When it seems like you’re spending all of your free time cleaning in your home just to stay on top of things and keep your house looking tidy, it may be time to do things differently. A lot of us feel like we can never keep up with the constant mess in the house and like we’re always trying to scrub something, sweep something, or dust something.
If that’s you, then I want to share some tips with you that will help you keep a clean home but not spend as much time cleaning.
Clean as You Go
Have you heard this one before? It’s a common bit of advice for people who want cleaner homes. If you do a little cleaning every time you pass through a room, it adds up. You won’t have to spend as much dedicated time cleaning each week if you’re tidying as you go.
Here’s how this works. As you are cooking in the kitchen, you can also do the dishes while something is warming on the stove. You can wipe down the counters as soon as you’re done using them and keep a tidy kitchen as you’re working. When you come into the house, you can put your shoes away and organize the other shoes that are not where they ought to be. If you walk into your bedroom to get something, you can put a couple things in their place that might not be organized properly. Little things like this really do add up and make a difference. If you develop this kind of habit in your daily life, you may not even need to set apart time to clean most days.
Organize at the Door
A lot of the time you spend cleaning each day can be saved by simply developing tidy habits for when you enter your home. If you take your shoes off at the door and have a dedicated shoe rack for them, you won’t be tracking as much stuff into the house. A lot of the dirt and dust you normally have to sweep up will be left outside. This is especially important during times of the year when it’s rainy, as you could easily track in water and mud that are more difficult to clean up and that can lead to larger cleaning problems. You could have a dedicated shoe rack out the door as well as hooks for jackets and even handbags. This will keep you from putting things down wherever you may happen to be and keep your home looking tidier.
You should also have a dedicated spot for your keys, wallet, and anything else you might take out of your pockets as you come into the door. You can hang key hooks by the door so that you always know where to find them. Having an organized, dedicated spot for each item makes it easier to find what you’re looking for as well. How many times have you made a mess of your house looking for something you lost? You’re saving yourself some cleaning right there by being more organized at the doorway.
Create Extra Storage Space
Are you always tidying up after other family members because they’re not putting things where they go? Maybe there’s not a dedicated spot for each item in your home to be placed or simply not a convenient storage spot. If people use items in one room but have to store them in another, they are less likely to put that item where it goes when they are finished with it. If you create extra storage space throughout the house, you’re more likely to find things where they’re supposed to be. You can add shelves, bins, racks, and hooks throughout the house that are designed to be dedicated storage locations for certain items. Then, just let your family members know where each item goes with these new storage spaces. You shouldn’t have to spend quite as much time tidying up each week if you make these changes.
Hire a Cleaning Service
When you don’t have the time or the energy to clean in your home for yourself, you can always hire a cleaning service to do all the tidying up that has to be done. Professional cleaners can sweep, scrub, vacuum, mop, wipe down surfaces, and sanitize so that you don’t have to. There won’t always be time in your busy schedule to do the cleaning you would like to, and professional cleaners can often do a better job. They’ll take a lot of the stress off of you and can give you wonderful results so you feel great about the way your home looks, smells, and feels when they are done. We recommend that you make an appointment with this cleaning service.
Do Less Laundry
How much time do you spend each week doing laundry? Does it seem like there’s an endless pile of clothes and towels that need to be washed? What a lot of people do is reuse some of the same items instead of washing them after every use. That may sound grungy, but hear me out. You don’t have to wash your towels after every use. Bath towels should be clean after you dry yourself off, if you’re cleaning yourself well enough in the shower. Simply cleaning these once a week will keep them from getting too musty, as they will fill with water from repeated use. You can also reuse jeans a couple days in a row. Your legs probably don’t sweat as much as the as the rest of your body, and jeans are really good at repelling dirt and other debris. They don’t absorb sweat and various odors as much as other materials would. So, they’ll probably still smell okay for a couple days. See how much time and energy you save in your laundry by not washing everything after one use.
If you follow these tips, you shouldn’t have to spend as much time cleaning each week, and you should still have a tidy, beautiful looking home.