No matter how much we try to stay on top of things, tidying up around the house can be stressful for anyone. This is especially true when we let our daily fatigues win and let things begin to pile up. The problem isn’t that you’re lazy or disorganized, but that you become overwhelmed by the vicious cycle of anticipating these heavy cleaning days which can take several hours to complete. If this sounds all too relatable, read on. Take your time back by using these time saving cleaning and organizing hacks. Here, we’ll list ways to shorten your everyday cleaning time as well as your heavy cleaning days!
1. Keep a fillable scrub brush in every bathroom
Dish soap fillable scrub brushes are great in the kitchen, but they also work wonders in the bathroom as well. Keep a scrub brush filled with your desired cleaning solution in each shower of your home. If you have a half bathroom keep the brush in a waterproof bowl with a lid under the sink or in a corner of the bathroom. Use the brush periodically on your sinks, showers, tubs, and outer toilet areas. When you use the bathrooms, do a quick scrub once or twice a week to eliminate having to clean these areas on heavy cleaning days!
2. Use over the door organizers on as many doors as you’re comfortable with
We could all benefit from having more storage space and organization. Have both by using over the door storage, such as a shoe rack or pantry organizer. Every door space that is private can be used to get the full benefit, but just having one or two will also help. You can place one behind any hall, office, and guest closets as well as your own personal closet, bathroom, and bedroom door. Keep small cleaning items on each organizer to save time cleaning up. Items like microfiber cloths, air fresheners, lint rollers, and whatever else you would normally use to clean the area. Additional space on the organizer can be used to store other items that don’t have a “home”.
3. Keep cleaning supplies in a caddy
It is much more efficient to move about the house when cleaning with all your supplies kept together. Placing everything in a caddy will help you glide through each area with ease and reduce walking and bending fatigue. One step up from a caddy would be storing all of your cleaning supplies in a rolling mop bucket, if you have the space. This way you can roll your supplies from room to room and mop the floors when you’re done.
4. Keep the kitchen sink filled with soapy water
Remember the old way of washing dishes? Before dishwashers were widespread, cleaning dishes was commonly done by soaking them in a tub of soapy water to conserve water and also a person’s physical energy of having to scrape hardened food off the plates. Now we have dishwashers but it’s still always recommended to clean caked on food before starting the wash to keep your dishwasher from getting clogged. If you have a divided sink, keep one side filled with warm soapy water. If you don’t you can use a rectangular dish bucket. After your meals place the dishes in the soapy water and by the end of the night all your dishes will be ready to just pop into the dishwasher.
5. Have one or two miscellaneous bowls for small items
Sometimes we are on the go and need to be somewhere, like, yesterday. How come when we’re running late, it never fails, that’s when your keys, wallet, and whatever else, go missing? This is because humans have the astounding ability to drop important items critical to our house departure anywhere but where they need to be. Sometimes we put our wallet on the nightstand, sometimes it’s on the kitchen counter. Force yourself to create a habit of placing these items in a designated location that’s effortless to do. Use one or two miscellaneous bowls or containers right by the door you use to leave the house. For some, this may mean the front door and the door that leads to the garage. As soon as you get home, drop your keys, wallet, gum, watch, and whatever else into these bowls.
6. Have a secret messy drawer
At the end of the day, everyone needs a dumping area that is allowed to be chaotic. Keep a single drawer free for that chaos. Clothes that are awkward to fold or have no reason to be folded can go here. For example, this can be filled with accessories or even better, home clothes. If you are an average person, you don’t have a load of fancy matching paired pajama sets. You probably have old shirts and comfy, busy printed bottoms. These are meant to be home clothes that will inevitably become wrinkled. Throw them in your messy drawer and eliminate folding time on your laundry days.
