Let’s face it, not everyone is born with the “organizing gene.” And even those who do manage to keep their homes neat and clean, often spend hours and hours to achieve this, taking precious time away from other activities. As a Maryland cleaning company, we love to help people get their freedom from cleaning back, whether it’s by lending a hand or by offering some tips. Today, we’ve put together a list of 5 essential cleaning habits that can help you fight the mess more efficiently.
Identify Your Biggest Messes
Every family has their own patterns and cleaning pain points. But if you know yours, it becomes clearer where you should focus your efforts and what will make the biggest impact. Look around your home for areas that consistently get dirty or cluttered and make your home look messy. For instance:
- Do you let your junk mail pile up high?
- Does your coffee table get covered in crumbs, cups and snacks because kids like to watch TV after school?
- Do cardboard boxes from received shipments tend to sit on the floor for weeks before getting put into recycling?
Find what you procrastinate about the most and address it with the next step – clean as you go.
Clean as You Go
Cleaning as you go is one of the best ways to not end up with a mile-long cleaning to-do list to tackle over the weekend. Cleaning as you go simply means taking some time right now to do things you are tempted to put off till later. Here are a few examples:
- Once your laundry is finished, fold it as you take it out of the dryer, so that you can take it straight upstairs and put away.
- As you get out of your car, grab any trash that’s there and throw it away.
- After you’ve finished drinking your tea or coffee, rinse the cup off, so that you can reuse it later instead of taking out a new cup.
These all seem like little things, but they will help you keep your home cleaner. And although in the beginning you may have to remind yourself, soon it will become a second nature to clean as you go.
A bonus tip: when you go from room to room or from upstairs to downstairs, always look for things you can put away. Just came home and going upstairs to change? Grab that sweatshirt you left sitting on the couch and put it back in the closet.
Create a Place for Everything
Where do you look when you want to find a manual for your food processor? Is it in the kitchen island drawer? Or maybe you put it in one of the side tables? Our point is that if you have a lot of stuff and no system for organizing it, it’s impossible to find anything. And it’s also hard to keep clutter at bay, because nothing really has its own place.
Make sure you designate a place and an area for everything. For example, the measuring tape can go in the tool box, which can be placed in the downstairs closet, since you tend to use it often. The above-mentioned appliance manual can go in a box with other manuals, which can be put away somewhere out of sight if you barely ever touch them. It will take some time to find a spot for everything, but it will make cleaning a lot easier.
Downsize
As you clean your home, you’ll probably come across things that you don’t use anymore. Sometimes, they simply collect dust, while other times they take up the space you really need. Every 6 months or so, look around and evaluate your belongings. Have your kids outgrown their toys? Do you actually need all those cookbooks if you look everything up on Pinterest anyway? When was the last time you used that dehydrator? Honestly! Does it even work?!
You can sell your unwanted items online, donate them or recycle. And you’ll love all the new space you’ll get, as well as the fact that there is one less item to dust or wash.
Have a Backup Plan
To be fair, sometimes there’s just no way you can get the cleaning done. Kids have a dancing recital coming up, a friend’s wedding is in a week and you’ve just picked up a new freelance client. When life gets crazy, be sure to have a backup plan, such as finding a Carroll County cleaning company you can always rely on. Whether it’s just a single occurrence or you need someone to take over house cleaning for a few weeks, Immaculate Clean will be happy to help.
Contact us whenever you could use a hand with household chores!
