Cleaning the house can be tiresome, and it doesn’t get any easier if you have to do it after coming home tired from your job. If you have the resources available, you can easily hire professional cleaners to take care of the house for you. Hired cleaning services can be pricey but they will definitely get the job done. However, if you belong to the majority of the working class who can’t afford their hefty price tag, you will have to find some time off your schedule to clean the house yourself.
In order to make the task a little less daunting, we spoke with John from Pristine Home, who offers home cleaning services in Sydney, about how you can save time and effort while performing your cleaning duties. This way, you won’t have to spend your entire weekend or days off from work scrubbing and wiping around the house, and you can use the saved time doing things you actually like instead.
Practice Cleaning As You Go
First things first: if you want your cleaning load to lessen, you will need to learn adapting to a clean-as-you-go policy around the house. This is quite simple but it affects your cleaning load significantly because by taking care of the little things from time to time, you avoid piling them into one big workload for the weekend.
For instance, after you finish eating, make it a habit to clean up immediately - wash the dishes, wipe off any dirt from the table and the countertop, and sweep off any crumbs that might have fallen off while you were eating. Avoiding pile-ups of unwashed plates in the kitchen is also good for your health, as that means there are less chances of bacteria and germs settling in. It is also a lot easier to wash one to two plates every time you eat than washing close to fifteen plates with hardened food particles and stains on your cleaning day.
Another example of cleaning-as-you-go is doing your laundry every day, or at least every two to three days. Once you take off your dirty clothes, place them in the laundry hamper and sort them into two piles for washing priority: one pile is for clothes that need to be cleaned immediately like your uniform at work, and another pile is for clothes that can wait to be cleaned, perhaps those that you only wear on select occasions.
Your bedroom is also a good starting point for the cleaning-as-you-go habit. Simply making your bed every day after you wake up prevents things like hair and other debris from accumulating and pestering you in the long run.
Try to Clean from Top to Bottom
A lot of people are more accustomed to side-to-side cleaning, which is cleaning the house per room. However, some cleaning experts believe this technique is only good for cleaning specific rooms because certain rooms receive way more attention than others. As a result, favoured rooms like the kitchen or the living room end up being cleaned thoroughly, while other areas like the bathroom are left untouched because there’s no time or energy left for cleaning. To avoid this, you can try to clean per task instead - choose a certain cleaning activity, be it vacuuming, dusting or wiping - and do it in every room from top to bottom. This way, you will end up cleaning each room equally, plus the uniformity of the task should help you save time since your mind is set on one activity only.
Never Forget to Clean the Floor
The floor is often forgotten during general cleaning because most of the attention is directed towards what visitors often see and interact with - the furniture, appliances, and even the walls and ceilings. However, the floor probably gets the biggest share of dirt in the house, since most of the dirt that accumulates anywhere else eventually falls down as you clean. Therefore, it is imperative that you regularly clean your floor to avoid recycling the dirt and germs around the house.
Vacuuming daily is highly advisable, especially if you tend to receive a lot of visitors at home. If regular vacuuming is not possible, you can try to protect the floor by using carpets or floor mats, but make sure you do research first as there are various types available on the market. There are floor mats recommended for dirt-removal, and there are mats better-suited for stain-removal. Consider which kind of dirt or stain you normally find on your floor so that the mats you buy can better suit your lifestyle.
In conclusion, it would be a lot easier to clean your house if the tasks are divided evenly instead of piling them over one big cleaning day. It might be hard to do at first, but once you have started establishing a daily cleaning schedule, it will feel more like a habit instead of a chore.
Author Bio: Penny Roussis is a stay at home mom that loves blogging about effective home cleaning tips to help struggling moms strike the balance between a clean home and the daily duties of raising children.
