I recently read an article about keeping a spotless house. I don’t know about you but spotless really isn’t my goal, I just want it clean enough that when people drop by unexpectedly I’m not embarrassed.
The premise of the article was to live like your house is for sale, all the time. It takes 30 days for a new routine to become a habit so if you start today by the end of the month your house will be clean, and stay clean. If you do a little cleaning every day then there will be no need to deep clean.
Clean as you go, after dinner, wash the dishes and put them away. After doing your hair and makeup in the morning put everything away and wipe down the sink. Don’t allow laundry to touch the floor, have baskets easily accessible so dirty clothes so in the basket and not on the floor. Sweep and mop when you notice it needs to be done.
Just about any housecleaning job, if it’s left to build up, will take ten times longer to do. If you wipe out the sink every time you use it you won’t have to scrub it. Dirt attracts more dirt and before you know it you will be on your hands and knees, wasting a Saturday, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing.
Make your bed as soon as you get out of it, teach your kids to do the same. Look at your home as a prospective buyer, what would you not like if this was a house you were considering buying? This applies to closets and drawers as well, a place for everything and everything returned to its place when you are finished using it.
The upside of this is that you wake up to a clean house every morning and if you work outside of the home every day when you come home, a clean home is waiting for you. It’s much easier to get you dinner on the table if you don’t first have to do the breakfast dishes and take out the trash.
Adding little cleaning habits to your routine will only take minutes but you will quickly notice a difference. Get everyone in the habit of doing their cleaning as they go and your need to spend an entire day getting the house is shape will disappear.