The Home Ecosystem: How to Balance Cleaning, Organizing, and Decorating

I’m not a scientist and I’m aware I’m not really using the word “Ecosystem” correctly but just bear with me for a minute.

Because I have a theory about Home.

My home and your home, too.

In my mind, a Home has a three-part ecosystem.

• Cleaning
• Organizing
• Decorating

Ok, maybe it’s not so ground breaking. You know you have to do all three of those things in your home.

I’m willing to bet that there are 1 or 2 things in that list that you don’t enjoy doing and also 1 or 2 that you do enjoy doing. But when you let one part go the other two suffer.

Are you with me so far?

Let’s look at each of your home ecosystem’s three parts.

Cleaning – The Least Popular of The Ecosystem

There is a small handful of the population that enjoys cleaning. Like lefties. Maybe all of the people that like cleaning are actually lefties.

But for the great majority of us, cleaning is an absolute drag. I’ll do almost anything to avoid cleaning.

This weekend, I avoided cleaning the bathroom by cleaning a wall. I mean, that doesn’t even make sense.

Cleaning motivation is actually a thing that people search the internet for. I even wrote about it.

Why are we searching for cleaning motivation when we could just be cleaning?

Because we really want a clean house. But cleaning itself is one of those things that leaves you thinking things like, “I don’t know why I bother! These dishes are going to be dirty again tomorrow!”

Which doesn’t make any sense. But we want the house clean because love our cozy homes and it’s hard to feel cozy when the counters are sticky and there’s grit on the floor.

You just can’t really have a beautiful cozy home if it’s dirty.

Organizing – Some People Love It Some People Have No Idea How To Do It

The next part of the Home Ecosystem is organizing. Everything in it’s place and a place for everything.

Or something like that. To be honest, I’m not a natural organizer. I’ve learned a ton over the years and I am a natural declutterer which to me is the most important part of organizer, so I have that going for me.

It’s the “everything in it’s place” part that I have a hard time with, but I’m working on it with the help of my favorite organization resource.

There are some people that are absolutely obsessed with Organization. It’s like a hobby for some people.

Here’s the thing with organization though. If you aren’t regularly decluttering, your cleaning is more difficult and all the decorating you’ve done is hidden under piles of clutter.

Clutter is known to cause anxiety and brain fog, too. So if you’re organization game is off, your whole house is going to feel the effects of that.

Decorating – The Most Fun Part Of the Ecosystem

This is what we all enjoy, right? I mean some people don’t care about decorating, but they aren’t coming to visit Bogoten, you know?

If you’re here then you are like me and want your home to be a reflection of yourself. You want every corner of your home to feel like home.

You daydream about waking up early and sipping a steaming cup of coffee by the window on the couch under the cozy throw.

And then walking into the clean, warm kitchen and making pancakes and bacon to wake up the kids who come downstairs and sit at the counter on the perfect barstools and have a peaceful hot breakfast to start their day.

You have different spots in the house for different activities. A cushy chair to read in. A tucked away office for working and paying the bills. A cozy bedroom to watch movies in on rainy Sunday afternoons in November.

A patio you can sit on to catch the last bits of warm sun on a late September day.

A dining room you want to sit in and talk to your family or guests well after dessert has been served.

When you picture all of these idyllic images, are any of them dirty? Or cluttered?

Maybe “collected”. You might like the idea of being surrounded by “things” that you love. I don’t count that as clutter.

You might find that you’re so far behind with the cleaning and the organizing that you don’t even think about the decorating.

I’ve been there. It’s a sure sign that the ecosystem is way out of whack.

We never get to the fun part if we can’t get the other two under control.

So What’s The Point of the Home Ecosystem?

When you start to see your home as this Ecosystem, you start to see how one part spills over to the next.

Cleaning isn’t about cleaning, it’s about creating a fresh palette for the decorating you’ve done.

Organizing is about creating some peace in your home so that cleaning is a little easier and you can see the beauty you’ve created around you.

And decorating is about being creative, expressing yourself, your point of view while creating a home you love to be in.