6 EASY Habits For A Cleaner Home!

When cleaning becomes overwhelming – which I know happens a lot – taking a step back and trying to adopt some simple habits into your daily routine can really make an impact. One of the easiest ways to fight overwhelmed feelings, when it comes to cleaning, is to have good habits in place.

Check Before You Rinse

When you’re cleaning professionally, you waste a lot of time scrubbing and then rinsing, only to see that the surface you are just cleaning and thought was clean is actually still dirty, because the mildew or build up is under that top layer of dirt. So instead, give the surface a general clean first. Wiping and rinsing the entire surface. Then go in and look, or feel for especially scummy spots or locations with build up. You’ll notice surface tension or bumpiness, whether it’s you know a dirty pot or a tub with soap scum, you’ll know where the dirty areas are. Now you can scrub those specific locations, give one final rinse, and move on.

Keep Surfaces Clear

Furniture has many uses, it’s for sitting on, holding lamps, decorating your space – it is not a storage space for random items you put down and forget about. I’m guilty of this as well. I’ll walk into a room, put whatever I’m holding down on the couch or coffee table and then basically never pick it up. That’s how things start to pile up and a room gets cluttered. So, the habit here is to keep your furniture surfaces as clear as possible. Make it a habit not to put things down on furniture, put it away.

Focus On The Task At Hand

When it comes to cleaning, multitasking doesn’t always work well. It’s hard to talk on the phone or answer a Facebook message or even think about doing another cleaning task, when you’re trying to clean a particular space. You lose focus and often start to forget things. One of the reasons why I’m such a huge proponent of following the 3-wave system, (which you can check out in other videos or my book) is because it keeps you focused. It tells you exactly where you need to be and what you need to do whenever you clean a room so that you don’t get off-track.

Fold Laundry Right Away

This can be a huge challenge. It’s a busy day, tons of things to do, and the dryer buzzes. It doesn’t seem urgent so I leave my clothing in the dryer, it’s sits, it settles. The heat starts to dissipate and wrinkles set in and then, it turns into a pile of laundry that I never want to deal with. Instead, try and pick up the habit of folding laundry as soon as that buzzer goes off. It’s help prevent wrinkles, your laundry will smell better – and it will actually get done.

Keep Your Sinks Clean

I find that when the kitchen sink is dirty thats when the rest of the kitchen starts to go down the drain. The same applies to the bathroom. If you’re in the kitchen and there are dishes, grunginess along the side of the sink, or your bathroom has toothpaste splatters and mildew, deal with it, because it’s going to cause a larger mess. The habit to pick up is cleaning your sink after you’ve finished using the space. It doesn’t need to be anything serious, just a quick wipe down with a microfiber cloth or even a paper towel. If you have a clean sink, you’re going to be more likely to keep the rest of your space clean too.

Have A Vision

When sticking to any goal, perseverance is really important, and it helps to be able to visualize the end goal in order to stick to it – that goes for cleaning as well. What I like to do is go into a space before I start cleaning it and just look around. I envision what I want my space to look like when I’m done with cleaning. This really helps me focus my efforts and stick to my goal. Walk into a space, have a look at it, think about what you really want it to look like – that’s your goal and you can start working towards it.

And a lot of what I talk about in our free kickstart your cleaning series, which is a ten-part video series designed to help get you motivated and encouraged to clean is this kind of information to really help you get on track and stay on track. You can check that series out here. Try to pick up a few, or all of these habits, they can really change how you see cleaning.