[A Clean Home with Minimal Effort] 1. Floors: A home where a Roomba can run is a tidy home

If I say, "I'm good at tidying up," people who knew me in the past might wonder, "Who are you kidding?" Truth be told, I used to live in a messy room.

From my teens to my mid-twenties, I lived in a room where clothes were on the floor, junk mail and dried-out pens were on the table, and storage contained boxes that hadn't been opened in years. I was constantly chasing after lost items, and cleaning was a major event.

That's why when people see my current home and say, "You must love being clean," I feel a little embarrassed. It's not that I've become a clean freak. I've just used machines and systems to create a home that doesn't get cluttered or dirty.

So I don't have trouble later

I like a clean home, but I don't want to spend all day cleaning. So, I decided to change the structure rather than rely on willpower.

First, I throw away things I don't use. I throw them away mercilessly, from big items to small ones. Then, I don't put things on the floor. I don't overstuff my storage. I don't leave things out in the open. If I buy one thing, I get rid of one thing. I keep at most one backup.

This might sound like a great storage technique, but the reality was much more desperate. I had so many things that they overflowed from storage, and if I forced them in, there was no space left. If I took them out, putting them back was a hassle. Things were left scattered on the floor, I couldn't clean, and I spent time looking for lost items. I couldn't even invite people over to a room like that.

If you reduce your belongings, you won't get stuck in that cycle. It sounds obvious, but it's hard to put into practice. It's more accurate to say that I threw away a huge amount of stuff every time I moved—due to marriage, divorce, or relocation—and finally settled on the appropriate amount I have now.

Can the world-class Ohtani run here?

I judge how tidy my home is by whether or not my Roomba can run every day. If clothes, paper bags, or cords are lying on the floor, the Roomba can't work. In other words, a home where a Roomba can't run is a home that's hard to clean quickly.

I'm not diligent enough to vacuum every day myself. But I can manage to press the button on the Roomba. So, I should just make my home a place where the Roomba can work.

I don't put things on the floor. I don't use rugs. I lift or bundle up cords. I choose chairs that can be placed on the table or are light and designed to be moved easily. I choose furniture with legs so dust doesn't accumulate and the Roomba can pass underneath.

Just by having the floor visible, the room looks much tidier, and if there's actually nothing on the floor, cleaning becomes much easier all at once. This isn't just a mental approach; it's physics. I don't create a situation where I have to tidy up before I can clean. Cleaning is just pressing the Roomba's button. For me, this was the most effective change.

Robot vacuums with built-in mopping functions are mainstream now, but in my house, the Braava mopping robot is still in active service. The Roomba runs every day, and the Braava runs once or twice a week. This keeps the floor quite clean.

By the way, I've named my Roomba "Shohei Ohtani." In my house, the world-class Ohtani is doing the cleaning. It's fun when I occasionally get a notification on my smartphone saying, "Shohei Ohtani needs help!"

Leave empty space to prevent clutter

I believe that if you fill up all your storage, you've lost. In the past, when I saw an empty space, I thought, "I can still fit more in." Now, I think, "It's easy to use precisely because it's empty."

If you cram shelves, drawers, and closets full from back to front, putting things in and taking them out becomes a hassle. It becomes a pain to put things back, so you just leave them lying around. That is the overture to a home's collapse.

The road to a messy room is usually paved with small "I'll do it later" moments. Once that road hardens and gets long, it's really hard to recover. So, I "do it now." To that end, I try to leave a little bit of empty space—just enough to put things back quickly. My goal is 80% capacity storage.

I prioritize the ease of putting things back over visual beauty like matching storage boxes and labeling. If you increase storage supplies too much, managing them becomes a hassle, so I don't buy more than necessary.

It feels good when the house is clean. But my lazy spirit won't allow me to work hard every day to maintain a clean home. So, I create a system that can be maintained without effort. Floors where a Roomba can run, storage that isn't overstuffed, and a volume of belongings that can be put back immediately.

My tidying is closer to crisis management than an aesthetic sense. I know full well that if I leave things alone, I will make a mess. So, I take preemptive measures to make the house hard to clutter. A clean home with minimal effort is a life skill I thought up as a lazy person to survive.

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By keeping your home in a state where a Roomba can run, it becomes easier to organize not just the floors, but also the refrigerator, kitchen, and water areas in a way that "keeps them clean without effort."

▼ I've written here about a refrigerator you won't forget, kitchen storage that only keeps what you use in the front, and bathrooms and washrooms that don't leave water droplets.

▼ I bought a house three times before arriving at my current 40-square-meter 1LDK.

▼ For "overall clean appearance" including weight, clothes, and facial care, as well as beauty, click here.

▼ Click here for the story of how I was actually addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, and shopping