This has been the staple of our family’s cleaning approach for many years. If you are looking for a strategy that gets straight to the point, and leaves the room thoroughly tidy, then this is the place to start.
One of the things that I really like about this technique is that it helps to shift my mindset and I gradually start to recognize more things as clutter or out of place than I was initially aware of. If I clean a room “from top to bottom” I tend to ignore things that have been out of place for a while, things that I have grown desensitized to, but the middle thing pick up helps me to re-sensitize myself to the mess and get the room cleaner than I would have otherwise.
How to:
Cleaners should choose a room and put everything that is out of place into a pile in the center of the room. Be as thorough as possible: checking in corners, under furniture, under couch cushions, behind the TV, under the bed, anywhere that there might be clutter.
Warning: the room will look worse than it did before you started! Don’t despair! Now it’s time to dig in and start putting things away. This can be a challenge, especially if the pile is a large one, so this is a great time to incorporate one of the cleaning games from this website to make the task more fun and get the job done!
Tips:
- Have a trash can in the middle of the room near the pile of mess so that any trash can be easily disposed of.
- If you find that too much time is spent trying to decide which item to pick out of the pile next, cleaners can close their eyes when reaching into the pile. This eliminates the decision process and adds a bit of excitement and mystery to your cleaning session!
- Make sure there is enough time to follow through with the middle-thing pick up from beginning to end. The room will look messier before it gets clean!
Another way to motivate cleaners to work on the pile is to set goals. Pick a number of items (25, 50, 100, etc) to put away out of the pile and set up a reward for each time this goal is met. Make sure the number of items to put away is reasonable. Adjust the number of items so that it is not overwhelming and cleaners stay motivated to reach each goal.
Examples of rewards:
- 15 minutes, 20 minutes or 30 minutes of free time (decide on a reasonable time frame based on the amount of work performed, 1 minute per item can work well)
- Watch an episode of a tv show. Or the reward could be watching a full movie for finishing the full middle thing pick up.
- Read a short story or a chapter of a book.
- A yummy snack
- Etc, there are so many possibilities!