Did you ever schedule a day to clean your home and half way through you didn’t get as far as you wanted to? This happens to me so much I don’t even plan cleaning days anymore. I decided to change my strategy of cleaning and it has worked for me ever since.
One of my biggest mistakes that I do is to clean room by room. This way of cleaning becomes too slow for me because I wind up spending more time in each room that I had planned to. I begin to lose focus on time. I don’t mind cleaning, but if I had the choice to clean just my kitchen in four hours or my entire home top to bottom in the same amount of time, I would choose the latter. My new cleaning strategy consists of giving things a once-over quickly and efficiently and then moving on.
I was at my sister’s house one afternoon, and her cleaning crew was there working. I watched how they clean. They were efficient and quick. They prefer task cleaning instead of cleaning room by room. Task cleaning is completing one chore throughout the entire house before starting the next chore. This way, they stay moving and focused on cleaning. Their first task was to dust, and before you knew it, the entire house was dust-free in no time!
Watching the cleaning crew clean my sister’s entire house in a few hours motivated me enough to want to change my cleaning strategy to theirs. What I learned was to clean task by task. Begin at the highest point in the room and clean left to right across the room. This keeps you from missing anything or spending time re-cleaning an area you already cleaned.
It may seem like it’s wasting time, but making a strategy and writing it down beforehand will keep you focused and motivated and will result in a quicker clean overall. Here is my strategy for quicker cleaning:
- Begin by dusting. Dust each room. Make sure you dust shelves, picture frames, TV screens, furniture and décor. Dry dust using a microfiber cloth. No cleaning solution is needed. This is the easiest and most efficient way to dust. However, most of our homes contain little smudges or fingerprints here and there so keep an extra microfiber cloth on hand and dampen that one with warm water to remove them.
- Go back through the house and either make the beds or strip them if you plan on cleaning the bed linens. If needed, grab your vacuum brush extension and brush the surfaces of the furniture. Fold extra blankets and fluff up pillows on each bed.
- Next, tackle the mirrors and windows. Take one wet microfiber cloth and one dry one and wipe down all the windows and mirrors throughout your home. Microfiber cloths don’t streak so they are great to use.
- Next, surface clean! Grab a new microfiber cloth and a spray bottle of equal parts of warm water and liquid castile soap and wipe all counter tops and surfaces in your home. Next wipe down phones, tv remotes, computer keyboards, light switches and door handles.
- In the bathroom, spray your favorite non-toxic homemade cleaner on the sink, in the tub and in the toilet. Scrub and wipe.
- Back to the kitchen to wipe down cabinets, inside and outside of microwave, and appliances. Using a nylon bristle broom, sweep kitchen floor and bathroom floor. Then grab your microfiber mop and mop the kitchen and bathroom floors.
- Bathroom floors are next. I am old school when it comes to cleaning the bathroom floors in my home. I have three bathrooms and I like to clean each bathroom floor on my hands and knees with warm water, liquid castile soap, a few squirts of white vinegar and a damp microfiber cloth. This way I know that every corner of the bathroom floors are cleaned.
- Vacuum everywhere. Start upstairs and work your way downstairs. The flow of vacuuming room by room becomes so easy since you don’t have to stop and clean everything along the way.
- For an extra touch, grab your favorite smelling essential oils and dab a few drops on some cotton balls and leave them around your home to freshen up the air.
And there you have it! An entire clean home in less time overall.
Did you try it? How did it go? Let us know in the comments section!
