Everyone says this, but trust us, it’s crucial. Making your bed every day is more than just a chore. When you make your bed as soon as you wake up, you start the day on your own terms.

While this is important for your physical health and cleanliness, it’s also good for your mental health. You are setting the pace for the rest of your day, just by taking the time to straighten your covers. We often feel overwhelmed by all the things we have to do in a single day, so getting one thing done well is a victory.

Plus, the process of making your bed only takes a few minutes. No matter how busy you are, you can probably spare 5 minutes to fluff your pillows and straighten the sheets. If nothing else works out as planned today, at least you have a nicely made bed when you go to sleep later that night!

Another tip that goes hand-in-hand with this is: Prioritise.

Don’t try to do it all at once.

After you make your bed and do your morning routine, make a list of all the cleaning you would like to do. Because time is limited on weekdays, write down 2 to 3 realistic cleaning goals. In Psychology, this is referred to as Expectancy Theory.

Basically, it goes like this: We judge tasks based on how hard we expect them to be. When you write down 10—or worse, 20—tasks, you expect it to take a lot of work. So, in response, you’ll avoid them all. Instead, write down achievable goals, and you’ll expect them to be easier, which makes them easier to do.

Let’s say you decided to go with the following:

• Take out trash when you leave this morning
• Do a load of laundry before preparing dinner
• Wipe down your bathroom sink

These are small but realistic goals you can easily do in a day. Narrow down a long list of chores by prioritising and doing just a few things each day.