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The best way to motivate yourself to get your house clean?
Invite someone over.
I can clean more in about 5-10 minutes before friends arrive than I can in hours on a weekend.
If you don’t like that last minute, stressful scramble of trying to get everything cleaned before your friends or family arrive, here are some ways to make sure your house is always ready for company.
You don’t have to scramble around at the last minute trying to clean everything or stash dirty pans in the oven. Everything is already mostly done, most of the time.
Don’t Procrastinate
My most important tip is don’t procrastinate.
Oh, procrastination how I love you. But my house…eh, not so much.
Hard to believe that something as simple as not procrastinating can make your house so much cleaner, but it’s true. Procrastination covers so many things.
Dishes in the dishwasher just got done? Unload them right away instead of waiting until later. If you wait until later, then a lot of times you end up with dirty dishes stacked in the sink or on the counter waiting to be put into the dishwasher.
When laundry is done in the dryer, fold and put it away immediately. It’s so much easier (or maybe it isn’t really easier, but feels easier) to take the laundry from the dryer and pile it onto a couch or bed to fold later. Bedtime comes and you are too tired to fold the laundry so you put it aside to do “tomorrow”.
Pretty soon you have a ginormous pile of clean laundry that hasn’t been folded, half of it is on the ground because someone needed to find a piece of clothing from the pile and some of it fell, but didn’t bother to pick it back up.
Or you folded it, but your piles of clean, folded laundry were knocked down. Suddenly, it takes you a lot longer to do the laundry than if you had just folded it and put it away to begin with.
Something spilled on the stove, floor or counter – wipe it up right away. It takes a lot less scrubbing power to clean right away and if you keep the spills and crumbs wiped up, your counters will be clean.
Some other things to do without procrastinating?
- dirty clothes – put into the dirty clothes basket or washing machine
- toothpaste ended up in the bathroom sink or mirror? wipe it up
- clear your dishes as soon as you are done with them
- go through your mail as soon as you get it
I could name a lot more stuff to not procrastinate on, but I think you get the idea.
Shower Scrubber
Keep a scrubber in the shower and use this when you are taking a shower to clean the tub and walls of the shower. This is pretty genius.
If you take a kitchen dish scrubber, like this one here and fill it with dish soap and vinegar (I’ve done ½ and ½ equal parts dish soap and vinegar. As well as tried ¼ dish soap and ¾ vinegar. I like the ½ and ½ better) then keep this in the shower.
When you are taking a shower, it’s not hard nor does it take long to spend a bit of time scrubbing a wall or two or the tub (make sure you don’t slip!) while you are in there. You can rotate what you clean each day or just clean the whole shower every few days. It doesn’t take any effort and doesn’t add much time to your shower either.
Sweep or Vacuum Every Day
Make sure to sweep or vacuum your floor every day. This really adds a lot and doesn’t take a lot of time to do.
I’m taking this tip from one of my friends. She swears that her Roomba is the best way to keep your floors clean with little effort.
She has her robot vacuum clean the main floor of her house every night after she goes to bed. When she gets up in the morning her floors are all vacuumed. I think she also mentioned she had one years ago and it didn’t do a good job. She tried again and the newer ones did a lot better for her floor.
You can check it out on here.
Use Wipes in the Bathroom
Set it up so you always have some homemade cleaning wipes in your bathroom. Then, each night before you go to bed, or each day after your shower, wipe down your sink, the toilet and the floor around the toilet with the wipes. Make sure you also have a dirty bin to throw them into when you are done.
Take Off Shoes
If you and everyone who enters your home take their shoes off before entering it will cut down a lot on how dirty your floors get.
If you do the above continuously you will find that your house is a lot cleaner all the time. It won’t be such a mad dash trying to get everything looking good when friends or family are coming over at the last minute.
You might also enjoy reading:
Decluttering Tips: 50 Items to get rid of today
How to Clean the Bottom of a Sliding Freezer Door
Family Command Centers to Keep your Family Organized
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