Many of our daily schedules are filled with endless tasks, which makes it hard to balance cleaning on top of it all.
But maintaining a house clean is mandatory. And it’s not mainly for aesthetic reasons, but for the sake of your health, not only physical but mental as well.
Although it can be pretty challenging to tidy up daily, it is possible. Balancing out cleaning and day-to-day life successfully is simply a matter of small daily changes.
Table of contents
1. Create a Schedule and Stick To It
Your daily schedule may already be jammed packed; however, you must squeeze in cleaning too. Doing so will allow you to prioritize a time window to tidy your spaces.
It may seem overwhelming to place cleaning on a schedule, but it’s straightforward. You must ensure you detail when to clean and what to clean.
Create routines around what to clean and then book daily, weekly, or monthly cleaning commitments in your schedule.
Scheduling is ideal since you can work around your already established daily routines while ensuring cleaning is addressed.
2. Put Things Back Where You Got Them
It can be easy to leave things out of place once you’re finished using them. So often, we use something and decide we will just put it back later.
This procrastination can quickly go from one item out of place to several ones all around the house. Then, before you know it, the weekend has come, and your entire home is out of whack.
It will help if you put things back as soon as you’re done using them. This tip may not seem like such a big deal; however, it can cut down on many messes in your home.
Here are some detailed tips on organizing things back into place:
- Organize mail in a basket or an organizer specifically for mail.
- Once you’re ready in the mornings, place makeup, toothbrush, hairbrush, comb, etc., back in their original places.
- Place clothes in the hamper or back on the hanger. Avoid tossing them on the floor.
- Place coats on coat racks or hooks at the door.
- Put any kitchen appliances back in place once you’re finished using them.
- If you have throws and blankets, fold them back up and neatly place them on the couch.
- Make sure you hang wet towels back up on their hooks.
- Place tablets, laptops, or phones neatly on their designated charging stations or area.
Keep a close eye on your habits throughout a given week. Then, place everything back in its original place, no matter how big or small the items are.
Taking the time to do this will eliminate the time, effort, and energy needed to clean your home.
3. Do at Least One Laundry Load Daily
Laundry is undoubtedly a challenge depending on how large your family is. If you find your hamper refilling in no time, it isn’t easy to find the time to keep the pile down.
Luckily there are ways to go about squeezing time in for laundry. It will take some getting used to, but these methods can ensure your laundry is done throughout the week.
For example, try washing in the morning. You can start the wash as soon as you’re up, and the load could be finished by the time you head out of the door.
You can also wash as you get dressed if you work from home. Then, when lunch rolls around, or you get a break, you can put them into the dryer.
Also, if you don’t work from home, you can pause the washer until you make it back in. Lastly, ensure you finish your loads. Wash, dry, and fold or hang your clothes.
4. Tidy Up at Night
It may sound counteractive in a sense, but cleaning up at night can benefit you in several ways. This method doesn’t mean you have to deep clean, but it does require a bit of movement.
You can start by setting aside 20 to 30 minutes before bed. Then, look around and quickly examine rooms needing a little touching up.
Next, you’ll want to put anything away that may have been left out. Finally, if there are any spills or dirt, wipe up those areas.
Reorganize anything that may be messy such as clothes, items on countertops, kitchen items, etc.
Choose one room each night to tidy before heading to bed. This way ensures each room gets touched and nothing is missed. By the end of the week, you will have cleaned each room, leaving very little to clean on the weekend.
5. Make Cleaning a Family Effort
Cleaning alone can be highly challenging if you have a family. In addition, more people means a bigger mess, and more time is required to keep areas clean.
The best way to combat this is by ensuring the entire family is involved. For example, give your kids weekly or daily chores and ensure they tidy up after themselves throughout the week.
Picking up after themselves doesn’t have to be a monumental task. However, it may be best to create a small to-do list on top of their chores, so they will know precisely what to pick up or put back.
Ensure they do things such as placing their backpacks somewhere neatly when they come in from school. Also, tidying up the kitchen, picking up their room, and tidying up other living spaces.
Completing these small extra tasks during the week will help keep everything running smoothly. But, more importantly, it equally divides tasks and removes the overwhelm and exhaustion from completing them.
6. Declutter
Decluttering is essential when it comes to keeping your home clean. It’s one of the best methods to keep a home tidy year-round.
Although it may take a little extra time, it’s critical to declutter as often as possible.
If several areas are overcrowded at once, it makes cleaning nearly impossible. However, organizing and decluttering these spaces can help maintain a clean home.
If you declutter even just a little bit each time you clean, you will see and feel a significant difference within your home.
Decluttering is especially critical since clutter can inevitably bring about mold, dust, mildew, and allergens. So, organize any clutter, even if you do it little by little. All of it counts and helps to relieve the load that comes with daily cleaning.
7. Check Regularly if Any Repairs Are Necessary
You should note down any repairs that are necessary around the house so that you don’t forget to call a contractor. There are certain issues that if left unrepaired for too long, might represent additional costs to do it later.
For example, a leaking roof might start causing damage to the interior of your house and lead to expensive repairs down the line. If you notice any problems with your roof, call a professional roofing contractor to solve the problem sooner rather than later.
8. Don’t Stress and Acknowledge Your Progress
Stress can quickly set in when it comes to keeping a clean home. Balancing daily life and ensuring your home remains tidy can cause pressure for most of us.
If our homes aren’t clean, our lives can quickly feel upside down. Yet, despite this, you must remain calm and stress-free.
It’s also essential that you acknowledge your progress. Every little bit counts, so try not to be so hard on yourself if you can’t clean as much as you initially set out to.
Remaining organized and writing down tasks will help to keep things smooth sailing. Taking as much spare time as possible to tidy up will also help you feel much better.
So, even if you couldn’t clean as much as you wanted, you still accomplished enough to contribute towards the overall goal.
Author Bio
Louis Hanley
Community Manager
Louis is a community manager for Baltic Roofing where they help the greater Chicago community with everything from high-quality roof replacements to skylight repairs. He is an expert on all things roofing and home improvement. Outside of work, he’s a huge Cubs fan and enjoys spending time with his dog, Roscoe.