Spring Cleaning - The Martha Stewart Way

Martha Stewart was invited on the Today show last week to offer her Spring cleaning tips, direct from the pages of her best-selling book, Martha Stewart's Homemaking Handbook: The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home. With this latest book from Martha, you more than get your money's worth. It's packed with "ways to create, maintain and clean a home and every room in it, from the basement to the attic." Below are six tips that Martha offered on Today to keep your home chaos-free.

Make the Bed
Tidiness begets tidiness. A crisply made bed makes the whole room seem more orderly, which makes it less likely that you'll let other things - such as clothes and papers - pile up around it.

Manage Clutter
Whenever you leave a room, take a quick look around for anything that isn't where it should be. Pick it up and put it where it belongs. Insist that everyone in the household do the same.

Wipe Up Spills While They're Fresh
Whether it's tomato sauce on the cooktop or makeup on the bathroom counter, almost anything is faster and easier to remove if you attend to it immediately.

Clean as You Cook
Instead of filling the sink with pots and dishes, wash them or put them in the dishwasher as you prepare a meal.

Sort the Mail
Take a few minutes to open, read, and sort mail as soon as you bring it inside. Keep a trash bin near your sorting area for junk mail. Drop other mail into one of four in-boxes: personal correspondence, bills, catalogs, and filing.

Sweep the Kitchen Floor
Every evening once you've finished washing up after dinner, sweep the floor. This will keep tough-to-clean dirt and grime from building up, which will make the weekly mopping much quicker.