Try these easy cleaning ideas to make your cleaning easier and faster, so you don’t need to procrastinate! Use these tips and have a cleaner home today!
Clean Smarter Not Harder
For years, I have studied strategies and techniques for cleaning homes and I’ve shared many of them with you. Still, many people struggle daily with messy homes.
I have discovered that the number one reason people don’t usually clean their homes, or why they are always procrastinating when it comes to cleaning, is that they simply lack the motivation.
Another thing that prevents many of us from having clean homes, and a big reason for procrastination is that most of us make the job so much harder and more complicated than it needs to be. We often make more work for ourselves than is necessary.
Try these easy cleaning ideas that will help you clean smarter and not harder:
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When I did professional cleaning, they taught us to take long slow strokes when vacuuming instead of short fast ones like most people do. Doing short fast strokes just wears you out and the vacuum can’t pick up things as well.If you think about it, when a vacuum salesman is demonstrating a vacuum cleaner how does he do it – long slow strokes. There is a reason for that.
- I don’t like to ask my guests to take off their shoes, but if you place a mat right inside the door with a pair of shoes sitting on it, many guests will remove their shoes without being asked.
- Place body wash in place of bars of soap in all of the bathrooms. It will mean no or less soap scum to clean up.
- Use pump soap at all of the sinks.
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Always use some kind of bubble bath in the bath water when you take a bath. Make sure the guys and children use it too. (I kept a bottle of dish detergent in the tub for them to use.)For little toddlers and babies, use baby bubbles or even a squirt of baby shampoo since their skin is more sensitive. Doing this you will never ever clean a ring around the bath tub again.
- Not all of us have real wood furniture anymore. Most furniture that looks like a wood finish is simply a laminate but many of us still use wood furniture polish on it. If your furniture is a laminate, the next time you dust, try putting a little fabric softener on a cloth to dust. The fabric softener attracts the dust and it leaves things smelling so nice. Don’t use fabric softener on regular wood furniture or antiques.
- Whenever you clean anything, always let the cleaning product work for you and soak things as much as you can. Don’t use liquid cleaners on gummy and dirty vertical areas. Instead, use foam cleaners for these surfaces. No matter what kind of liquid product it is, it usually streams right down the wall or surface. Liquid cleaners don’t cling enough to do any cleaning on the walls and other vertical services like the foam does.
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Keep a set of cleaning supplies in each bathroom and in the kitchen where they are very easy to see and reach. The adage, “Out of sight, out of mind,” is so true when it comes to cleaning supplies. Store a couple of rags and 1 – 2 cleaning products in a cabinet that you use every day, where you will always see them.You don’t have to keep a lot of cleaning stuff in each space. I know many people recommend carrying a tote of supplies with you from room to room. This might be fine if you are doing a major all day cleaning but most people do better cleaning in small moments of time. If you have 1-2 minutes and the bathroom sink is dirty, you are more likely to reach down and grab the cleaner to clean it right then if it is easily accessible. If you have to walk into the other room to get your tote full of supplies, one or two things will usually happen. You will either be out of the mood or out of time to do it by the time you get to the supplies or you will likely get sidetracked with something else that needs your attention.
One trick that I have used for years to keep sinks clean is when I am done washing my hands I add just a drop more soap, make more suds and use my sudsy hands to wash the sink. Plus, by using my hands I can feel if there is anything stuck, like toothpaste in the bathroom sink or pasta bits in the kitchen. This way the sink is always clean. Then when I am done drying my hands I use the towel to wipe the faucet and any water on the counter. Another trick, when finished using the toilet I lift the seat and make sure to wipe the rim down with 1 square of toilet paper. 1 square is enough because you do it often. Drop it in and flush it all away, after putting the seat and cover down, as we all know how those nasty germs fly out of that toilet!
I also have many more tips that I use but I will let Jill and Tawra share them because this is their website, not mine, lol.
We don’t mind Beth. We get some great tips from our readers. One of the best things a mom can do is to train her little boys especially to take the square of toilet paper and wipe the the lid and rim of the toilet when they are done. You need to do this while you are potty training them. Husbands if you want to have a wife forever indebted to you you start doing this. You will really win the brownie points from her. So many moms holler about how can I get the yellow stuff and smell from around my toilet clean – this is part of the answer. I never had a problem with this because I had a sweet husband who would wipe it up and I taught my son to do it too. Anyway thanks for the tips Beth.
Hi Jill; just wanted to repeat what is, I believe, your tip!
my son just asked if he should use spray cleaner in his microwave and I told him to heat a bowl of water in the microwave and let the steam loosen everything in the microwave and then wipe with a paper towel .. I do this all the time, it really works, and your microwave won’t smell like cleaning product. He was awestruck, “aw, mom, you just know everything,” lol!!!
That is too funny. For many years I had my kids fooled too and now I am working on the grand kids. If they have a question on anything they call “Nan”. If only they knew the truth. : ) : )
Hi,
We have so many cleaners in house. I like to narrow it down to 2. What are the best 2 to have. I know I need a glass cleaner. What works best in kitchen or bathroom? Pinesol or Mr. Clean?
Delores I don’t use many cleaners myself either. I use Dow Bathroom cleaner in the bathroom and that is all. I like foam cleaners more then liquids because the secret to easy and fast cleaning in any room is letting things soak first then you just wipe clean and the foam cleaners cling to the surfaces better. I spray it on the sink, then the tub, then the toilet. By the time I get done spraying, it has soaked enough on the sink for me to start wiping it down.
I don’t even use glass cleaner in there. The rag I dry the faucets with is damp enough for me to wipe down the mirrors and then I run over them with a dry corner of the rag.
In the kitchen I don’t use any special cleaners most of the time. Just good old hot soapy water. If I have cooked chicken or something like that I may add a tiny tiny amount of bleach to my dish water to wipe down things. If I have places that I don’t clean as often in the kitchen like high shelves and they get that gummy greasey build up I will use my Dow foam on it too. Cleans it right off. Once when I was cleaning others houses I had to clean a house that had this thick yellow gummy coating all over the walls and cabinets in the kitchen where the people had smoked for about 50 years and it had never cleaned. It was awful. No one thought it could be cleaned but I got out my Dow and sprayed in on. In less then 5 mins. all that build up started rolling off of the cabinets. I wiped with a wet rag with no scrubbing at all.
Mr. Clean isn’t bad and I have used it on my floors but I use vinegar or ammonia on my floors most of the time.
Every morning, I use the toilet bowl brush to do a once-over of the toilet bowl. Just the act of running the brush around the inside prevents it from ever looking dirty. Of course, I also routinely sanitize it as well. It takes me less than a minutes to do both bathrooms.