Cleaning your home can be a tedious and overwhelming task, especially if your home is particularly large or you haven’t cleaned in a while.
Here’s a few tips to minimize the stresses of cleaning and save yourself time in the future:
1. Come up with a system
Cleaning your house will go much faster if you plan out when and where to start. Making a checklist, for example, can speed things along greatly and keep you on task. Checking items off of your list can also be very rewarding. Another idea is to break your house up into sections that can be cleaned together or with the same tool. Consider washing all of your hardwood or tile floors at once, or dusting all furniture on the first floor before moving on to the second. “Chunking” your house can also be coupled with making a checklist.
2. Keep all of your tools together
Keeping important cleaning items together can simplify your cleaning process and make it easier for you to get started. Having everything in one closet or even one basket can save you from running around the house in search of every item you need to start cleaning. Another idea is to go as portable as possible. When buying cleaning supplies, look for items and tools that can all fit in one carrying case. This will simplify the storage of your supplies and give yourself just one thing to grab before you clean.
3. Think about what you need
When cleaning, its understandable to resist throwing something away for fear that you may need it someday. Although complete certainty is unrealistic, you can make reasonable judgements about whether or not you will actually use something in the future. Have you used it regularly in the past 3 months? Is it something used seasonally? Did you forget you had it until just now? Asking yourself questions like these will help you decide whether to save the item or throw it away. Items of personal significance are a little different, and the value of these items is much more subjective. Reducing clutter is important, but you don’t have to throw away old family photos or your grandmother’s necklace in order to do so.
4. Transition to maintenance cleaning
Cleaning can be especially overwhelming if it’s not something you do regularly. Allowing clutter and grime to build up over a long period of time just makes it harder to clean your house in one day or one weekend. If you have let things accumulate in the past, consider sticking to a regular maintenance schedule (after having cleaned your house entirely, of course). Although it may feel like a burden at first, sticking to a schedule can reduce the total amount of time you spend on cleaning in the long run and overall make your cleaning more effective.
Also, recycle! Use recycling as an outlet for unwanted clutter as opposed to just throwing it away. Learn more about recycling here.
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