Keeping Tidy: Daily Routines For Keeping a Clean Home
Let’s take a quick moment and be honest about something – no one actually enjoys cleaning, despite what people may say. The manual labor element isn’t even the worst part for a lot of people, as they often find themselves stressed out and short on time when they are trying to clean. People are busier today than they ever have been at any point in human history, and with that fact in mind, how and where are people supposed to find the time to clean?
Thankfully, not all hope is lost – in fact, the truth is far from that. Incorporating a couple of simple and easy to implement methods into your daily routine, will help you and your family can save time on cleaning just by managing to be strategic in the way you go about things. People often forget what kind of amazing things they can accomplish in a short period of time when they have a plan involved.
Get the Whole Family Involved
One of the single most important things a person can do, if not the outright most important, is to get the whole family involved with cleaning the house on a weekly basis, with daily little things integrated into the plan as well. Cleaning often feels the worst when there are a ton of things that need to be done at once and no time to do them, as this often leaves people with a feeling of being overwhelmed.
By getting everyone who can clean in the household involved in the process, it does not become an uphill mountain for one or two people to climb on their own. Instead, it becomes a series of small tasks that are far more manageable when assigned to a group, which means everyone gets to spend less overall time cleaning and more time having fun.
Be Happy with “Clean Enough”
This is something that many people struggle with, which is why we put it so high up on our list. A simple fact of life is that, in the process of living in a home or apartment, it is going to reach a certain level of dirty, no matter how clean you and your family generally are as people.
That is why it is important to understand what the difference between functional clean and obsessive clean is. If things are not dirty or in need of repair, then be content with them and leave them as they already are – there is no need to drive yourself crazy and waste time obsessively cleaning.
Focus on High Traffic Areas
One thing you and your family should definitely focus on is mapping out which areas need more attention in terms of cleaning. Places like the kitchen and bathroom are places people not only use frequently, but are more likely to be breeding grounds for germs. As such, those are going to be the exactly areas you want to pay the most attention to, while spending less time in less traffic areas.
Keep Cleaning Supplies Close at Hand
Make sure you are always fully stocked when it comes to having cleaning supplies around the house or apartment. To help with this, have one person whose job it is to make sure, on a weekly basis, that the house or apartment has the cleaning supplies needed. If not, they should notify the person who buys those things around the house.
Pre-sort the Laundry
In order to make laundry a much more efficient process, sort out your loads by color and how heavily soiled they are. That way, you will not spend time having to do two to three loads of laundry when you could have only done one the first time around.
Clean As You Go
One of the easiest ways to prevent a large amount of clutter from piling up around your apartment or home at one time is to simply clean as you go. The more you clean as you go, the less likely you are to have larger problems to solve later on in the week.
Keep an Eye on the Clutter
Be sure to take notice around your home or apartment, on a regular basis, of the areas that are suddenly becoming cluttered. By doing this, you’ll know where you need to focus most of your attention.
Set 20 Minutes Aside Each Day to Tidy
If you take just twenty minutes each day to tidy up around your home or apartment, you would be amazed at how much you can get done and how little you actually have to clean by the time the end of the week rolls around.
Meta: By integrating just a couple of daily habits into your cleaning routine, you will find that it is so much easier to keep your home or apartment clean regularly.