I swapped big tidying sessions of my awkward living room for mini resets for a week – now I’m hooked

For the longest time, I have followed the same approach to tidying my living room – leave the ‘lived-in’ look for as long as I could cope before snapping and tidying everything up in one go.

The terms ‘coping’ and ‘snapping’ should have been enough to signal that this approach to maintenance was simply not working for me or my home. I was positively drowning in stuff, and it was affecting everything from my productivity to my ability to relax.

So, for one week, I challenged myself to try mini-resets to reduce visual clutter in a living room instead, and I have never felt more secure in my space. Here’s why it worked.

Mini-resets for a tidier living room

My living room is one of my least favorite spaces in my home for the sole reason that it is an open-plan area that shares functionality with my dining room and my entryway.

As a result, the whole ground floor is a hotspot for ‘stuff’ – be it gym bags dropped on the dining table on the way in, shoes littering the walls, or mail scattered across the coffee table, abandoned on the way to the kitchen.

So, taking inspiration from the things people with clean living rooms always do, I decided to spend just five minutes every day to reset my living space, as, according to the founder of Ascent Etiquette and Communications, Bethany Skorik, adding up to 10-minute resets to your daily house routine is one of the most reliable ways to manage clutter and organization.

‘The quick, streamlined approach helps to hyper-focus on one task or area, and is perfect for the living room,’ she explains. It is also ideal for me and my partner, as neither of us is great at following the one-touch tidying rule for putting things away, and are unlikely to break this bad housekeeping habit anytime soon.

To make it easier, I didn’t strictly schedule this timeslot into my day, instead opting to tidy up whenever the mood struck. However, if tidying is one of your non-preferred tasks, an alarm to remind you can be helpful to build helpful tidying habits. Setting a digital timer, from Walmart, can also help the task feel less like it is going to go on forever.

To add some structure, I used the Mount Vernon method and worked around the space in a clockwise direction, starting at my front door and working around the dining area, into the living area, and back again.

This approach to tidying, usually in the evening after we had eaten dinner, targeted recurrent problem areas with ease before they became overwhelming.

For example, shoes were picked up from the front door and tucked into the shoe cabinet (from Wayfair) as I passed it, gym bags were removed from the dining room floor and tucked into the living room cabinet, chairs were tucked away neatly and jackets were removed from the backs and hug up or placed in a stair basket (available at Wayfair) ready to go back upstairs, and mail was promptly addressed or recycled as needed.

These were all categories that usually built up and up throughout a week until I finally snapped and went on a cleaning rampage.

The benefits extend beyond managing my anger issues, however, and can be used by everyone in a household to encourage your family to declutter.

As Bethany explains, ‘Families who can incorporate mini-resets before they leave the home set themselves up to return to a less chaotic, more welcoming space.’

She suggests that ‘little ones should focus on set, easy tasks that don't require organizing, such as picking up toys on the ground, folding blankets, fluffing pillows, and bringing dishes to the kitchen. Parents can tackle the miscellaneous clutter on the tables or even a once-over with a wet-dry vac.

‘In less than 10 minutes, your space feels lighter and welcomes you home on a more positive note.’

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Meet the expert

Bethany Skorik

Bethany Skorik, a communications executive and etiquette coach, is the founder of Ascent Etiquette & Communications, where she has over 15 years of experience in helping top-level clients consistently present themselves at their best.

Overall, this switch has definitely helped me avoid tidying a home when I feel overwhelmed, which used to result in me snapping at anyone close by.