Most people like to clean their homes regularly to keep up appearances, reduce infection rates, and improve wellness overall. A clean home looks better, feels better, and can even make you feel less stressed (especially if you thrive in an organized environment), but there’s a catch – it takes a lot of time to keep up with your responsibilities.
Depending on how many people live in your home, the type of pets you have, and a handful of other variables, it might take multiple weekly cleanings or even daily cleanings to stay on top of things. If you’re not careful, it could sap hours of your time.
Fortunately, there are many strategies you can use to stay efficient when cleaning your home so regularly.
Start With a Stable Organizational System
Before you clean anything, it’s important to establish an organizational system that you can follow. Ideally, every object in your home will have a specific location where it can be conveniently stored. If you don’t have a designated spot, the object will inevitably end up in an awkward position – like on the floor or cluttering up a table.
If you and everyone in your house know where objects belong, it will be much easier to keep them organized and out of sight. If you’re struggling to find a place for everything, you have two major options: you can either work to declutter (and reduce the number of items you need to find a home for) or invest in more organizational tools, like shelves or drawers.
Get the Right Equipment
One of the best steps you can take to improve the efficiency of your cleaning is to invest in better equipment. The BISSELL®️ CrossWave®️ cordless wet dry vac, for example, is designed to simultaneously vacuum and wash your floors. Therefore, you don’t need two tools for the same job, which saves you time.
It’s also important to invest in better cleaning supplies. Be sure to familiarize yourself with product reviews and proper use before buying or using a specific product.
Take Things in Small Steps
If you’re about to accomplish a major cleaning project, don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do everything at once – or by analyzing the project from a high level. It’s much easier to break things down into individual steps.
For example, if your living room is a total mess and in need of a top-to-bottom overhaul, take the time to list all the individual tasks that need to be completed to achieve your goals. This might include throwing away old mail, vacuuming, and shampooing the carpets. Tackling just one task at a time will keep you organized and less stressed while allowing you to make continued progress.
Share Responsibilities
If you live with multiple family members or other roommates, you can reduce the burden of cleaning responsibilities by dividing those responsibilities between those individuals. That could mean establishing a responsible party for each chore; for example, you could handle washing the dishes while your spouse takes care of vacuuming. It could mean establishing responsible parties for each room; for example, you might take care of the living room if your daughter handles the kitchen. Alternatively, you can set up a chore wheel to rotate responsibilities and divide the work as equally as possible.
Stick to a Routine
Whatever you decide to do, it’s important to stick to some kind of predictable routine. For example, you might spend 15 minutes each day when you get home from work tidying things up, and a full hour on Saturday performing a deeper clean. You could also work on a different room each day of the week or clean the entire house as a family once a month, at the same time every month.
What’s most important is that you’re consistent – that way, you’ll work more efficiently and your house will never get so dirty that it’s a hassle to clean it.
Alternate Surface Cleaning and Deep Cleaning
You don’t need to “deep clean” your house every time you want to organize or clean it. Getting into every nook and cranny multiple times a week is a waste of time. It’s therefore important to draw a line between what you count as “surface cleaning” and what you call “deep cleaning” – and know when to tackle tasks in each category.
A cleaning system that works well for one family may not work as well for another. Everyone has different cleaning styles and preferences. That’s why it’s important to define your own priorities, come up with your own system, and ultimately find your own path to better cleaning efficiency.