{"id":174921,"date":"2026-04-07T07:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/174921\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:18:15","slug":"51-year-old-empty-nester-who-struggled-to-declutter-her-house-shares-8-tips-that-finally-worked-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/174921\/","title":{"rendered":"51-year-old empty nester who struggled to declutter her house shares 8 tips that finally worked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deep cleaning<\/a> and decluttering a home<\/a> is a daunting task\u2014especially for empty nesters. After spending a lifetime creating memories and living together under one roof, doing a big declutter<\/a> can take an emotional toll.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a milestone that many empty nesters know the sting of. And in a cleaning community on Reddit<\/a>, a 51-year-old mom and recent empty nester shared her experience cleaning and decluttering her home after entering this new phase of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my entire life, my house has always been messy. I mean, I didn\u2019t have a disaster-level situation going on, but if someone dropped by unannounced, it would\u2019ve been super embarrassing,\u201d she shared. \u201cWhen my kids were younger, we had a housekeeper because I just couldn\u2019t keep up. Now that we\u2019re empty nesters, I realized I never really learned how to keep house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

She explained that the book Unf*ck Your Habitat: You\u2019re Better Than Your Mess<\/a> played an integral part in helping her declutter\u2014and offered eight helpful tips to fellow empty nesters looking to organize their new lives.<\/p>\n

1. Put stuff away, not down.<\/p>\n

Her first tip is the key to decluttering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever you have goes right back where it\u2019s supposed to go when I\u2019m done with it,\u201d she notes.<\/p>\n

2. Do laundry every day.<\/p>\n

And she doesn\u2019t just wash and dry her laundry when doing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust one load, start to finish. Wash, dry, fold, and put away,\u201d she shares. \u201cAlso, no chair or floor laundry. It gets put in the hamper or hung back up. No clothes are ever out.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. I make the bed every day.<\/p>\n

The benefits keep on giving by doing this, she notes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just makes my bedroom look cleaner and I smile every time I come in my room,\u201d she writes. \u201cPlus we aren\u2019t fighting over the covers when we get in because the bed is straightened out.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Do a quick daily clean-up of commonly used spaces.<\/p>\n

She cleans the places that she and her husband use frequently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep a stack of cleaning rags in my master bath because it\u2019s the only bathroom that\u2019s used every single day. Every night, I spray the counter, wipe everything down, put everything back (that my husband leaves out), and wipe the mirror,\u201d she explains. \u201cI also wipe down the toilet. I find that I don\u2019t need a huge, big cleaning of this space because I\u2019m keeping it up daily. Same goes for the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. Dishes are always put away, cabinet or dishwasher.<\/p>\n

No dishes in the sink or stuck in the dishwasher.<\/p>\n

\u201cDishes are finished in the dishwasher? It\u2019s emptied and dirty ones are placed inside while waiting for the dishwasher to get full,\u201d she notes.<\/p>\n

6. Don\u2019t neglect your shoes.<\/p>\n

When she takes them off, they get put away.<\/p>\n

\u201cShoes are put away immediately upon walking in the house,\u201d she shares.<\/p>\n

7. Knock out small tasks.<\/p>\n

There is no time to waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it takes less than 5 minutes clean it while you\u2019re waiting for something else to get done,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

8. Take no days off.<\/p>\n

Rather than assign certain days for cleaning, she is constantly doing it throughout the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cLastly, I do not have scheduled cleaning days. I just do something all the time,\u201d she explains. \u201cMy life is kind of unpredictable, we love traveling or going out for the day so my so called cleaning schedule would be shot to hell every time. It\u2019s better this way, because now I never feel behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally contained a typo in its text. It has since been corrected.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared [time-difference] ago. It has been updated.<\/p>\n

The post 51-year-old empty nester who struggled to declutter her house shares 8 tips that finally worked<\/a> appeared first on Upworthy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deep cleaning and decluttering a home is a daunting task\u2014especially for empty nesters. After spending a lifetime creating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[89975,89976,89974,152],"class_list":{"0":"post-174921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tanzania","8":"tag-declutter","9":"tag-deep-cleaning","10":"tag-empty-nester","11":"tag-tanzania"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116362209295242671","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}