5 DAILY ACTIVITIES TO STAY ON TOP OF HOUSE CLEANING

(Listed in Order of Importance)

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.” -Harvey Mackay

This holiday season, diminish the stress of home cleaning and create more time for you to enjoy the things you love. You can invest a little more than 1 hour a day to your home keeping clutter at bay, instilling healthy habits for your family and creating opportunities for fun conversations along the way. Here are 5 daily activities to stay on-top of house cleaning:

NUMBER 1: KITCHEN

The kitchen is the hub of the home and can be the central area for daily chaos. (This is the case for our Southern Kitchen in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) For this reason, the kitchen is Number 1 on the list for daily tidying up. The definition of tidying up can mean making sure everything is put away, the dishes are done, and the counters cleared off. It could mean spraying everything down, sweeping and more. Deciding on your comfort level and time availability, spending any amount of energy in the Kitchen everyday can ensure your home’s HQ does not become an overwhelming mess.

NUMBER 2: DISHES

Dishes are separate from the kitchen because they are their own beast. Dishes piled up can be a daily reminder of things undone, unfinished projects and in some cases lead to fights over who’s responsibility it is to clean. Dishes need attention every day or else they quickly grow out of control. Have the kids rotate who cleans and who puts away, or implement a rule of Chef Cooks and Staff Cleans. The benefit to this rule is perhaps your partner or children may be motivated to cook, just so they do not have to wash dishes.

NUMBER 3: LAUNDRY

Although it seems that dirty laundry breeds dirty laundry, actively addressing laundry can save you hours of your time each week. The washing and drying part is generally easy for everyone but the PUTTING AWAY is what seems to get lost (or stuck) in the laundry baskets. How many people have a second closet in the clean laundry baskets? The solution is committing to one full load a day. Start a load of laundry in the morning and place it in the dryer when you return home from work. The load will dry while you perform the evening task such as dinner or No. 1 & No. 2 on the list. Fold the Laundry while watching your favorite show and put away items before you go to bed. This will ensure you are completing one load a day. The daily efficiency will make the loads of laundry smaller, bring down the need for large amounts of water and cuts down on drying time because the loads are smaller—saving electricity cost. Not to mention, putting away a couple of items daily is much easier than spending 1 day on the weekend catching up on laundry.

NUMBER 4: 10 MINUTE PICK-UP

Have you ever timed yourself? 10 minutes doesn’t seem like that long but it’s amazing how much can get accomplished. If you get distracted when you clean and spin out for long periods of time running from one task to another, this may be the key to success. 10 minutes? No biggie. During the 10 minute pick-up we encourage you to set a timer and get everyone involved. Assign specific tasks or specific rooms to a person. Taking the time to pick-up the trail of clutter left behind from the morning routine, messy toddlers or afternoon antics of the family can keep clutter at bay. Not to mention, it will negate family members screaming “does anyone know where my shoes are?” in the morning.

NUMBER 5: ROTATING CHORES

Chores is a generic term. Choosing ONE thing a day to accomplish is doable. It can be whatever you want – taking out the trash, sweeping or vacuuming a room, wiping and restocking a bathroom, quick dusting, moving the clutter by the back door to their assigned places, stripping down sheets to wash… anything. The key is to rotate it so that everything is attended to and you are not doing the same chore every day. By week’s end, you will have attended to most areas of the home leaving you with very little to complete your house cleaning.