The Real Cleaning & Organizing Pioneers: Timeless Wisdom for Your Chicago Home

Feeling overwhelmed by the endless cycle of cleaning and tidying in your Chicago home or apartment? You’re not alone. In our busy lives, maintaining a spotless space can feel like a part-time job. But what if you had a few timeless secrets and a little professional home cleaning help to fall back on? Let’s revisit the real OGs who taught us how to care for our homes with wisdom, not just trendy hacks.

Forget the social media trends of using shaving cream to clean your bathroom. Long before influencers, there were genuine teachers on TV and in books who showed us how to make our homes—and lives—easier and richer. Their advice wasn’t about perfection; it was about practical solutions. Let’s honor the legends whose lessons can still transform your space today.

The Decluttering Visionary: Peter Walsh

Many of us discovered the life-changing magic of decluttering through Peter Walsh on TLC’s Clean Sweep. He didn’t just help people tidy up; he taught a powerful philosophy: your clutter is not a moral failing. It’s simply stuff weighing you down.

Life-Changing Lessons from Peter

Walsh’s core message was that a clean your apartment is a reflection of your inner life. By letting go of physical clutter, you make room for more happiness. His famous “Trash Bag Tango” is a perfect start: set a timer for 10 minutes, grab a bag, and quickly remove obvious trash. It’s a small, manageable step with dramatic results.

His wisdom reminds us that the goal isn’t organization for its own sake. As he said, “It’s about living a richer, fuller life by not filling your life with a whole lot of junk.” Sometimes, the best first step is to schedule a cleaning to reset your space and your mindset.

The Relatable Guide: Dana K. White (A Slob Comes Clean)

When Dana K. White began blogging anonymously as “Noni,” she gave a voice to everyone who felt secretly overwhelmed by mess. Her relatable journey made millions feel seen and introduced brilliantly simple concepts.

The Container Concept & The “Take It There Now” Rule

Dana’s “container concept” is genius: your space (a shelf, a drawer) is a container with limits. You can keep anything you love, but you can’t keep everything. Fill it with your favorites first, and anything that doesn’t fit has to go.

Her “no-mess decluttering method” hinges on the “take it there now” rule. Don’t make a “to put away” pile. The moment you decide an item has a home, take it there immediately. This prevents new piles from forming and is a game-changer for daily maintenance. If daily upkeep feels impossible, that’s when a reliable cleaning service near me can provide the foundational clean you need to maintain.

The Organizing Trailblazers: Systems & Formulas

These pioneers gave us the actual roadmaps we still use today to conquer chaos.

Julie Morgenstern’s SPACE Formula

In her book Get Organized from the Inside Out, Julie provided a clear, five-step method for tackling any mess:

• Sort: Pull everything out and group like items.
• Purge: Decide what to remove from each category.
• Assign a home: Find a specific spot for what remains.
• Containerize: Use bins and organizers to corral categories.
• Equalize: Maintain the system with daily tidying and periodic reviews.

This formula demystified the process, proving that organization is a skill anyone can learn.

Stephanie Winston: The Original Organizer

Stephanie Winston literally wrote the book on home organization in the 1970s. She championed the idea that organizing is about function and saving time, not just aesthetics. She taught us to build homes that work for our real lives, a principle every great Chicago cleaning company understands.

The Cleaning Simplifiers: Practical & Doable Tips

These experts cut through the noise with advice that actually works.

Fly Lady: Baby Steps to a Clean Home

Fly Lady’s philosophy revolutionized cleaning for millions. Her mantra? Baby steps. She famously advised starting by simply shining your sink every night. Her system broke down overwhelming chores into 15-minute tasks, making a clean house feel achievable for everyone.

Don Aslett: Work Smarter, Not Harder

The original “Shamwow” guy, Don Aslett, was a pioneer of cleaning hacks that save time. He advocated for tools like microfiber mops and spray bottles to clean floors efficiently without buckets of dirty water. His biggest principle? Clean “NOW.” Tackling a spill immediately takes seconds; leaving it creates a 10-minute scrubbing job later. For the bigger tasks you want to tackle “now,” consider fast cleaning services to quickly reclaim your weekend.

The Style Icons: Making Home Beautiful & Personal

These decorators taught us that a beautiful home is an extension of ourselves, not a magazine photo.

Martha Stewart: Elevating Home Management

Martha made homemaking an art form. She showed us how to elevate everyday tasks—from baking to decorating—and proved it’s never too late to cultivate a beautiful, well-managed home.

Nate Berkus: Personal & Approachable Design

Nate Berkus made interior design feel accessible. His core belief? “A room needs to feel layered and assembled over time.” He encouraged mixing old and new, prioritizing personal sentiment over trends, and investing in quality pieces you love. Creating a home you love is easier when the basics are handled. Let a trusted home cleaning service manage the deep cleaning, so you can focus on the decor.

Your Home, Your Sanctuary

These pioneers shared a common thread: they weren’t selling perfection. They were offering empowerment. Your home is a tool for a better life—a place to recharge, not a source of constant stress. It’s not a moral scorecard. Whether you implement their tips piece by piece or decide to get your space cleaned professionally to get a fresh start, the goal is the same: a home that supports and uplifts you.

Do you ever watch social media and videos today and just think, “What? People trying to teach us how to clean our bathrooms using an entire can of shaving cream for some reason? Or putting everything into rainbows?” Or teaching us how to organize our fridge by turning it into a salad bar. What is this Subway? Before there were home influencers, there were teachers. There were people in the 70s and 80s and 90s who were showing us how to make our home and our lives easier. >> A room needs to feel layered and assembled over time. >> It’s about living a richer, fuller life by not filling your life with a whole lot of junk. >> You make cleaning fun. It doesn’t ever work. >> This is a container. It’s meant to serve as a limit. >> Back in the day, I was like a mess, as you know, and I was watching a show on TLC called Clean Sweep. Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with TLC, but it’s literally stands for the Learning Network, except it has shows like My Strange Addiction with people eating toilet paper and eating their sofa for some reason. It has shows like My Sister Wives and My 600 lb Life. You don’t learn anything. It’s just shock and entertainment. But Clean Sweep was different. This was a show that I watched. I was entertained. But I learned something. I walked away from watching that show. a changed person for the first time learned that it wasn’t my fault that my home was messy and I stopped blaming myself and I started blaming the clutter and the stuff and that is because of the wise words of Peter Walsh. >> If you’re serious about this clock then you need to treat it and your uncle’s memory with respect. >> All this is weighing you down. You have to let it go. You can’t attach an obligation to a gift. Attach sadness to it though. Okay, but you can’t then put it on your son. There’s a whole layer of guilt thrown in there. You can’t do that. >> His show was totally dramatic. He pulled everything out and he still does on his show Space Invaders. Pulls everything out of the home and puts it in a warehouse or puts it out on the street. So, you get that like, “Holy crap, I have way too much stuff impact.” And I felt that watching it. And I started decluttering like crazy because of his words. But he also taught me something else. He taught me that my home is a reflection of me and my happiness and that I deserve better. >> Everyone has one life. The only person who can make your life great is you. >> Yep. >> And if you wait too long, it’s over. I’m not about organization for organization’s sake. It’s about living a richer, fuller life by not filling your life with a whole lot of junk. No one will change it except yourself. And that can increase despair. But the thing is, my grandmother used to say, “The only way to eat an elephant is one mouthful at a time.” And so, start small. Small steps every day in any problem area will eventually get you to where you want to be. Start small, be consistent. >> Some of his tips that changed my life were trash bag tango. So, set a timer for 10 minutes, grab a trash bag, and run around and just look for things that can be thrown out. I know it sounds like a simple concept and one I share all the time, but I had never heard that before. And it was crazy how much I got rid of with one trash bag at a time. Not only did he have his show on TLC called Clean Sweep, but then he had a show with Oprah called Enough Already. He became Oprah Winfreyy’s personal professional organizer. He was on Rachel Ray. And still to this day, he is transforming lives with his TV show Space Invaders. He is the OG and honestly the person I owe everything to. I am so grateful and I just got to interview him on my podcast. I’m going to put a link to that down below. >> Set aside just 10 minutes a day to declutter and organize your home and start slow. Be realistic and don’t try to organize everything in one day or even a weekend. Again, start small. One room or section of a room at a time. And do this every day for a month and the change will be dramatic. And when it comes to organization, remember that perfection is not the goal. In fact, perfection is the enemy of what you’re trying to accomplish in getting organized. >> Okay, so let’s talk about some more people who pioneered decluttering. They were like the OGs. And I can’t not talk about my personal friend Dana K. White from a slob comes clean. When I first started my journey, I was reading her blog. Except I didn’t know her name back then cuz she went by Noni, short for anonymous. She was so embarrassed by the mess. She didn’t want anyone to know her. She was just blogging her journey. And I realized like, holy doodles, I’m not alone because when you’re messy, it’s like a secret. It’s a dirty secret that you don’t want anyone to know. And I thought that everyone else had their life under control. And I was somehow different except I could relate to Dana or Noni at the time. and I was reading her blog and we were doing this journey at the same time and I felt seen and she came up with incredible concepts like the container concept. >> Containers are meant to serve as limits. Um they help me determine how much I can keep. I can keep anything. I just can’t keep everything. So if I put my favorite things in first, anything that doesn’t fit then has to go because that’s the reality of the space. It’s not that I’m saying this item doesn’t have value. I’m saying, does it deserve space in my container over other things that need to be in my container? >> She also invented the no mess decluttering method, which is what we use today in Take Your House Back. It is so life-changing. And my favorite part is the take it there now concept. >> I actually have a spot for school supplies. So, I’m going to go put these things right now into the spot where school supplies goes. >> No one would look for this here because I don’t wear camo caps. This is not mine. Where would we look for it first? on the bed post by his side of the bed. So, that’s what I’m going to do. Go take it there right now. Her book, Decluttering at the Speed of Life, has changed millions of people, and I’m so proud to say she’s a very good friend of mine. I love her to pieces. And obviously, if you haven’t heard of her, what the heck are you waiting for? I’m going to put a link to Dana down below. But yeah, she’s an OG and a pioneer of just like taking back control of our home and our life. And last but not least, when we’re talking about the OGs in the decluttering world, I can’t not mention Karen Kingston. Karen Kingston was basically Marie Condo before Marie Condo. She is the first person who made the connection between your home and your energy levels and how you feel about yourself, how you show up in the world. She is the person who linked fune and had gratitude as you declutter. The whole does it spark joy? This is all basically the exact same concept as Marie Condo except Karen did it in the early ‘9s. The two things that really stood out to me from reading Karen Kingston’s books when I was younger was one, your clutter is a reflection of your emotional state and that it goes both ways. So if you’re feeling chaotic and stressed, your home will look that way. but also if you get your home under control, it will reflect back to you a calm and a peace even if you’re not feeling that. So that was really lifechanging. The other thing Karen really pioneered is that your bedroom is sacred. It is the most important room in your house. And when your bedroom is under control, the rest of your life will feel under control. And I’m just so grateful for her for those messages. Now, let’s talk about some of the OGs in the organizing world. And I have to start with literally the original, Stephanie Winston. She is driving up here on her mobility scooter like, “Get out of the way. I’m the one who made this cool.” And she did. She wrote her first book in the ‘ 70s, and home organization was not even a thing. She pioneered it, quite literally. She legitimized the concept of home organizing. She taught us that it’s not about what it looks like. It’s about creating function and saving time. She gave us steps to literally make every aspect of our life easier. And she did that like back in the day, my friends. She is like, “Og o.” Stephanie passed away 2 years ago. But I will forever be grateful for her amazing contributions. She literally taught us that function comes first. that let’s make a home that works for you. Not about what other people have, not about what it looks like, but it’s all about is it practical and does it make your life easier. That was all Stephanie Winston and I am so grateful. I’m going to put a link to some of her books, some of which were New York Times bestsellers in the ‘ 70s for organization, which is crazy pants. She is incredible. Another pioneer of organization was Julie Morgan Stern. She was actually the second person I ever read. Of course, I read Peter Walsh’s book on organization first, but then I read her book, Get Organized from the Inside Out, and it was like the space formula, S P A C, which is a very methodical five-step process for digging through any piles and coming out on the other side with a wonderful organized system. You ready? S stands for sort. Pull everything out and just group similar items. Just put like with like. See what you have. P is for purge. Now that things are in their categories, you can see what’s extra, duplicate, obsolete, uh, worn out, faded, don’t need it anymore. And then you get each pile down to just what is still relevant and useful that you use and love. And the next step is a assign assign a home. So take each category and figure out where it’s going to live. And as you go to put things away, you’re going to realize, hey, containers would be really handy right now to keep my categories separated. The last step of the space formula is equalize. E for equalize, which is how you maintain your system. You want to keep your system up to date. So do daily maintenance to put everything back in its home ready for its next use. And once a year, you want to do a big decluttering, reorganizing to get rid of the old, make homes for the new, relabel your categories if they’ve changed a little, and keep your system current with who you are and what you want and what you’re doing right now. The space formula for organizing anything. It was like revolutionary. And I think this is also what we all still do to this day. We empty everything out and we make lots of piles. And while it works for a lot of people, it doesn’t work for everyone. But that’s not the point. The point is she gave us a road map. She taught us the foundations of how to actually organize a space. Go Julie. Now, let’s talk about the cleaning pioneers. And we’re going to start with Fly Lady because Fly Lady had such an insane impact on millions of women and people’s lives when it came to making having a clean house doable and practical. She was like coming at us with real life tips and advice every single day. Now, don’t fool yourself into thinking you can have a yard sale and recoup your wasted money. There’s no way you’re getting back what you’ve spent, and the clutter won’t be gone for your stress-free holidays. Santa isn’t going to take your clutter away. You’ve got to do it for yourself. >> Her book, Sync Reflections, was like revolutionary at the time. It was simple. It was a real approach. And the idea of every night, no matter what, if you do nothing else, just shine your sink. Seriously, that small step was changing lives. Fly lady’s whole philosophy is about small, easy habits, like baby steps, tiny little things that you can improve upon. And that was a concept no one really talked about before. It was always like, why is this hard for you? Just vacuum your house. But for some of us, it really was hard. But Fly Lady made it easy. We’re going to do this in baby steps, 15 minutes at a time. When you do your 27 fling boogie tomorrow, instead of putting things in a box, put them in a garbage bag. Then put it right in the trash. Don’t go through the bag thinking I should keep this or I might need this one day. Get rid of it. Do it every day until the clutter is gone. >> Have you ever heard of Don Alett? This guy is hilarious. Okay, not only is he giving real life cleaning tips, but he’s also the original Shamwow guy. >> If you’re not using a microfiber mop from Cleaning Center, you’re probably just spreading dirt around. Professionals use microfiber mop pads because the split fibers don’t just clean dirt, they pick it up and carry it away. >> He came up with like new revolutionary ideas. >> First thing we do, you get to the floor, you grab your spray bottle, you got it diluted. Then you get your microfiber pad, put it on there like that, you’re ready to mop. That’s how simple doing floors can be. No mop bucket, no residue, nothing to worry about your floor. It’s completely done. It’s easy. It’s fast. Okay, folks. It’s floor cleaning time. Is it this or this? By golly, it’s your choice. >> So, I don’t know if Don invented this like spray mop, but my mind is blown because seriously, I am addicted to mine. It saves me hours. And I am just so grateful for Dawn for pioneering hacks and simplifying and creating tools to literally make your house still crazy clean but in a fraction of the time. Basically, Don’s whole thing was working smarter, not harder. He was the OG cleaning hack, except instead of people using shaving cream on TikTok, but doesn’t work and it’s crazy expensive, he had real advice that actually worked. There was a study that showed that the average woman walked around 20 miles a day doing housework and related housework. I bet you could believe that, couldn’t you? One of the reasons is because her stuff is spread all over. Isn’t this a great idea? Find a place like this and a nice convenient hanger to do that right under your sink so you have everything right where you need it. Biggest principal clean is a threeletter word called now. N O W. You make your bed now or you clean the hot cake dough off the top of thing now. It takes you about 3 seconds to do it. You wait till afternoon or wait till Saturday morning. Take you 10 minutes. Plus, you’re scrubbing, you’re wearing out stuff. You’re using a lot of clean and everything. So now is the big thing. If a little does well, a lot does better. Wrong. Actually, the more you use, the worse it does. So in a whole bucket of water, a dollar’s worth of joy will clean your windows for the rest of your life. Looking at a couple of you, 50 cents will do. >> Now it’s time for the decorators, the people who made making a home beautiful, like attainable. And we have to start with Martha Freaking Stewart because what? She’s extra. Yeah. But she made home management cool. and she started her business in her 50s, which is another testament to it’s never too late to do something you love. It’s never too late to start a business. I just see her as an absolute icon. >> And you can use a if you want to make a uniform, you could use that. >> Do you do that ever or not? >> That’s why you’re Martha Stewart and I’m not. >> Not only did she teach us the basics of decorating and entertaining and cooking and baking, but she also showed us how to elevate it. She was like ah the gold star we were all striving towards and most of us can’t reach Martha Stewart level but we get a little closer because of her. She literally pioneered home management and made it so much more than just your grandma’s cookies. She took it to the next level and for that I am grateful. >> Another way to make your kitchen unique is to create combinations of wood grain texture and smooth cabinetry. You can mix up the cabinet finishes any way you like and add matching interiors for a more personalized look. >> Who else used to watch Nate Burkus? Nate Burkus. I watched him I think I feel like first on Oprah and then I was just completely hooked. Nate made interior decorating feel approachable. He took it from this thing that you see in magazines or something that felt really intimidating or you had to have a lot of money for and he was like, “No, you can do it too with the things you have in your home.” and he explained it in a way no one else ever did. >> I think our home should represent not only who we are now, but also where we’ve been. And I think most importantly, who we aspire to be. One of my tenants of good design is make it personal. Embrace history. Like, let’s just let’s be honest about who we are. >> Let’s not worry about what other people think is fancy. That’s the kiss of death. >> And then let’s create spaces that really rise up to greet us. He taught us how to mix the old and the new and how to make a home feel beautiful and a reflection of us. Yeah, Nate’s pretty amazing. So, here is some of my favorite words of wisdom from Nate Burkus. >> Design is very much like fashion where if you think about it, people will give you advice all the time. This is the hot color. This is the new trend. You and you feel bad if you didn’t have red because red’s in every magazine or on every television show. But the truth is is that if you don’t like red, you shouldn’t be living with it. It doesn’t matter what somebody says. And design, even though there’s great things at very affordable prices, and you can have fun and experiment without spending a lot of money. >> The bigger pieces and those major things that you’re investing in in your home, should be the best quality you can afford. They should last, and they should be true to your spirit and personality. >> I agree. >> Period. The end. A room needs to feel layered and assembled over time. Even if you want it done that weekend and you’re running around to all the stores and everything >> to look curated, >> you want it Exactly. And the best way to do that, the easiest way to do that is to add in different textures and different layers. So, >> no matchy matchy. >> No, skip it. >> Have you ever heard of Emily Henderson? She was like my first introduction to just making your house beautiful. She was on HGTV and I read her blog. And while I was making that transformation from my house is a total disaster and I’m a mess to where I am today where I love my space, I needed her. I needed people like her. So Sarah Richardson was another person that I was obsessed with and Debbie Travis because I had never even thought about how to make my home beautiful. I just was focusing on how to get the dishes done right at the end of the night. But Emily literally taught us how to build a space from the ground up. The importance of having rugs and curtains and the trick of hanging the rod a little higher and adding color and texture. Yeah, she was a pioneer. As long as you have a consistent color palette, you can mix any styles together. And it doesn’t matter how much of that style you’re putting into your home. If you don’t stick within a cohesive color palette and you are just adding and adding and adding different styles, different patterns, different like it’s just going to look either messy um like junky or crazy. And Sarah Richardson, my first time ever making over my bedroom, I followed her whole love of soft blues and whites and patterns and adding that pop of green apple green. Yeah, I loved that bedroom and I directly copied Sarah Richardson. It was the first time in my life that I felt proud of a space. And I was decorating and walking into a space like, “Ah, this feels amazing.” And it was those OG pioneers of interior decorating that gave me the courage and the knowledge and the information to make that happen. Underscaled bedside lights are a common decorating mishap, but it’s easy to avoid. If you’ve got a king-size bed, you need a light fixture that has a decent scale. You needed to have some magnitude. Make sure that you don’t end up with something that gets dwarfed by your large bed. >> None of the experts and none of these pioneers were selling perfection. They were selling solutions. They were showing us stepbystep how to make our home a priority without it feeling like a lot of work and a lot of pressure. They weren’t after likes. They weren’t going for clicks. They taught us something sacred. Your home isn’t a moral scorecard. It’s a tool. A tool that’s supposed to empower you and make life easier and be this place to recharge at the end of a busy day, not be a part-time job to maintain. So, thank you. Thank you to those teachers that showed us that maintaining a home is doable and that caring for a home is actually caring for ourselves. They inspired us. They taught us and they changed our lives in lasting ways that social media today just doesn’t do. So, let me know in the comments below who changed your life and home. If you have like an OG teacher or a pioneer that really had an impact that you still feel to this day, let’s celebrate them. Let’s give them the shout out and the credit that they deserve. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe because I have lots more incredible videos coming soon. We’ll see you guys next time. Thank you guys so much for those of you who have stayed to the end. I am like week two into a 30-day challenge. It’s called Operation Adult where I’m literally doing things that I think adults should do like getting up at the same time and drinking more water. How’s it going? Not great. I decided to start this journey the week I went on vacation. Somewhere in my brain, I thought an all-inclusive resort in Mexico would be like a spa health retreat and that I wouldn’t overindulge in the endless buffet of desserts and that somehow I would work out in the gym even though I’ve not worked out in a gym my entire life. Why am I going to do it on vacation? The point is I was struggling but I’m back in the game, man. So stay tuned to that video. It’s coming out soon where I show you like did it actually make a difference? Was I able to stick with it? Also, I’m curious if you are able to stick with your challenges. Like I’m doing you’re holding me accountable, right? I feel like I need an accountability buddy, but also I’m not great at challenges. I’m really not. And and I can’t really do an all or nothing thing. So, if you got any helpful advice for me, that’d be real amazing. Let me know if if you can do it and if so, how in the comments below.