We have a closet in my house that defies designation. It holds an impressive collection of obsolete electronics, board games, sheets, a few loose appliances, and pantry goods. The closet door doesn't shut, so great is my bounty of mismatched trash. I asked my house cleaner, Misty, for help rearranging it. Early in the process, she found an ancient bag of dried lentils.

"What's this?"

I sighed. "Those are part of my husband's apocalypse-survival rations. Just in case."

"Why are they in with the sheets and towels?"

I shrugged. "Small house. Where else you gonna keep your apocalypse survival rations?"

"Watch this, " Misty said. She threw the bag to the top of my kitchen cabinets, out of sight for anyone under 7 feet tall, but still accessible in case of societal collapse.

I chose Misty instead of a franchise cleaning service because I wanted someone I could establish a long-term, personal relationship with. Because I knew I would be constantly asking forgiveness for being a hapless slob, and needed someone who would take pity on me.

In Misty, who owns her own cleaning business, I found something even better, as illustrated by her brilliant use of a space I hadn't even considered available. A brain full of tricks to make the endless battle against the household laws of entropy (everything in your house, by natural law, wants to be disgusting) a smoother fight.

Here are some tricks Misty has gathered through her years devoted to finding the quickest, most thorough way to keep a house in order.

1. Regarding all sticky and crusty things on flat surfaces; don't bother scrubbing, picking, or even butter-knifing. Keep a painter's putty knife on hand. One sweep of it safely removes smashed raisins, stickers, silly putty, and puddles of apple juice that dried near where the dog sleeps so that it's a huge dark smear of hair and filth. So I've heard.

2. Just because having the never-used toaster and blender out on the counter makes you feel more domestic doesn't mean you should let them take up that valuable space. They can be easily stored in a cabinet without loss of dignity. People tend to put things in certain spots, no matter how personally impractical, just because their mom used that spot or because "that's where it's always been."

3. Move your entire collection of Tupperware and yogurt tubs out of that cabinet. They'll get hopeless knocked around and lost in there. Instead they go stacked in a drawer, which keeps the containers contained, and infinitely more accessible.

Source: theweek.com