatever. So I give a quick wipe of that table in the evening in my daily reset and I do want in the evening as well. After dinner, everything gets put in the dishwasher. And then the dishwasher gets turned on and then I wipe my kitchen sides with my microfiber cloth. So I tidy away all the dirty plates. I wipe the sides and then once or twice a week I tell the kids to Hoover the floor and so that's kind of part of my weekly reset. We don't do that daily because when you Scott like small kids you do like that three times a day you're like hoovering. And, but when you've got like us we're all like older now we don't need to Hoover on a daily basis. Maybe when you've got pets, you probably have to over on a daily basis. So there's a combination of tidying and cleaning. But when I am doing my daily reset, I'm not decluttering because a daily reset should maybe take 1015 minutes. So I really do only my tidying and cleaning in a daily reset.

Lesley  9:16  
But now I'm going to throw another spanner in the works in grid because I'm going to go back to our socks sorting out socks podcast that we did a couple of weeks ago and part of my daily reset then is doing the laundry folding iron and getting out if I then saw a sock with a hole in it and I would take that and put it in my doughnut. Interesting has see I'm keeping you on your toes. Yeah,

Ingrid  9:42  
you make a good point there because I do I do my laundry in a weekly kind of routine. So I do kind of do laundry every day but I do the folding one time a week I just sit down a folded only one go and I do indeed fish out then socks holes are things that have got, like rags on them or whatever, or shirts with funny colours or you know what I mean? So, yeah, good points, you know, there is overlap, there is definitely overlap.

Lesley  10:12  
And so we can completely understand why people find that confusing. But one of the things that we want to make really clear, I guess, is that, in general, you need to tidy before you can clean effectively. Yeah, it's too hard, isn't it to clean when you've got loads of stuff hanging around? When we get a new client one to one, and we do a consultation, quite often they'll say, I want to get a cleaner into deep clean. When do I do that? Do I do that before you come or after. And the answer to that is categorically after. So you're going to do a deep clean a big clean after you've done a big decluttering project. As Ingrid very rightly says, of course, we are cleaning throughout the project, because there's no point in us putting things back into drawers or onto shells without giving it a quick wipe first, that just doesn't make any sense. And so we do it, we do the clean, enduring. But in general, the kind of big, deep clean, you know, what the wall is doing the windows, all those kinds of things that comes after we've done a big decluttering project, because that's the most sensible time to do it.

Ingrid  11:21  
It's interesting, because I would indeed those deeper cleaning projects, like, for example, doing all the doors, or washing the windows on the inside, or cleaning all my lamps, I would normally not combine that when I'm decluttering. But when I'm decluttering, my daughter's clothes, and I empty her wardrobe, and I let her try on stuff, I would get that wardrobe clean. But I would not in that same afternoon then think let me do all the lamp. So let me wash all the windows, I see that as a separate cleaning project that you need to have time for and energy for. And if I've already done her her wardrobe like Okay, that's enough now for today, the windows will have to be done tomorrow or next week or on another time. So I tried to divvy out those those jobs over time. And that's why I rather do a little project on a Sunday and a little project on a Saturday then kind of having okay, I haven't done anything for four weeks. And now I'm the whole weekend from nine o'clock to eight o'clock at night, two days in a row, I'm doing all these things and completed tire myself out. I liked that combination of let me just do two hours here or an hour, three hours, then the rest of the day is spent doing other things. And then tomorrow I'll do something different. So I combine that a lot.

Lesley  12:41  
So I'm going to ask you a question. What do you prefer? What gives you the most joy in grid tidying or cleaning? Oh, oh. I know what my answer is. But you say yours first got a new let you say yours first because I asked you.

Ingrid  13:02  
I actually don't know I actually I do you know what the thing is, I actually don't mind cleaning a lot. I do have two lovely cleaning lady to helping me with the house because my husband and I both work full time. So it's just like there's only so many hours in the day. So I have cleaning ladies helping me. But it's not because I don't like cleaning at all. It's like, I really want to have my house clean to quite a good standard because I just like being in a clean house. And I know I can't do that all by myself. So I have enlisted some help I have a window cleaner who not only cleans the outside of my windows but also the instead of mowing those four times a year. And he comes four times a year to do the outside. So both so I'm like okay, when you coming around, you have to do both in and outside because I like that. And I live on a busy road with a lot of buses and traffic. So for me, I like having that clean windows because it's just important to me. And my cleaning ladies come every two weeks and help me with all those chores that have to be done. So it doesn't all fall on me and the kids Mr. Husbands because there's so many things that needs to be done throughout the house. But actually if you actually say to me Ingrid, do you not like cleaning? Not at all I love cleaning a bathroom or wiping some floors or dusting some down or ironing or it doesn't bother me I think it's just part of my life. I don't you know what, I just don't want to go oh gosh, I have to do that. I don't want to do it. I'm like okay, just has to be done. Let's just do it. Then it's done with and then I can enjoy my nice clean apps and sit down. So how about you what do you like more than

Lesley  14:47  
do not can you not guess?

Ingrid  14:50  
I have a feeling that I know what this is? Yeah,

Lesley  14:53  
it's definitely tagging. So tagging is definitely the thing that makes me tick. So I love you know, I love what I called pottering around. You know, I love do my little daily resets on a Saturday morning, it does bring me joy, it's really sad, isn't it, I know it is to just put things away and put shoes where they should go and hang things up. And if things have got out of place, put them down, put the wash, even if I don't put all the washing on just to put it in the laundry room, so it's all ready to go. I get great satisfaction. And it's something that I find quite grounding, just that kind of car, I find it quite common. I also, I love having a clean house. Of course I do. Like you, Ingrid, I'm really lucky, I've got people helping me with the cleaning. But I don't get as much satisfaction out of a clean space. If I'm cleaning it myself. Then I do the tidying I love, if ever I'm kind of feeling a little bit stressed or anything, a nice tidy up is going to really calm me down. And so I'm definitely prefer the tidying side of things than the cleaning.

Ingrid  15:58  
So do you tidy up before the cleaners come?

Lesley  16:03  
Yes, categorically? Yeah. So they were here today, actually. So last night, I went round, and I make sure that, you know, like in the kids bedrooms, they just have stuff, don't they on their desks and just loads of stuff, like my bedroom is reasonably clear. And everything's got a place, but I just think kids have, like, my daughter's got makeup everywhere. And just stuff you know, on works that which is fine. It's containerized it's all fine and stuff. But I need to make sure that you know, Nathan's guitar picks that he's got the plays guitar with they're all in their place. And all the pens are in the pot, and all the papers are all gathered together and in one tray, which normally it's up to them how they manage their space normally, but I want my cleaners to be able to clean, I don't want to waste my money and their valuable time for them to tidy. I want them to clean, which is what they're there for. So I, you know, I will spend at least half an hour or an hour before they come to make sure that they've got a complete sort of blank canvas to work with.

Ingrid  17:07  
Yeah, I do exactly the same. Let's see, that's interesting. I also, if I know that my cleaners come, I don't know, the Wednesday morning, I make sure that Tuesday evening, I do an extra run through the house just to make sure that everything is tidy, because when it's tidy, they can clean better, they can Hoover better, they can scrub the bathrooms better, because it's their job to clean. And I don't want them to move all this stuff around because a lot of cleaners have to work around stuff. So for example, when I was the head of facilities management of a company in Holland many, many years ago, and I was in charge of the headquarters. And I actually said to the whole office, especially on the days when the cleaning would come afterwards. I'm like, Guys, please make sure that you have a relatively clean desk. Let's make sure that all the indicate in the in our kitchen. That's really for everybody, for the whole staff. Let's make sure it's tidy, because the tidy read is the better they can clean the more we can all of us enjoy the space. And if your desk is super messy, or if the kitchen that we all share is super messy. They can't do a proper job. And I've had so many clients say to me, oh my gosh, Ingrid, I can't believe in. I have a cleaner but my house is still can you take? How is that possible? And I'm like, because they're there to clean? And they're not there to declutter and organise and tidy up for you. Yes, they will probably put all the papers in one pile so they can actually wipe a desk somewhere. But you're still you're not getting anywhere, you're gonna be need to take charge of that decluttering that organising and the less stuff you have out and things can be actually put away, the more happier you will be with your cleaner, because they can do a good job cleaning. How can I do a good job cleaning and hoovering if you've got floor stuff on the floor everywhere? They can't do a good job. And that's when your house feels not clean?

Lesley  19:14  
Yeah, I think it's I think you make a really interesting point there. Because a lot of people, you know, we you know, as well as we're doing with that it's on people's way. I mean, we're lucky we count ourselves as very lucky that we've got help, of course, yeah. But I think a lot of people are like, I would love a cleaner. And what they really mean by that is I would love somebody to just take all these chores of tidying and cleaning away from me and do that for me. And that unfortunately is not going to happen. They're there to clean. I mean some cleaners will absolutely do tidying. I think one of the things that is really useful for cleaners is to sort of lay the groundwork so there's two things that you can do it you can do if you have if you have a cleaner or if you're going to clean yourself so equally if you You feel like Saturday mornings your day for cleaning. Or if you're going to do certain rooms on certain days, then pre plan so whether you've got someone helping you, or whether you're going to do it yourself, do that tidy up yourself before, so you can really hit the ground running and when you set to and do your cleaning, I think you can either tidy up before or if you have cleaners or yourself for example, and you find things that are out of place while you're doing your cleaning, as long as it's not completely out of control and you've got huge volumes. If things are not where they should be, put them all on your bed, do you clean it and then return back to him at the end and put things away at that point, it's better to do it before but if you can't get to it before, make sure that you aren't gathering all those things together and you are making a conscious decision to return back to them and put them away after Yeah,

Ingrid  20:52  
I think so too because I think then you can focus on the cleaning and then do the other jobs have already done before preferably but if that was not the case or not possible you can then do that after so you do one thing at a time when you're just out doing the services and the window sills and the radiator to maybe your skirting boards and of course there are things like and

Lesley  21:18  
scaring everyone and Greg is scaring everyone talking about washing windows skirting boards and cleaning radiators a lot of people are like are you actually joking it takes me all my time to just run a run a cloth around my work surface and run a Hoover around let's just please just take it back to a normal level clear. i Yes, we do those things, radiators and windows and stuff. But we don't we're not all in good Johnson here like doing those things every week, just back back down later, you scaring everybody off with your cleaning.

Ingrid  21:53  
But you know what it is, I mean, the one time did you just do this to flat surfaces, quick wipe, nothing, you know, nothing too serious. And another time you think you know what I am now going to also give my my lamp a wipe and I'm going to wipe the front of my radiator and I'm going to do the skirting boards. That's not what you do all the time. You know, there are weeks when it's just a quick wipe around. So it will have to do when you've got a super busy weekend. But there will come a time you think you know what this quick wipe is now nice. But now there's like a really layer of dust on everything else. I'm going to Hoover around and give it some extra bits and bobs. I mean it's the same you know, you do your ceilings twice a year probably with a bit of a ceiling brush. You know that's not something you do on a weekly basis. But when it spider season you're like Okay, now it's maybe time to do take my Hoover around the house and just kind of get all the spider webs off the ceiling.

Lesley  22:48  
I remember the last time that I brushed my ceiling, I'm not gonna lie. I'm sat here feeling like a very inferior and I'm like, No, I don't brush my ceiling spiders twice a year. You must. Like I knew this was a bad idea. We're supposed to be encouraging people and you're scaring people up in your cleaning standards.

Ingrid  23:14  
Okay, well, let's just agree on this. Lesley. If you're hoovering just Hoover a couple of bit extra every once in a while when you're offering and you're like right this when I'm hoovering now in this room, I'm just going to look up and at the ceiling, I'm going to look at the skirting boards and I'm gonna run a hoover over my radiator done. Boom. Next time let me do another room. Everybody always thinks that you have to do everything for hours and hours not at all. Just break it down. If I you know I the other day I had to Hoover I did the upstairs of the house and then a couple of hours later I did the stairs and the downstairs of the house. I don't do that all in one go. You break it down in small bits. And the one time I'm doing Oh, let me do the skirting boards and the other time nothing. Let me just wipe some of the doors a little bit and the other time I think let me just do a couple of radiators done

Lesley  24:09  
again. You do it again. Do it again. Please stop. I've already told you once and you do it again.

Ingrid  24:17  
I just like I do like cleaning I do like it.

Lesley  24:21  
I was just gonna write what can I do? What can work? What can I do to get you off cleaning? I'm going to start right I'm gonna go back to tidy right. Now I'm going to ask you one more question about cleaning please stop talking about spiders and radiators and skirting boards. Okay, right about standard things here. So what when do you think one should clean? So you've said you think you should break it down? Okay. A lot of people don't have the opportunity to clean every day if you're working. You don't have the opportunity. Yes, you can do your daily resets. You can do a little bit of cleaning as you go as part of your daily reset but ordinarily so for me for example, when I when my cleaners are not here, then I do it on a Saturday morning I set to When I do the whole house all at once, that's just the way that I want to do it. And I've got the energy to do that, and know that I've got the energy to do that, which is very relevant. And so you have to know, in the same way that we talk all the time about tuning in to your energy when you're doing decluttering projects, you also need to do the same when you're doing a cleaning project, you need to know right, what's going to work for me? Is it going to work for me to do four hours and do the whole house at once? If that's how long it would take you? Or am I better doing the living room on a Monday, the kitchen on a Tuesday, etc? Like what's going to work for me tune in and know what's suitable know whether you can whether help is realistic, we can all sit there and say, until we're blue in the face, we want the rest of the family to pitch in and do something. But you need to be realistic enough to know Is it harder to fight that fight and ask everybody to help on it? Or are you just going to crack on and do it yourself? This is what you need to decide. It is wrong that people don't chip in and help you. But sometimes you're just fighting a losing battle. And you just need to get on with it yourself because the fight is harder than actually doing it. I know, that's the set. That's the case for me. And maybe I shouldn't say that. But for me, I learned to fight my battles. I know that my kids will chip in every now and again. But sometimes I'm just like, I'm just gonna do it. It's just easier to do it myself, really. So what do you think?

Ingrid  26:21  
I think you're really hitting the nail on the head here, you need to look at your own energy levels. Some people just are not morning people. And they're far better off doing, you know, a cleaning job in the afternoon or in the evening. Other people work over the weekend. So they've got time during the week, or they work part time they work three or four days, or they've got one day during the week when nobody's there. Everybody's at school and at work, and they've got time and they just have nobody around being in the way. So I think you have to think about how do I fit this into my life. I think the problem is when you feel you're busy all the time, you're too tired, and you let it build up and build up and build up and build up. And then the task gets so mammoth, whether it be decluttering, organising, cleaning, tidying, it's really important to not leave it and leave and leave it even if you start with five or 10 minutes of cleaning and just go you know what it's gonna wipe the sink and throw with a bit of bleach in the toilet. That's where I'm gonna start. Or tonight, I'm just going to Hoover my kitchen floor or whatever it is. But don't let it build up so much. All those little daily tasks, that's five minutes here. And there really helps. But think about your own energy levels. And think about when is a good day of the week for you to be doing this. Because in the end, if you want to have a house that you feel comfortable in, and cleaning is important to you. It's all about elbow grease in the end. There's no magic cleaning fairies around that at night, come around and do your house. So it's all about priorities, then I think.

Lesley  28:04  
Yeah, definitely. If you do like what Ingrid is talking about. And once our ultimate seasonal cleaning checklist, we have a daily checklist, which includes radiators, I actually don't think it includes putting your brush on the ceiling twice a year for spiders, I don't think that's something which is very remissive you Ingrid's cleaning checklist. And you can download our checklist. We'll include that in the show notes. And that was really good. Actually, it's got a very comprehensive list of things that we believe or Ingrid believes because she's the queen of clean, that you should be doing all the time to keep on top of your cleaning. And so that's quite useful, isn't it? Ingrid?

Ingrid  28:45  
So to answer the question at the beginning for the podcast, tidying or cleaning, what comes first. It's definitely tidying.

Lesley  28:55  
So long time to get to that. We should have just said that in a way that would have been so much easier than scaring people talking about spiders and things. But yes, you are writing with tidy and comes before cleaning. Right? It's time for us to go now is rated you. I've told you off so many times in this podcasting grid for our lovely listeners. But it's time for me to go because I'm going to start getting grumpy all the way.

Ingrid  29:24  
I know I'm gonna take it on the chin. So listeners I know but I need some love here. She's so mean to me. So listeners if you've enjoyed this podcast, thanks so much for listening today. We just love it that you love listening honestly. And if you know anybody else who wants to you think oh, they really liked this podcast to tell them about our podcast and tell them about on the show notes. You can find the sharing buttons that if you're not on our fabulous Facebook group yet, come and join us on our Facebook group. We've got a fantastic Facebook group and we honestly we've got the best Facebook group members we believe no world. So come and join us that declutter hub community. Of course, you can also find us on Instagram or we also have a Facebook page too. Now if you'd like to know more about our membership, have a look a member still declutter health.com To find out more. And if you don't want to miss the next podcast, just subscribe to the clutter help podcast and it will pop into your notifications each Friday. So thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time.

Outro  30:31  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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