It’s hard to call cleaning an exciting process: there are always more interesting things in life (just think of TV series!). But home chores, alas, will not wait. The longer you put them off, the more you have to do later. If you would like to painlessly build cleaning into your everyday routine, it is enough to have a few useful habits. From the list below, you are welcome to choose those that will suit you.
Divide all your belongings into categories and get rid of what is not needed
Let’s start with things you rarely use or don’t use at all. Typically, they are stored on a balcony or occupy the top shelves of cabinets. Marie Kondo came up with an approach to what to do with them. Marie Kondo is the most famous specialist in the world of cleaning. She is the author of the world bestseller “Magic Cleaning” (the book was published in 30 countries with a circulation of more than two million copies). Marie Kondo is now leading her own reality show on Netflix.
According to Kondo’s method, you have to divide all things into categories (clothes, toys, gadgets, paper, etc.) and get rid of everything that does not bring joy. How much time it will take, depends how much living and storage space you have. Some of the corners can be dealt with over the weekend.
If you are not ready to sacrifice an entire weekend, take it, as a rule, to start putting your belongings in order an hour per week (for example, on Sunday). The main part of the rule here is regularity and consistency. Don’t leave things for “I will do this when I have time left”, or “I may use this at some time in the future”. If you have clothing, shoes, etc., that are well-preserved, they can be given to a charity.
After you have taken those necessary steps, you will almost certainly need to clean up. There is likely to be lots of dust, spider nests, animal wool, etc.. Corners will need to be cleaned up and vacuumed. One vacuum cleaner could be very useful to help cope with this chore: Bosch Unlimited vacuum cleaner (link to Amazon). This machine has a special slot nozzle to clean the hard-to-reach corners.
Clean for 10 minutes every day
There is not always time to do full cleaning: family, work, country house, and other important things cannot be canceled just for the cleaning exercise. In such cases, you can try the method of Marla Cilley. Marla is the author of the “FlyLady” system (it is designed to make cleaning and household chores more effective).
According to Sally, you shouldn’t try cleaning the house all at once: it’s too laborious. In addition, the kitchen sink, the bedside table, and the cat tray are dirty at different speeds. So she advises to clean up a little bit, but every day. Cleaning time can vary from 5 to 30 minutes.
In addition, each house or apartment has places where mountains of things traditionally accumulate. Most often these are armchairs in the corner of the room, shelves in the hallway, coffee tables, working surface in the kitchen. Identify these places and keep an eye on them.
For example, you can move the chair away, and if it gets cluttered too quickly, it can be removed at all. Then there is no temptation to throw clothes at it! Cleaning up the “hot spots” is the fastest way to make an apartment much neater and do this fast. You can do it in ten minutes per day, and the effect will be noticeable immediately.
“Hot spots” are places that you don’t usually want to do. So much so that during cleaning you can forget about them at all! If you remember them when your vacuum cleaner’s battery is low, it’s no problem: Unlimited vacuum cleaner model by Bosch (link to Amazon) has a replacement battery. And if this one is also discharged, you just need to put the device on the charger and put a reminder for yourself. In just an hour it will be ready to work again.
Turn cleaning into a game (it can be fun!)
No matter what age you are, you can turn cleaning and putting things in order into a game. Set the timer for ten minutes and imagine you’re going through a test at Fort Boyard. It’s likely that you’ll wash the plates faster for a while, and then throw the clothes you’ve been building up on your chair for months into the washing machine.
One critical point: it’s important to win the game, and therefore get a reward! So don’t forget to pamper yourself with something if you pass the test successfully.
Get a checklist for cleaning and do it in the evening
In the world of cleaning, the “mornings are wiser than evenings” rule doesn’t work. In the morning, it is difficult to fight the mess, especially if you still need to go to the shower, walk with the dog, dress your children and cook breakfast. So try to do everything in your power in the evening: wash the accumulated dishes, load the washing machine, clean your shoes, etc.
You can also make a checklist for each room and break this list into micro activities: to clean the dust from the lampshade, wash the mirror, change the garbage bag, and so on. Many people love ticking boxes! And if you create such a list in to-do application (for example, in Microsoft ToDo, Todoist, Things 3) and put a reminder for yourself, in the evening you will know exactly what to do.
Clean top-down and delegate more
The “top-down” rule will keep you from working twice – the dust from the chandelier to be wiped off will not fall on the freshly washed stove and the bread crumbs from the table will not be on the floor that you just vacuumed.
To make sure you don’t have to worry, make cleaning more technological and use modern devices: you don’t have to redo anything after they do the work. The dishwasher will take care of the dirty plates (which is an average of five hours a week!), the washer-dryer will save time hanging laundry, and the vacuum cleaner (especially if it’s light and wireless) will help you get rid of dust in all corners.
Bosch Unlimited Vacuum cleaner
With the nozzles that come with your Bosch Unlimited (link to Amazon), you can clean a wide variety of surfaces: tiles, parquet, carpet, ceiling. Even the interior of your car! And all this with a single device. The brush heads are easy to change and can be stored in one place – on the dock station, and they will not be lying around.
Organize and store your belongings in transparent boxes
Many families around the world have a similar lifestyle. Be this is in China, Russia or Brazil. So the advice of Chinese woman Lou Viei, who designs small standard apartments, can certainly be useful. In her book “House for Life”, Lou Viei provides a lot of specific numbers and calculations, as well as what to store in the standard single and double-room apartment.
Wei believes that the apartment is usually jammed when things are stored in open storage. She thinks that 80% of what needs to be stored, has to be stored in closed systems and only 20% of the most necessary things can be left in open storage, in plain sight. Wei even calculated the minimum storage area. It should be not less than 12% of the apartment area.
Another advice is to store everything in transparent boxes with well visible stickers, such as “Documents”, “Shoes”, “Christmas tree” and so on. First of all, it is clear at once that is inside, and secondly, there is no temptation to put something else there. Do not fill the containers by more than 90%, otherwise, they will turn into chests, from which it is not easy to get anything.
Another useful way of organizing things at home is to use the library card index. This way, it will be more convenient to look through them. The system consists of several drawer cabinets where you can, for example, place books vertically, put towels or bed linen in rolls. With a regular wardrobe, of course, this will not work. However, you will still need to tidy up the mess first!
Our recommendations in brief:
- Get rid of things that do not bring you joy. It is best to give them to charity.
- Do a bit of cleaning every day for 10 minutes (do it in the evening, when you are not in a hurry).
- Start by first arranging the places where things gather the most.
- Create a checklist for each room to help you understand the scope of what needs to be done.
- Keep things in transparent containers. Do not fill them more than 90%.
- Set the timer when you start your cleaning job. This way you’ll be less distracted and get things done faster.
- Follow the top-down rule and use modern technology: it saves a lot of time.
- Store things so they don’t take up much space, but they’re easy to find. It is useful to have a vertical system in lockers, and towels and bed linen should be wrapped in rolls.
- Don’t chase after perfection and don’t blame yourself if you can’t keep the perfect order all the time. The success of the house chores exercise is when you and your loved ones are comfortable at home.
When buying things, pay attention to how much space they will occupy when not used. For example, the advantage of the Bosch Unlimited Wireless Vacuum Cleaner (link to Amazon) is not only in the fact that it is stored vertically. This model also has a universal battery that fits with other Bosch power tools for home and garden.
For example, you took a drill, drilled a hole, then changed the battery, and vacuumed the dust quickly. The dust did not have time to fly around the apartment. By the way, Bosch Unlimited has a RotationClean cleaning system, which allows you to easily clean the filter from dust (and do not get your hands dirty!). And, as Bosch declares, thanks to the Pure Air system, the after the vacuum cleaner even becomes cleaner than it was.
Read also: Planning a renovation project? Key project planning rules to help you cope – in this article. And, How to avoid wasting time on a renovation project? – in this article.
