House cleaning can be painful, can’t it? It’s a dirty, messy, back-breaking job that can sometimes take FOREVER. Thankfully, these speed cleaning tips change all of that.
Hopefully, we’re going to help you change that today.
There are obviously cleaning tasks that need more time to do right, but there are plenty of things that you can do quickly each day that will keep your home looking much better than if you didn’t do them.
These simple tasks are easy to manage even on a busy schedule.
Whether you use a house cleaning service like Sunflower Maids for the major cleaning or not, touch up cleaning is necessary so that you don’t end up having more than can be tackled on your regular cleaning day. With the following tips, you’ll be speed cleaning through your home not just for the interim cleaning but also on the day you go after the bigger tasks.
Dusting
One of the easiest ways to keep up with dusting is to not have so much to dust and to reduce dust as much as possible. Knickknacks can seem to breed overnight, especially when you are prone to bringing home gems as you travel, go to garage sales, or find yourself collecting a certain genre wherever you go. One of the first things you should consider is going through them and keeping out only those that are the most precious to you. Either box up the rest, donate them, or have a garage sale of your own.
In addition to decluttering, make sure that you keep up with your HVAC filter changes. Getting the higher quality filters and changing them often will go a long way to reducing the amount of dust in the air that settles on everything. Also, while it is nice to have windows open to enjoy that fresh air, consider that if it is a windy day and you have a dusty yard or neighborhood, the price for that fresh air is more dust.
One speed cleaning trick to keep up with dusting is to keep a feather duster at each end of your home where it is easy to grab and carry along with you, dusting as you walk through. You likely walk from room to room many times during the course of the day, and it takes literally no time or effort to fluff the dust off things as you walk by. This won’t replace a good dusting with cloth and polish, but it will keep things looking better until you do the regular dusting on cleaning day.
Floors
Doesn’t it seem strange that you will find debris on the floors of rooms you barely spend time in? Pretty much everywhere we go, we have things drop off us that go unnoticed until they accumulate on the floor. You, your family and even your pets can easily track in things from outdoors, as well as shed hair, dry skin, and such.
One of the things to do is invest in a small broom and pan combo, or one of those push rotating sweepers. Lighter debris will often find itself accumulating at the edges of the rooms and you’ll be able to whisk it up quickly without dragging out your vacuum or larger broom. You’ve probably seen restaurant people use the sweepers to clear up crumbs during business hours. These are invaluable particularly if you have furry shedding pets.
Typically, the messiest floor in your home is the kitchen. It is pretty much impossible to prepare any meal without some crumbs making it to the floor. If part of your after dinner regime, right before doing dishes, is to do a quick sweep of the floors, you’ll avoid having those crumbs get crushed, scattered and perhaps even wet and sticky when you are washing dishes. This also keeps them from being tracked throughout your home further making your job more difficult.
Bathrooms
Without a doubt the most dreaded cleaning job of all is scrubbing the bathroom toilets, showers and tubs. When it comes to each of these, the longer soap scum and other things stay on the surface, the harder it is to remove them. One trick is keeping a squeegee in the shower so that walls and the door can be cleaned after each shower. If you train your family to do this, you will find it incredibly easy to keep up with the shower.
Keeping antibacterial wipes handy is not just a good way to keep counters clean, but it also will also keep germs at bay. Again, if everyone cleans up after themselves, it will be far easier on cleaning day. As far as the toilet, you’ll find that if you give it a swish with the brush every couple of days, it will take a lot less effort. There are also various products you can add to the tank that will help keep the bowl clean and fresh.
Speed Cleaning Tips
If you follow the day to day tips, you’ll find that cleaning day is a bit easier, but there are also things that you can do on cleaning day to make it more of a 2-3 hour task instead of all day. First of all, have a plan in place. A system will enable you to practically fly through the tasks on autopilot and be done before you realize it. You’ll also find you get faster each week as you become proficient. Practice the top to bottom method – start high such as cleaning fans and end with floors, so that you do not find yourself dirtying something you just cleaned. Some people like to have fast tempo music playing to encourage them to move faster.
A great tip for making vacuuming faster is to use an extension cord that lets you vacuum your entire home, or at least one floor, without needing to search out another outlet. If you use a centrally located outlet, you should be able to manage this with a 50 foot extension cord.
Another tip is keeping all your cleaning supplies in a carry tote. Not only will this save you time searching out your supplies, but when you carry it from room to room, you avoid countless trips to your storage cabinet. If you have a multi-level home, you may want to keep one on each level to avoid carting it up and down stairs.
Don’t be afraid to recruit family members to take over certain parts of the cleaning regime. Even small children can manage picking up toys, and simple tasks like changing out the bathroom towels, making beds and putting things away are easy enough for most ages.
Hire Help
Even with using these tips, if you have a hectic schedule or simply want to spend your weekends engaging in fun activities with your family instead of cleaning, hiring help to take care of your home is always a great option. You work hard all week, so there is nothing better than having someone come in each week to do the heavy duty cleaning, once a month to give you a break, or a few times a year to handle deep cleaning tasks.
The most important thing about speed cleaning is coming up with a plan that fits you the best. Some people like to put all their cleaning in one day, where others like to do a few minutes each evening. Some like to do a certain task throughout the home before moving onto another, where others like to get one room done completely then move to the next. There are no wrong answers, so do what works best for you.
If that just so happens to be hiring help, no problem! We’ve got you covered.