words Al Woods
Do thoughts of your cluttered living room and dog-hair-covered furniture haunt you right as you start to fall asleep? Do dust monsters keep you up at night? Keeping a clean house is a fair amount of work on its own; add a demanding job, family, and social obligations to the mix, and you could easily lose your mind along with your will to clean.
If you can relate to this, then you’re not alone; we too understand how hard keeping your house clean while balancing a busy schedule can be.
The following tips can make tidying up a little more manageable, even with a hectic lifestyle.
Hire a Professional Cleaner
Hiring a cleaning service every once in a while can help you ensure that things don’t get too out of control at your house. Experienced cleaners believe that receiving professional help allows you to go on with your daily routine without having to compromise on the quality of your living space. Whether your home requires regular dusting or deep cleaning, a cleaning service will be able to adapt to whatever conditions you require.
The service can take care of all the dirt and dust hiding in those hard-to-reach corners, and all the objects you didn’t know were lost between your couch cushions, giving you some well-deserved time to relax for a few days before you take over the regular cleaning duties again.
Do 15-Minute Cleanups Before You Sleep
Take 15 minutes every night to tidy up the house. When you incorporate this habit into your daily routine, you’ll go to bed with a cleaner home and wake up to the same. This can significantly brighten up your morning and eliminate the stress you’d otherwise feel the minute you roll out of bed and see piles of clothes lying there waiting to be picked up.
Because the goal is to stick to a brief cleaning period, you’ll have to set realistic cleaning priorities that you can accomplish in just 15 minutes. You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish in such a short period of time, especially if you get other members of your household to join in on these short, nightly cleanups. When other people are helping out, tidying up won’t feel like such a burden; your kids can pick up their toys or take out the trash while you finish cleaning up the kitchen or put the laundry away.
Don’t Let Your Laundry Pile Up
Most people leave their laundry for the weekend, but weekends are far too short to pack all your laundry duties into, especially if you have a large family. So, get into the habit of putting a load on at least every other day. Throw a load in before you go to work in the morning, and when you get back home, put it in the dryer or hang it up to dry. At night, right before you get ready for bed, quickly fold and sort your fresh laundry. This way, you won’t have to spend precious time buried under a mountain of laundry on your days off.
Keep the Clutter at Bay
This is an essential tip when it comes to tidying up with minimal effort on a busy schedule. It’s easy to stack up clothes on a chair or pile up dishes on the counter and forget about them, but these chores will catch up with you sooner rather than later. Don’t allow that to happen; whenever you’re done with an item, be it the mail that just came in, the bowl that held your cereal a few minutes ago, or the jacket you just took off, put it back where it belongs and keep the clutter at bay.
Another way to prevent things from piling up is by regularly getting rid of items you no longer need, use, or love. You see, less is usually more when it comes to keeping a tidy house; the more stuff you have, the more likely they are to pile up. And the more they pile up, the harder and longer you’ll have to work on clearing them away.
Keep Your Cleaning Supplies Close
Walk to the storage location to get your cleaning supplies, and then go downstairs to the kitchen to wipe down the counters, then return the cleaning supplies to their designated storage place. Who has time for that? As a busy individual, you’re less likely to clean up if you have to walk all the way to another place to get the cleaning supplies. The easiest fix for that is to store a few basic cleaning products where you can easily reach them.
Stock up your bathrooms and kitchen with the basics; microfiber cloths, polishing cloths, a multi-purpose cleaner, etc. If you have multiple floors in your home, have a trusty cleaning set on each floor. This will make it so much quicker and easier to give the toilet a quick scrub or to wipe away that sticky spill off the living room floor. You may even rent professional floor scrubbers in Los Angeles, so if you plan on doing some heavy-duty cleaning, you have everything you need nearby. Not only will this save you time, but it’ll also make cleaning up feel less daunting and more manageable.
Set a Cleaning Schedule
Not all household tasks need to be done every day. While the dishes should be done daily, the bathroom usually needs to be cleaned only once a week. Designate a calendar or a list specifically for your cleaning needs, write down the daily and weekly tasks in separate columns, and keep this calendar on your fridge so you can see it often. This will make you feel less overwhelmed about where to start and will also give you a sense of accomplishment as you cross off the cleaning tasks you’ve completed.
Keeping a clean house while leading a busy lifestyle is perhaps one of the biggest challenges of our daily lives. Whether it’s working insanely long hours or running around like a headless chicken all day trying to keep up with the kids, there’s almost no time or energy left to tidy up your home. We hope these tips can help you get the job done with as little effort and time as possible, and without adding more stress to your already-hectic schedule.
