Housework and cleaning often aren’t at the top of the list of the best ways to spend your day. Getting it done quickly and easily leaves plenty of time for more fun activities, so you can have a lovely tidy house all the time, without feeling like a skivvy or making life a drudge.
Here are some top tips:
Daily Quick Blitz
You could do the whole house, but if you have an especially large home just concentrate on the high traffic areas such as living room and kitchen. Spend a few minutes each day putting things away, returning items to where they belong and throwing away the rubbish.
If you struggle to find homes for some items, maybe you have more possessions than you do storage space. Consider renting a self storage room for items you don’t use every day but want to keep, including storing precious collectables which spend most of their time tucked away in cupboards and drawers, taking up space.
A quick daily blitz on the clutter will keep surfaces clear and make your home feel instantly tidier.
Morning Routines
Take a few minutes every morning after breakfast to wipe down the surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom. Microfibre cloths are brilliant for quickly polishing and drying shiny surfaces, and done regularly dust or grime won’t build up so the job is always quick and easy.
For quick daily dusting, use a feather or microfibre duster. You can flick across all the surfaces in a room in no time, plus get into corners and around light fittings.
Speedy Vacuuming
If you can, get a good quality cordless vacuum cleaner so you can whizz through the high traffic areas without worrying about trailing cords or switching between plug sockets. Put the focus on living areas, hallways, and entrances in a daily routine. You can worry about bedrooms and other private areas another time. It’s the high traffic and more public areas that can be most annoying or slightly embarrassing if you have unexpected visitors. A few minutes of efficient vacuuming prevents dirt building up, so rooms and carpets feel and look fresher.
Deeper Cleaning
Quick cleaning is great for keeping the house tidy and neat-looking, but every so often you need to get a bit tougher and tackle the bigger jobs such as cleaning windows, polishing furniture, cleaning larger appliances like the oven and giving bathrooms and toilets a good scrub.
It helps to have a routine for the bigger jobs, whether you tackle them on a weekly basis or, for some, go monthly. You could earmark certain jobs for certain days of the week, such as polishing on a Wednesday or oven cleaning on Mondays if you like to do a lot of cooking over the weekend. If time is limited, just do one of the bigger jobs each week, rotating the schedule so you get through all the tasks.
Laundry Duties
Keeping the whole family in clean clothes can mean a never-ending date with the washing machine. Even if you need to tackle laundry every day, it can help if you have specific laundry routines and don’t let one part of the task pile up.
Make it a rule that clothing gets folded as soon as it’s dry, then taken upstairs and put away as soon as it’s folded and ironed. If you hate ironing, you might find it easier to invest in a garment steamer. They work pretty well and mean you don’t have to get the ironing board out all the time. Keep one upstairs to sort out clothes that become rumpled or creased in the closet.
If clothes are getting crushed in the wardrobe, that’s another reason to think about using a self storage unit. Many people use them seasonally, so they only have clothes for the current season in their closet and items can hang freely.
Another tactic is to have separate laundry baskets for colours and whites, so family members can pre-sort their own laundry.
Last Thing Tidy-ups
Before you go to bed, have a quick tidy round in living rooms and the kitchen. Put stray mugs or plates in the dishwasher so the sink is clear, and plump up the cushions on the sofa and chairs in the living room. It makes these two rooms much more welcoming in the morning since they appear fresh and ready for the new day.
Keeping a super-tidy home is achievable once you have some routines in place and stick with them. A small job is a quick job, and as a bonus it won’t make a huge difference if you miss the odd day. By keeping up on the other days you can take time off and still keep a super-tidy, lovely-to-be-in, home.