My best trick, when someone calls and says that they're on their way over is to put everything that's out of place (laying around on every horizontal surface) into either a paper food shop bag or a plastic laundry basket and hide it in a closet. Then, someday, real soon, I go through the bags and put stuff away. Can't figure out why the house has to be in such chaos all of the time. One time I stuffed the mail in the trunk of my car and forgot about it. That was over 30 years ago and I'm still being reminded of it.........