How to tidy up faster

You can enjoy a clean space without spending your entire life maintaining it

I’m writing this shortly after returning home from two weeks at the beach. Inevitably, all the stuff from the cars winds up in the kitchen, where the stacks of things drives me crazy. So last night featured a lot of tidying until the kitchen counter and floor were mostly clear.

But in general, I don’t spend a ton of time tidying up. Caveat: I pay a cleaning service to come weekly. That said, they focus on vacuuming and scrubbing, not putting everything exactly where it should go, and a cleaning service who shows up at 8 a.m. Thursday does nothing for a mess at 8 p.m. Sunday. Here are some strategies we use to make the mess of seven people go away faster.