How many times have you spontaneously stopped over at a friend’s home and wondered how she keeps it so clean and organized when she has 3 kids, a career, a busy life? What are her cleaning secrets?
If you are like me, it’s been more than I’d like to admit! It’s not that I don’t want a clean home, I do! I wish it cleaned itself! When my house is clean I feel calm, a sense of pride, more available to my family, and want to extend hospitality to others!
Luckily, I have some very kind, tidy, organized friends who have shared their cleaning secrets of maintaining a clean home. If you are like me, these cleaning secrets can really help get some control over your mess and more time to enjoy your friends and family (because really…who wants to clean all the time?)!
Here are 10 cleaning secrets of people with tidy homes (thank you to my friends who shared their cleaning secrets)!
1. Process mail before it comes in the door!
Mail is either filed, recycled, or goes through the shredding machine when it comes in the door. We file what needs to be paid or read, recycle the stuff that doesn’t have any important identity information, and shred everything else. Takes less than 5 minutes and it’s clean.
2. Apply the one item in, one item out rule.
This is the best decluttering tip I’ve ever heard is that when you buy something like a new shirt, an old one needs to go. This way you are not cluttering up your home with extra stuff that you no longer need! A lot of people can benefit from your generosity or you can earn a little extra money and sell some of your best things online!
3. Keep up with dishes and laundry!
We have a larger family which means more people using dishes and more people wearing clothes that get dirty. I’ve learned the hard way that if the dishes don’t get done at night, no one has bowls for cereal the next day. The same concept applies to laundry with socks, underwear, sports uniform or a favorite t-shirt!
A tip from a household of 7: if you unload the dishwasher and start a load of laundry first thing in the morning and once again start the dishwasher and fold the clean clothes in the evening before bed, it really helps with keeping everyone happy when it comes to clean dishes and laundry (and it keeps the house tidy)!
4. Take trash out to the dumpster every day.
5. 10 minutes is all you need to get a lot of jobs done!
How many times have you found yourself needing to leave for an appointment or event but you are ready 10 to 15 minutes before the event? This is the perfect amount of time to complete a task or 2 that will help you keep a clean home! Here are just a few tasks that you can do under 10 minutes:
- Unload or load the dishwasher
- Set up an appointment
- Change your sheets on your bed
- Clean the toilet
- Make your bed
- Get the trash out of your vehicle
6. Have everyone in your home do a 10 minute clean up before bedtime.
Can you tell I’m a fan of 10 minute increments? This is huge at my house. If I have all 7 of us each do this, that is 70 minutes of clean up done in 10! No the clean up will not be perfect, especially with small kids. But isn’t halfway better than not at all? A few jobs I recommend for little ones are:
- Pick up their toys
- Take dirty clothes to the hamper
- Help carry clean clothes to be folded
- Fold dish towels
- Help carry items to the room they belong in
I have a problem with my feet hurting me when I don’t have shoes on hard floors. The answer to this is only wearing shoes that go in the house. They never go outside and the floors stay clean.
8. Touch everything as little as possible.
When you add spices to your meals, get them out, add to the food, and put them away. Don’t leave them on the counter, finish the job and put them back. Do the same thing with your hair brush! Get it out, brush your hair, put it back in the drawer. Simple, but we don’t all do that!
9. Every night put away the clean laundry.
I have a serious problem with putting away clean laundry. I have no issues washing, drying or folding into each person’s basket, but when it comes to putting it away, I totally drop the ball! This one habit we will be working on this year as a family. It has perks! By putting away the laundry your home is tidy and everyone can find their clothes!
Have you ever thought of deep cleaning your bathrooms on the 2nd Saturday of the month? By setting a schedule, it’s easy to establish a habit. Give it a try, you might like it!
10. Keep your countertops clean.
I despise cluttered countertops! However not everyone in my family feels that way! In my experience, when a counter becomes a spot for people’s books and papers it becomes a hard habit for them to break. By teaching family members where to put their school papers and books, you can have tidy countertops!
Which habit are you best at? Which one do you need to work at?
Have you enjoyed what you read here today? Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource? If so, please do me a favor! I have included the links below to share with other intentional women! They’ll be glad you did!
Great tips! I am big on processing the mail before it comes in the door and no shoes in the home. Both are great tips for daily home maintenance. Less mess = less cleaning! I also use little snippets of 10 minutes throughout the day and the time adds up!
Regarding touching everything as little as possible. For some things I am great with that…others not so much. I need to work on that!
The before bed clean up is a must for us! My kids think it is so much fun to take out every.single.toy from the toybox every day! So they get the fun job of cleaning it up! ha!
Also we have a strict no-shoes in the house rule. It keeps the carpets nicer much longer and when you have crawlers who put their hands in their mouth it is just healthier, I think! My husband has inside shoes as well! I didn’t think anyone else did that!
Great tips! My favorite is number 5. Taking 10 minutes to dedicate to getting something done is very possible – even with a super busy schedule!