How to Keep Your House Clean and Tidy
In between our jobs, family and social obligations — and doing anything else besides cleaning — keeping your house clean and tidy may feel like the last thing on your mind after a long day. The good news is that there are so many easy ways to keep your home neat with everything else you have going on. From only keeping items that spark joy for you to having a handy lint remover in every room at home, read on to learn some tips and tricks for keeping your home in order.
1. Clean as You Go
One of the easiest ways to clean your home is to clean as you’re making a mess. For example, if you’re cooking in the kitchen and waiting for the oven or hot pot of water to heat up, you can clean bowls, dishes and utensils that you’ve used to cook so far. Don’t let it pile up at the end after you’ve already had your meal. As you leave any room at home, quickly look around and see if there’s any trash or items you can take with you that need to be cleaned, like mugs, plates or a used sweatshirt. Messes can add up, so cleaning as you go makes it more manageable. Once you get into the habit of cleaning as you go, cleaning will feel like less of a chore and more of a daily part of your life.
2. Create a Cleaning Schedule
Hold yourself accountable for cleaning by creating a cleaning schedule. Whether you live by yourself or with your family that acts more like messy college roommates on most days, it’s helpful to post a schedule somewhere you can look at it and remind yourself to clean. You can designate a room to focus on each day of the week, like the living room on Tuesday afternoons and the bathroom on Friday mornings. Set aside 30 minutes or an hour each day to clean. Besides your daily and weekly cleaning schedule, also create a monthly and quarterly schedule. These tasks can include changing the air filters or polishing wooden cabinets or stairs.
3. Make Your Bed
Set your day right by making your bed every day. Not only does it make your room look better, but you’ll feel better when you get into a well-made and cozy bed at the end of the day. That should be the first thing that you do when you get up every morning. A chore that only takes about a minute can really set the tone for your day.
4. Do Small Laundry Loads Daily
Instead of doing heaps and heaps of laundry once a week and struggling with catching up on folding and hanging clothes, do small batches of laundry every day instead. Washing the bed sheets every week can really be a task, especially if you have to lug a heavy duvet around. Simplify your clothing routine and your bedding routine as much as possible. Minimize the number of pillows and, therefore, pillow sheets you use. You may not need that extra throw at the bottom of your bed as yet another thing to wash. If you can wear jeans two days in a row to cut down on laundry, do that.
5. Get Everyone Involved
Inspire everyone at home to get into the habit of cleaning. If you have little ones at home, they can help with small and easy chores. If they have a play area, encourage them to organize their toys or clean up after themselves after eating. With older kids, they can take over more complicated chores like cleaning their own bathroom or vacuuming the living room. Have a cleaning routine as a family. Encourage your partner to help with any household chores for 15 minutes before you all go to bed. The kids can help put away their laundry before they go to bed. Everyone can do their part to help keep your home neat and tidy.
6. Clean in Small Spurts
You don’t have to spend hours every day cleaning. No one has time for that. Instead, clean in small spurts of five minutes here or 10 minutes there. Try micro-cleaning by just spending a few minutes here and there to do small tasks like decluttering your side table or wiping down the kitchen countertop. If you see a pile of dishes sitting in the sink or already dry on the rack and waiting to be put away, don’t just leave them there. If you have five or 10 minutes to spare, do a load in the dishwasher or put away those dishes.
7. Keep Cleaning Supplies in Each Room
Instead of lugging around your cleaning supplies everywhere, keep cleaning supplies readily available in each room. For example, keep your bathroom cleaning supplies in your bathroom. Keep your kitchen cleaning supplies in your kitchen. This will help you be more efficient and have less to carry around when you’re cleaning your home. If your pets roam around your home, keep a lint remover or pet hair remover brush in each room so you’ll have it handy when you need to remove any human or pet hair.
Get an Uproot Cleaner Pro for Every Room8. Donate or Throw Away Old Items
We all have things at home that we don’t use anymore. Like Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizing consultant, asks, “Does it spark joy?” Unless it’s absolutely essential, consider getting rid of or donating any items that no longer spark joy for you. One of the biggest items that tends to pile up over the years is clothing that no longer fits or matches your style. Donate any books that don’t inspire you anymore. Consider the one in, one out rule where when you buy something new like a shirt or a book, you donate an old shirt or book that no longer speaks to you to make room for new items.
9. Prioritize High Traffic Areas
You won’t be able to clean every nook and cranny every time you do your cleaning sessions. If you’re short on time and energy, prioritize high-traffic areas instead. If most people in your home tend to congregate in your kitchen and living room, focus on cleaning those areas the most to keep them tidy. Spend a lot of your weekends chilling on the couch with friends and family? Surely their hair gets everywhere, so you can use the Uproot Cleaner Pro to not only clean up pet hair but remove human hair from the couch, pillows and rugs, too!
10. Baby Proof and Pet Proof Your Home
Baby proofing and pet proofing your home will not only help keep your family safe but also help contain messes. If you have a playpen for your toddler, you won’t have to worry about them drawing on the walls or spilling their juice all over the house. If you have doggy gates up, you can help contain the pet hair to a specific room or section of your home. Even if you keep your furry friends contained in one room, their hair will still get everywhere. That’s why you’ll need a pet hair remover brush to remove cat and dog hair from furniture, clothing, carpets and so on.
11. Focus on Specific Areas of the Room
It’s easy to walk into any room and feel overwhelmed by all you have to clean. Focus on one room at a time, and then break each room down into sections by focusing on specific areas of the room. In the kitchen, you can focus on washing and putting away the dishes. In the bedroom, you can focus on making your bed and folding your laundry. When you go to brush your teeth in the morning or are waiting for the shower to heat up, clean your bathroom sink. Consider using natural DIY cleaners with water, baking soda, dishwashing liquid and white vinegar. It’s a cost-effective and easy-to-make cleaner for your home. You can even add essential oils to the cleaner mixture to help keep the room fresh.
12. Clean Your Junk Drawers and Cabinets
We all have that one drawer where we stuff menus, pens and junk mail. It’s the proverbial junk drawer. You may even have a whole cabinet or several cabinets filled with old containers or cookware you no longer use. Clean out these junk drawers and cabinets once, and then commit to keeping them clean and tidy so they don’t fill up with unnecessary junk again.
13. Leave Your Shoes at the Door
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but research does show that wearing shoes inside the home will bring in germs that you’ve stepped on and been exposed to the whole time you’ve been outside. Don’t wear your outside shoes inside your home. Wear dedicated slippers at home that you use only inside the house. Keep your outdoor shoes like sneakers and boots at the entryway.
14. Everything Has a Place
From the sentimental greeting cards you keep to the laptop that should be at your desk, everything in your home should have a designated place. If you find that your items are scattered haphazardly throughout your home, designate a specific place for each item at home to make things tidier and easier to find. If your pens, markers, pencils and all are mixed together, create separate containers like Mason jars or a desk organizer to separate the pens from the pencils and so forth. If you buy food in bulk, like cereal and chips, have large containers for your snacks so that each snack is in its own container. Not only are these kinds of setups aesthetically pleasing to look at, but it also helps keep every item in its designated place.
15. Use Storage Containers
From vacuum storage bags to storage containers in your closet, it’s better to store items in designated places or containers. For example, you might have a bin for your shoes. You might have one of those shoe bags that can hang over your bedroom or bathroom door. Find baskets or other containers that you can fit under your bed. Store books and magazines in drawers or on a vertical bookshelf to save space. You can add shelving to help store more items. If your little one or pet has toys that are scattered all over the place, get a container for their toys to keep them in one place.
16. It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect
If you’re a perfectionist, you may struggle with the idea of cleaning and only doing the bare minimum. If you can only do the bare minimum, that’s okay! Something is better than nothing. Cleaning doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get an old toothbrush and literally scrub every tile in your bathroom. If you just want to scrub the toilet, clean the sink and get any loose hairs off the floor, sometimes done is better than perfect. Even if you clean pet hair at home every day, it’s still going to get everywhere as your furry friend keeps running around the home. That’s why it helps to have the simple and compact best lint removers at home so you’re not lugging around a bulky vacuum just to remove fur. Make an effort to clean, and you’ll be a little more efficient each and every time.
Check Out Our Best Lint Removers17. Make Cleaning Fun
Last, but certainly not least, although cleaning is literally a chore, it doesn’t always have to feel so humdrum. Dance while you’re vacuuming. Listen to your favorite album or that new podcast when you’re putting the dishes away. Fold your clothes while watching that reality TV show. Cleaning doesn’t have to be so boring or overwhelming after all.
Now that you know all of these tips and tricks, maintaining a clean and tidy home doesn’t have to be such a daunting task. We all have obligations from work to family, so take it slow and take your time. Don’t pressure yourself to do more than you can handle. Whenever you can, use shortcuts to be as efficient and stress-free as possible. That way, you can get back to everything else that really matters.
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