The modern world is a busy place. Trying to incorporate work, family, leisure, friends, and downtime into your life is nearly impossible. Add cleaning to the mix, and it feels like things are on overload. At Maid4Condos, we specialize in maximizing cleaning output while minimizing time wasted. To help our clients save time, we’ve compiled our top seven cleaning tips for busy people.
1. Clean by room
Looking to clean a messy house as a whole is daunting and takes an enormous amount of time and patience. Rather than putting all your energy into a hundred tasks, focus on a single room at a time. It helps to prioritize rooms by utilization. The kitchen is a room used multiple times each day. It takes quite a beating from morning to night. Washing dishes, counters, the stove, floors, and organizing the fridge will get this room out of the way so you can move onto the next.
By cleaning rooms one at a time, you ensure that each room is shiny and ready to be lived in before the next room is started.
2. Put Things Away Naturally Throughout the Day
Whether you live in a one-bedroom apartment or a three-storey house, organizing takes time. One way to maximize the time available to spend on housework is by doing things in a natural order. For example, when you find toys that belong in upstairs bedrooms, gather them up and place them in a laundry basket near the base of the staircase. The next time you climb the stairs to shower, gather laundry, or grab a book, bring the basket of toys up with you. This saves you climbing the stairs multiple times a day.
For single-storey units, the same can be done while organizing individual rooms. Rather than running to the trash bin every time you spot a candy wrapper, or the kitchen every time you find a dish, sort things onto a single surface. When you’re finished organizing one room, take the pile to its designated space. This saves time and maximizes focus on a single room at a time.
3. Work at it Day by Day
Cleaning an entire house in one day is tough. Breaking it up and doing a little each day makes the work go by faster and allows you to schedule more than one activity per day. Thirty minutes a day is enough to have your entire house feeling cleaner and more organized by the end of the week. If you keep this process going, cleaning a little bit every day, your house won’t have time to get messy. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Toddlers, pets, and guests increase the mess factor and decrease free time to clean. Taking this into consideration, remember it’s okay that your home looks lived in.
4. Tackle Dirt Before Clutter
At Maid4Condos, we regularly get questions about cleaning tips. Busy people need to know that it’s not bad to have a home that looks well-loved. Laundry yet to be folded means everyone has clean clothes, dishes waiting to be cleaned means the family is well-fed, and toys on the floor mean children are at play. The important stuff is ensuring bacteria and germs are eradicated and not tracked through your home.
Before you worry about the clutter in your space, focus on chores that freshen, deodorize, and disinfect. Water and food products are notorious for growing bacteria. So, your kitchen and bathroom are top contenders for these tasks. Even so, don’t forget to spray children’s toys before they’re put away each night, and regularly wash pet bedding and blankets.
5. Store Supplies in Easy to Reach Spaces
It’s never fun to run around the house trying to find cleaning supplies. When you’ve only got an hour to clean, why waste 10 minutes searching for the bucket and mop? Rather than wasting your valuable time on search efforts, store your cleaning supplies in easy to find locations and within range of their intended targets. For example, storing products like Scrubbing Bubbles near the bathroom will make it easier to spray down the tub and shower. Similarly, keep your vacuum on the level with the softest furnishings and carpets.
If you have the option, storing your washing and drying machine near the bedrooms and the bathroom will also save time. Rather than running up and downstairs to gather laundry, wash it, fold it, and climb stairs to put it all away, keep everything in one place and save time and energy.
6. Enlist Your Housemates
Whether you’re a college student with multiple roommates or a homeowner with a spouse and children, you should delegate. When everybody has a chore to do, the work goes much quicker. Rather than taking on every task by yourself, hand out jobs at the beginning of the week. Rotate them, so nobody gets stuck with the dirty jobs every time. A chore chart is also an excellent incentive for children to earn rewards or allowance money.
Even small children can do small chores. You might be surprised to see just how much our children can accomplish when given the encouragement they need. Gathering toys for the toy box and putting away their clothes are both easy tasks to master early.
7. Put Belongings Away as Soon as You’re Finished Using Them
One of the toughest habits to break is putting things away before beginning a new task. It’s something we try to teach our children at every turn, yet somehow, we as adults often still struggle. When you’re finished reading a book and decide it’s time to make dinner, put the book on the bookshelf rather than leaving it on a side table. After you’ve prepared and eaten dinner, wash, dry, and put away dishes rather than letting them sit out.
When we choose to put things away the moment we’re finished, we create less clutter to deal with later. This makes the mess far less overwhelming and saves us time in the long run.
Get More Cleaning Tips for Busy People with Maid4Condos
Looking to save time and create a clean space you can be proud of? Contact Maid4Condos to learn about our many cleaning services. Call us at 1-647-822-0601 or visit us online for a free estimate.
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