5 ways to keep the kids tidy
In the holidays, especially if you have guests coming, try these ways to keep on top of household mess!
1. Bag it up
Accept on day one of the holidays that all those papers and magazines littering every room won’t get looked at until the kids are back at school. Put all your papers in a big bag in the cupboard. When you come to look at them again you’ll be amazed how much stuff could have gone straight in the recycling bin!
2. Assign personal space savers
Get a plastic tub, a basket or a pop-up room-tidy for each of your kids and install these in your lounge for the duration of the holidays. At the end of every day, even if your kids want to keep a playset intact, it goes into the tub and then comes back out the next day. Keeping these close to hand makes tidiness less of a chore!
3. Tidiness wins prizes!
Draw up a table of tidiness and turn the holiday into a challenge – who will be the least messy by the end of the day or the week?
4. Clear the area
In the holidays your lounge is likely to become a gathering point for kids and friends, so until they’re back at school store away things school bags, put big plants in the hallway, relocate big chairs to a bedroom and instead improvise with bean bags that are easy to put to one side of the lounge at the end of each day.
5. Daily ‘bin collection’
During holidays, when you’re at home more rather than at work or school, you all make more rubbish! Assign everyone a daily clear-out task rather than waiting until the day before your refuse collection. One person to sort tins and glass, another to fold down empty boxes and put newspapers out for recycling, and so on.
Savvy tip
Cupboards can help you de-stress your mess! Check our Savvy tips for how to Max your cupboard space.
Pass it on – tidy kids forever!
Read our Savvy ideas for Tricking the kids into tidying up – from games to making money…