I have gone from being a complete and total slob to being generally neat by doing five-minute cleans. Every day, I would set a timer and tell myself I had to clean for exactly five minutes. It didn't matter what in my apartment I chose to clean that day, as long as I cleaned. I also found that starting to clean regularly motivated me to keep things cleaner in my day-to-day living, since, well, I didn't want to undo the work I had put in more than necessary. Now that I'm more in the habit, I might do ten minutes every other day or something other than cleaning every single day, but I still find that setting the timer and knowing I can stop when it goes off helps me to start.