Cleaning your home. If you get home from work or wake up early on the weekend with a smile on your face anticipating it, this post is definitely not for you. But if you’re like most of us, read on. We’ve put together five of our most effective strategies to take the chore out of cleaning.
Tidy as you go: The longer you wait, the bigger your cleanup will be, so don’t procrastinate. Get in the habit of cleaning as you go. Give your bathroom sink a quick rinse with soap and a sponge every night, after you wash your face and brush your teeth. Squeegee your shower tiles and curtain or glass door after you shower. Load the dishwasher after every meal instead of piling dishes in the sink. You may find doing these things an inconvenience at first, but it only takes a few seconds and once you get in the habit, it’ll save you from major cleaning later on.
Smartphone scheduling: Tidying as you go doesn’t work for everything of course. You probably don’t want to vacuum or clean your windows every day, and you’re still going to have to scour the kitchen and bathroom periodically. That’s okay. For big cleaning projects, schedule them on your smartphone. For instance, a half hour every Tuesday (or whenever), to run your vacuum, sweep and mop your floors. Or an hour every four months to wash your windows.
Divide and conquer: Sometimes what fills us with dread the most is the size of the cleaning task at hand. But who says you have to do it all at once? Choose a room like your bathroom and tackle that. If you feel inspired, tackle another one. If you don’t tackle the next room in a couple of days.
Streamline: Let’s face it, many of us hoard more knick-knacks than we need and the more we have, the more dusting and straightening out there is. Every time you clean a room, resolve to fill a box or trash bag with items you no longer use, then drop them off at your local community donation center.
Don’t do it alone: If you live with a spouse and/or children, everyone has a responsibility to keep your place clean. Make sure they do! If you live by yourself, assemble a cleaning club, three to five likeminded friends and have everyone tackle someone’s home once a month.
Some other useful housecleaning tips:
- Take off your shoes when you come home it’ll keep your floors cleaner longer
- Rather than piling them up, hang and fold clothes as soon as you take them off
- Wipe down surfaces and put away your cooking utensils while you’re cooking
- Use a portable vacuum to clean up crumbs on your sofa or hair on your bathroom floor while dinner is in the oven
How do you get motivated to clean your home? Please share your own tips and strategies in the Shop Talk Blog community forum!
Did you know: Cleaning is exercising
Cleaning isn’t just great for your home, it’s pretty good for your health too. Tidying up for 30 minutes, vacuuming for an hour, or washing your windows burns about 100 calories. (Source)
I have a lot of glass top tables, windows and curio cabinets with glass doors. I find it difficult to keep them looking clean with no streaking. I tried everything. I finally discovered Witch Hazel. I put some on a corner of a wash cloth. It cleans the glass so well. It makes the glass look fabulous.
Taking shoes off at the front door is a start.
Come Saturday am, put some of your old favorites in the CD player and turn up the volume and rock on. You’ll find the chores are done in no time.
And I agree that if you pick up after yourself every night before heading off to bed lightens up weekly cleaning on weekend. Also, I keep a town in the shower area for drying to dry the show, it’s actually faster than a squeeze and leaves no streaks. Then as you finish up washing face, brushing teeth, makeup, hair, etc., keep another towel under sink to wipe down mirror, counter and sink. If you make a habit of this it takes maybe two minutes in all, and your weekend chores are very minimum.
Same with the kitchen. Make a habit of putting your dishes in the dishwasher, and wipe up after yourself.
Save the dusting and vacuuming for Saturday and rock on. And by the way, I’m 65 years old. The music keeps you young at heart and speeds the job along.
I returned to work 2 yrs ago after being retired for 12 years. I have the honor of raising 4 kids, 2-grandkids, 1-great nephew, and the baby, (I tell her I found her in the cabbage patch) she’s attached by the heart-no blood, my husband passed away last year and we’ve all been in a funk, I over-work to try to make ends meet, when I come home I’m exhausted and I’m 68 yrs old which doesn’t help and my health could be better. I understand the theory behind what you say but I can’t seem to muster the strength to “get-r-done” It’s driving me crazy and I can’t ask anyone to come in to help because no-one would know where to start. Any ideas to help me get this done?
Respectfully,
The Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe
If you keep outside your entrance door clean I hose
my patio twice a week and I put a big thick towel at the front door so they can wipe their feet some people get upset when you asked them to remove their shoes so that’s how I keep my floors clean for months. Twice a day I shake out the towel and I have Chihuahua and she sheds and you won’t find a hair in my house. I also make sure she has an outfit on all the time to help with the shedding.
WE always take our shoes off at the door. I try and pick up on the “run”.
So true housework is exceedingly a work out turn some music on and try a couple new dance step in between vacuuming rooms lol
Everything you have mentioned is how I keep the house ship-shape.
If you do your dishes, make your bed and pick up your living room your house always looks in decent shape. While cooking I always do the dishes as I go and that way there isn’t much to clean up when I am done. When our children were young, every Saturday morning was cleaning day. I put on my old vinyl albums, Creedence, Woodstock etc and while we all danced and sang we got the housework done. Great memories for all of us!!
Hire a maid like I did
Just wanted to say that I read the 5-starategies to making housecleaning less of a chore. I really liked when you said to not think of it as a chore, but exercise because that is what I do. I am single and live alone, therefore I really don’t have to clean my house everyday, that is outside of maybe basic stuff like dusting or sweeping. And when I do my chores, I enjoy it because I am a neat freak, What I like to do is listen to music and that will get your adrenals flowing and the music will keep you boosted and inspired, that before you know it you will be done forgotten all about the time and the chores will be done quickly that you’ll want to clean the whole house before you realize it.
I love this cleaning info. Would like same on organizing the house.
Just never able to get things the way I want or think it should be.
Cleaning, yard work are all good exercise steps to do, up n down steps to do your laundry all of these steps help during your daily routine to keep your wt down
Your doing some stretching with legs, bend like sitting and get up strength back
Sleeping and sitting are not good for you yes we all need rest but sitting all day is not good puts wt on.
Cleaning, yard work are all good exercise steps to do, up n down steps to do your laundry all of these steps help during your daily routine to heep your wt down
Your doing some stretching with legs, bend like sitting and get up strength back
Sleeping and sitting are not good for you yes we all need rest but sitting all day is not good puts wt on.
Thanx needs the tips.
Put on some high octane music like Michael Jackson’s Thriller nothing can beat the beat of Billy Jean to get you moving; many other fast paced music selections.
i clean when my mom goes to work by making it something for me to do and keep busy in mid afternoon. myself lives by that rule too. ilovelovedoctorwho2005
On item #2: for exercising, walk 7.5 minutes from home, turn around and walk back. Who can’t spare 15 minutes a day to exercise?
Item #3: List “drink 8 oz water” eight times and cross them off as you finish each glass…a great habit to get into!!
My husband passed 5 months ago his office is a mess and I don’t know where to start . I don’t know what to do?He paid all the bills and kept all papers. I feel hopeless
So sorry for your loss, did you work? You need to find someone you trust to help you, trust . You need
to get a handle on the bills and your checkbook. You might want to think about hiring an attorney, but you definitely want someone that you can trust.
1.It really helps to turn on a timer to keep yourself focused and on-task. Flylady.net recommends being on task 15 minutes at a time and then resting for 15 minutes. This method worked wonders for me as I tend to be an ADHD cleaner, flitting from one task to another then not finishing any.
2. I used to dread unloading the dishwasher and putting things away until I timed myself. It only took me 8 minutes! No biggie deal from then on, 8 minutes is nothing.
3. MAKE A LIST!! How many times at the end of the day, I didn’t feel like I had accomplished anything. When I made lists and crossed things off, I felt a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. Not just housecleaning, but phone calls that needed to be made, letters mailed, balance checkbooks, etc. I would even write things down on my list that I had done (not originally on the list) so I could cross them off.
enjoyed this