Cleaning may feel as if it is a dreaded chore to be avoided until you don’t have any choice left but to clean. This, however, doesn’t need to be the case.
Cleaning may feel as if it is a dreaded chore to be avoided until you don’t have any choice left but to clean. This, however, doesn’t need to be the case. There are tips and hacks that can make the process easier—various methods may work depending on your routine, schedule and household dynamics. Here are some cleaning and organizing tips that may work for you:
Hire Help
One of the tips to keep a house clean is to get help. Perhaps you spend the day at work, meaning you leave the house early in the morning and return late in the evening. This may mean that you have neither the time nor the energy to clean the house. Or, you may be working from home or caring for your children during the day, making cleaning the house difficult. Regardless of your unique routine, you may need to hire cleaning help to take care of it for you, allowing you to take the time you need for your responsibilities without worrying about the state of your home.
Make Your Bed
Making your bed is another way to give your home an organized appearance. Leaving blankets untidy and askew contributes to the untidy appearance of your house. If you try making your bed as soon as you get up, you may enjoy your space more and feel like it is neater and more organized, which will motivate you to organize more of your home.
Open All Windows
The ambiance of a home is also determined by the quality of air in the house. If your space is stuffy and humid, you might not enjoy the space regardless of how tidy it may appear. You should open your windows before you get ready for your day to invite the fresh morning air into your space as you go about your morning routine. You can then close these when you leave the house for the day, and reopen them when you come home. This also allows you to vent out any chemical fumes from cleaning products when you deep clean your home.
Clean as You Go
Cleaning as you go means cleaning the house as mess occurs or as you notice it. For example, when you prepare a meal in the kitchen, you can make a habit of cleaning as you cook. As you wait for the timer to indicate that a dish is ready, you can clean the dishes that piled up as you prepared it. This is easier in the long run than waiting to clean all of the dishes at once after the meal has been dished and served. The pile of dishes that will need cleaning after the meal may be disheartening, but doing it a bit at a time means you will have less to do at the end and have more space in your sink when you clean each round of dishes.
Another example of cleaning as you go is to clean the bathroom sink after you have washed your face or brushed your teeth. Waiting to clean the sink on a particular day means that residue and grime will only pile up, making it more difficult to clean when you get around to it. Simply wiping down the sink after use will save you from cleaning time and effort.
Make Your House Shiny
A house with shiny surfaces gives the impression that the house was thoroughly cleaned that day, even when it wasn’t. There are easy ways to buff your surfaces, such as lightly applying olive oil or lavender oil. You can also make the surfaces in your bathroom shine by regularly cleaning with baking soda and vinegar. When you wipe the sink surfaces after use, you will notice the regular shine.
Create a Schedule
Creating a cleaning schedule may help you to avoid feeling overwhelmed and anxious about tidying your space. A schedule helps you to clean in bite-sized chunks rather than plan for one huge cleaning spree that may leave you stressed and disappointed if you can’t accomplish all duties. Your schedule means you can compartmentalize different parts of the house, which makes it a more manageable task.
You can set days and times that you allocate to cleaning different parts of your house. An example of a schedule is that each day of the week is set aside for: the floors and surfaces, windows, cabinet interiors, bathroom and kitchen bassinets, the exterior, wardrobe closet, and patio. The schedule doesn’t have to be fixed—however, it will help with categorizing and prioritizing. You may find that if you regularly clean as you go, you won’t spend much time cleaning each time you tidy up as the house will be generally clean.
Set a Timer
You may find that on some days you aren’t able to follow the schedule. The truth is that, as much as you may want your house to always be tidy, duties and demands may not make this feasible every day. On the days that you are unable to clean as intended, you can set a timer where you do a general sweep of the house.
For example, you can target the untidiest spaces and set a fifteen-minute timer that you clean. Once the timer is up, you leave the cleaning chores for the next day as you prioritize your other demands and mandates. For example, if the kitchen is the eyesore on that day, the fifteen minutes may be allocated to clearing the sink. The next time that you set can mean clearing the countertops and sweeping the floor. Setting a timer means you are still prioritizing your duties while cleaning your house in bite-size periods.
De-Clutter Your Home
Clutter contributes to the untidiness of your home. One way that your home becomes cluttered is by keeping items that you no longer need. For example, if you have clothes that you no longer need but are taking up closet space, you may consider giving away some of the clothes to create a tidy space. If your lounge has become a storage space for broken-down furniture pieces, you may consider taking the pieces in for recycling or repurposing. Here are pointers to how you can de-clutter your house.
Fill a Trash Bag
Some of the clutter in your house may need to be thrown into the trash. Items such as old receipts, paper, plastic, and rugged cloths may be stored in different parts of the house. As you clean you can fill up a trash bag and toss it after your cleaning session.
Donate
As you sort your space, you can create piles that will go to donation. The items that can go into this pile are clothes that you no longer wear, kitchenware that you don’t use, and furniture such as chairs that may have stacked in the basement that you no longer need. Donating not only de-clutters your house, but also makes you feel good for helping those in need.
Re-shuffle Furniture
In some cases, your space may seem cluttered because of the way your furniture is organized in the house. Depending on your floor plan and traffic in the house, you may want to consider re-shuffling various furniture pieces. The more open space for traffic in certain rooms such as the lounge, the less cluttered your house may appear.
Place Corner Baskets
Placing baskets in the corner of a room means random items that are usually left lying on the floor can be quickly picked up and thrown in the basket. Instead of allocating a chunk of your time while you are busy to place each item where it belongs, you can simply throw these in the corner baskets for later packing.
This works particularly well if you have children. You can train your children to make use of the corner baskets if they aren’t old enough to put away the items in their exact places.
Everyone Should Participate
If you don’t live alone, cleaning should be delegated to every household member that is able to participate. You can create a chore chart that shows a specific member performing particular duties on a certain day. You can also create a cleaning hour where every member picks a number of chores to execute from a list.
Together, you can turn cleaning into a fun game so that it doesn’t feel too much as a laborious chore. You can clean while singing along to a song or engage in interesting discussions. The cleaning hour will be over before anyone notices and may even extend to more than an hour!
Conclusion
Some of the ways that you can keep a house clean include: getting help, making the bed, and opening the windows when you wake up for fresh air. Cleaning as you go also helps to avoid getting overwhelmed by many tasks at once. Creating a schedule and setting a cleaning timer also helps with this dynamic.
You can also de-clutter your home by throwing away collected waste, donating items, and re-shuffling furniture in your house. You can also place corner baskets in every room so that random items are thrown in here for your organizing when you have the time. Shiny surfaces also give the impression that the house is clean.
It is also important that every able household member participates in keeping the house clean and organized. Finding creative and fun ways of cleaning together is one way to get started and keep the momentum going.