Maintaining a clean and orderly home can sometimes be overwhelming. Homeowners juggling the responsibilities of work and family may find they have little energy for everyday household chores. But homeowners can employ some simple strategies to keep their homes clean and orderly without taking up too much of their time.
Enlist a buddy.
Work goes much more quickly if you have someone to help you. Make a list of all the jobs that need to be done and then split them among your cleaning helpers. Kids can get involved by taking care of the simpler tasks, such as dusting or wiping down counters.
Clean from top to bottom.
Dust and dirt will settle at the lowest possible points, so do not create extra work for yourself by cleaning floors and other surfaces and then dusting off shelves or cleaning cobwebs from the ceiling. Always work your way downward when cleaning your home.
Keep stray item baskets in main rooms.
Items from other rooms will inadvertently gravitate to places where your family spends most of its time. Cleaning takes a lot longer if you’re constantly interrupting your tasks to put things where they belong. Instead, toss them into a catch-all basket and make your rounds to other rooms at the end of the cleaning session.
Try a chore each day.
Some cleaning enthusiasts advocate performing a different chore each day. Breaking cleaning down into more manageable chunks can make the task of cleaning a home a lot less daunting.
Keep cleaning items in the bathroom.
Bathrooms get daily use, and they need a lot of attention. Store a set of cleaning tools and cleansers in the bathroom so they will always be at the ready. Consider keeping a bottle of cleaner near the shower so you can simply spray down the walls right after showering.
Multitask as much as possible.
Multitasking works at the office, and such an approach also can pay dividends when cleaning your home. For example, unload the dishwasher while your lunch is heating up in the microwave. This saves you some time and makes use of the time you would otherwise be standing around.
Find a cleaning schedule that works and then stick with it, and soon you will discover that maintaining a clean and orderly home is not so difficult after all.