Routines are the cornerstone of any organization. If you still haven’t found the cleaning routines that click with you, we may have some intriguing tips that could lead you closer to finding your success routine. The feedback we get from our customers says that people find their housework most manageable when they do light cleaning throughout the week and have a regular professional cleaning service every other week.
Here are the handiest flash cleaning routines for every day that we have rounded up for you.
Daily checklist
Daily checklists that take 30 minutes max to complete pack a big punch for your housework organization. You can compile them yourself or look them up on the Internet (you’ll find something like this). There’s a trove of printables waiting for you to be printed out or customized to suit your needs.
Don’t expect to find your ideal routine right away. It’s more likely that it’ll be a hit-and-miss affair for some time, but keep trying and experimenting and you’ll get there soon enough.
Staying on top of the game
Until your cleaning routine becomes firmly ingrained in your everyday, it’s best to keep it visual and write it down. If it’s stimulating to you, you can check the tasks off as you complete them. If you are conscious about paper waste, you have the option of laminating the checklist or putting it in a frame behind a glass. Not only will it look neat and cute, but it’ll also be a constant reminder.
Talking of reminders, you can use your phone to store your checklist and set alarms to keep track of your to-dos.
Avoid time-consuming mistakes
An inefficient routine is as almost as good as no routine. Why have a routine if it wastes your precious time and energy? Efficiency killer #1 is failing to prioritize. If we look at chores based on rooms, there are always those critical areas that you either hate doing or that require more energy than other tasks. When you go about your cleaning schedule, hit these areas first. First of all, you’ll have more energy to deal with it if you do it before anything else, and second, you’ll already feel better about the rest. Remember that big tasks just keep growing if you ignore them by dealing with minor ones first.
Another mistake is doing unnecessary, tiring walking when you don’t have tools at hand. Get a handy caddy to have your “cleaning toolkit” always ready. You could also consider keeping the number of your cleaning products at a minimum or using disposable wet towels to keep things more manageable.
Keep essentials in mind
Not every task has the same impact on your daily functioning. Dusting sure makes your home more pleasant to the eye and nose, but dust-free shelves don’t make an appropriate outfit or a dish to eat out from. The chores that are fundamental for a smooth daily functioning of the whole family are:
- Cooking
- Doing the laundry
- Washing the dishes
- Taking out the trash
- Basic decluttering, such as keeping kitchen countertops empty, the sofa and end tables free of mess and the putting clothes back in the closet (or in the hamper)
Theme days
To keep things super simple and easier to keep track of, you can assign one type of housework to one day. For example, you dust on Mondays, Tuesdays are for vacuuming, Wednesdays for mopping, Thursdays for bathrooms, etc. To supercharge your efforts, you can try setting up a timer to, let’s say, 20 minutes and see how much you can do in that time. The trick here is to really do all your best to accomplish what you’ve set, without paying attention to the rest. The general idea is great, even though it could need tweaking to suit your needs. Experiment with it and see how it goes.
Helpful bags
Bags are great for decluttering. Here are 2 ways you can use them.
A shallow bag that you can haul around with you can be your little helper with blitz tidying. Set aside 10 minutes every morning or evening, take the helper with you and start touring the rooms. Whatever you find in the rooms that doesn’t belong there, goes into the bag. At the same time, you also take the things out of the bag and put them back in their place when you get to the right room. For example, you pick the hairdryer up in the bedroom and put it back in the bathroom. This saves you a lot of going back and forth.
You can also use bags to declutter systematically. For example, this blogger suggests “a bag a day” principle to be applied over a period of month, throughout the year. It goes like this: you choose categories that you’ll be tackling that month, and every day you try to fill a bag with unnecessary items in that category that you find in your home. You can either throw the things away or give them away. The point is to be consistent and make steady progress. It’s a long-distance marathon, but the upside is that you’ll be able to see progress very quickly. That will motivate you to keep going.
Need reliable and experienced cleaning services in LA, Orange County or San Francisco?
Light cleaning routines are life-savers when it comes to keeping your head above water. However, light cleaning and tidying cannot go without occasional deep cleaning. If you find that you rather wouldn’t sacrifice a few hours over the weekend scrubbing away, give us a call. We are a top trusted referral agency matching you with reliable and experienced cleaning pros across Los Angeles, OC and San Francisco. Check out our packages, book now or give us a call at (855) 971-6243 first. We’re here for you!
