it comes time for me to clean my apartment, I have no patience, no desire and no idea where to start. I usually get as far as taking out a spray bottle of disinfectant and cleaning around the various piles of clutter that have accumulated, before becoming overwhelmed and sitting down for a snack, never to finish my task. When I recently found myself in this exact scenario, I turned the TV on during my snack break and started watching “Friends.” It was The One With The Chicken Pox, and Monica was obsessing over the way her boyfriend Richard made the bed. In life, we can all take some notes from Monica’s OCD ways when it comes to tidying up, because wouldn’t life just be nicer when our toilet paper is folded at the tip? Here are 14 of Monica’s anal retentive rules to remember next time you need to clean.
1. Categorize Your Towels: Eliminate bathroom disasters by sorting towels into “everyday use,” “fancy,” “guest,” and “fancy guest.”
2. Use Logic To Properly Make The Bed: The duvet tag should be at the bottom right corner and flower-covered sheets should face up, not down, because that’s where the sun would be. You get it…
3. Clean Your Cleaning Supplies: Monica uses a Dustbuster to remove dirt from the vacuum cleaner, and wouldn’t be opposed to using an even smaller vacuum to clean the Dustbuster. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
4. Iron Wrapping Paper: There’s no need to be wasteful, and you might as well get out the creases while you’re busy saving the environment.
5. When In Doubt, Clean: Keep your own space spick and span at all times, clean up after others because they’re incapable of cleaning up after themselves properly, and even wash the neighbor’s car if you feel so obliged. In Monica’s world, a clean world is a happy world.
6. Wash Before White: If you’re about to touch something white, go wash your hands thoroughly and do not stop until you’ve sang the entire “Happy Birthday” song. Feel free to also send guests and significant others to do the same if they’re about to reach for something white.
7. Keep A Ribbon Drawer: Obviously something everyone needs, color-coded and organized by ribbon thickness for quick selection during gift wrapping and party emergencies.
8. Every Disc Has A Case: Whether they’re DVDs or CDs (for those of you still trapped in the ’90s), every disc should remain in its appropriate case. Finding “Top Gun” in the “Pretty Woman” case could throw you off schedule and destroy your day.
9. Label Everything: Photographs, kitchen mugs, dishes … basically everything deserves a label in case something goes missing. If you’re super organized, you can create a file system for photos with key search words like “dead” or “dogs.” Which reminds us…
10. Buy A Label Maker: Monica spent eight hours with her label maker organizing a filing system in which she researched and wrote about a variety of career fields. She continued to label everything in her giant, rent-controlled apartment.
11. Toilet Paper Etiquette: When you’re done with the toilet paper, carefully fold the tip into a point for the next person’s ease of use.
12. Bake With Precision: Do not bake a recipe for any more or less time than the recipe calls for, sprinkle ingredients in clockwise, circumference circles and do not eat anything before it’s cooked.
13. Use Military Time: It’s more efficient.
14. Have A Secret Junk Closet: The need to have a clean, crisp-looking countertop free of clutter poses a problem when you own too much stuff. For this, keep a locked closet or room in your house filled to the brim with your shit.
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