Are you ready for spring cleaning, but feeling overwhelmed? These 5 house-cleaning tips will save you time and energy — and they might even make some chores fun!
1. Buy All the Gear.
You’ve probably heard the expression, “If you fail to plan, then plan to fail.” This applies to anything in life — including house-cleaning — so, take this tip to heart: Before you pick up a speck of dust, make a list of all the gear and products you’ll need.
Take it room by room. No single space requires the same safety equipment, appliances and cleaning products as another. Make a list of items you’ll need to clean just the living room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms and garage.
Think about each space’s unique needs and how to address them, whether that’s with a broom, vacuum cleaner, mop or a just old toothbrush. No one knows the space as you do, and in many cases, you can ‘make do’ with simple cleaning tools.
Also, consider the specific cleaning products and safety gear you’ll need. While it’s tempting to grab popular products — with harsh chemicals — there are many natural cleaning solutions for everyday spills, stains and odors. You’ll also need to plan for safety glasses, gloves and maybe even earplugs, depending on the task.
2. Stock Some Cleaning Caddies.
Purchasing cleaning gear is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, you can stuff a bunch of products in your pantry or garage and forget they’re even there!
And let’s face it: No one feels motivated to perform even the most basic home maintenance if they lack the right tools to do the job, or if they can’t find those tools when they need them.
So, here’s a house-cleaning tip that will help you to get into a convenient routine: stock some cleaning caddies with everything you need when you need it. That way, they’re ready and waiting for you to grab and go!
Now, you can tackle this in one of two different ways. I like having a cleaning caddy for every room. This is the most convenient option because you can purchase everything you need to clean each room and keep a fully stocked caddy in each closet or another nearby location, out of view.
Yes, there’s some additional upfront expense — for all the caddies, the safety glasses and gloves and other items you may need — but that means you’re not running from one room to the next to grab what you need. And some of these items (like safety glasses, or a duster) will last a while.
As for Plan B? You can purchase all the products you need and keep one central cleaning caddy to maintain every room.
To do this, just grab your room-by-room checklist — the same one you took to the grocery store or home center — and fill the caddy with the items you need to clean each space. After you’ve cleaned one room, refer to the checklist, remove any items you don’t need to clean the next room and add any items that you do need.
This option, of course, requires less upfront expense but takes more time because you have to change the caddy’s contents from room to room.
There’s no wrong option — just pick the one that’s right for you and your household budget.
3. Declutter.
Don’t lift a broom or grab a mop before you do one important thing: declutter the room. This house-cleaning tip is important for two reasons.
First, you need to prioritize home maintenance tasks. For example, it doesn’t make sense to scrub a countertop covered with mail, books and groceries. You need to clear that countertop to properly clean and disinfect it.
Second, it’s good to get in the habit of organizing your home so nothing gets out of place — which makes the room harder to maintain and reduces your motivation to clean it.
Here’s the game plan: First, remove any trash or debris — anything you can quickly pick up and throw away — and discard it right away. Next, identify everything in the room that’s out of place and relocate it. So, mail? Filed away in the office. Shoes? In the mudroom. Groceries? In the pantry. Reusable grocery bags? Ditto.
Once you’ve removed everything that doesn’t belong and cleared spaces you know will need scrubbing, it will make it that much easier to clean.
After all, you’re halfway there — the space will look less daunting to maintain, and all you’ll just need to add the finishing touches, like sweeping, vacuuming, mopping and then sanitizing and disinfecting high-touch surfaces.
4. Work Smart.
When it comes to cleaning each room, the same expression with which we started this list: “If you fail to plan, plan to fail.”
To that end, here’s a house-cleaning tip to ensure success every time — and prevent headaches down the line: work smart. In other words, think about each space’s needs and how every action you take in the room will impact another area of that room.
The simplest thing is to think “top to bottom.”
For instance, think about cleaning the kitchen. If you sweep the floors before you brush off the countertops and range, you’ll inevitably have to do double-work as you pick up any crumbs and dust that fall to the floor after tackling those areas.
Newton’s third law of motion — “What goes up must come down” — applies, and that’s why it’s important to start at the top and work your way down in each room.
First, clean out the cabinets and dust them, because anything your duster doesn’t catch will fall to the countertops. Then clean your countertops, because any debris will inevitably fall to the floor. Then sweep and mop your floor because that’s the most logical place to end things!
Of course, your space’s needs will vary. But if you work with the same top-down strategy — to include windows, doors and appliances — you’ll save yourself plenty of time and prevent double work.
5. Delegate Work.
The poet John Donne said, “No man is an island.” That’s true whether you’re a woman or a child, too, and it’s especially apparent when you’re cleaning the house.
For this final house-cleaning tip, remember one word: teamwork.
Cleaning a house is not a one-person job — not if you have family members under the same roof who can help. Tell your family: We’re all in this together, and everyone should do their fair share, whether it’s washing the dishes, sweeping the porches or cleaning the bathrooms.
To that end, go ahead and delegate some tasks. Get the family involved, and you’ll be surprised by how much time you can save when house cleaning becomes a group activity.
For instance, no one likes washing the windows. But that’ll change when you have a partner clean the outside of one window while you clean the same window from the inside. Take it window by window, and you’ll cut this tedious chore’s time in half! (You can even have fun with this chore because while you’re both washing the same window, you can make funny faces at each other!)
You can even delegate this list of house-cleaning tips! For instance, one person can stock the cleaning caddies while the other person declutters the space and preps the room for maintenance. One person can tackle upstairs chores while the other person can tackle downstairs chores.
There’s no wrong way to delegate these tasks — just figure out the combination that works for you, your family and your home’s needs.
These are some of my favorite time-saving house-cleaning tips. What are yours?
Share them in the comments below!
