Everyone groans when the words house cleaning gets mentioned.  It’s no one’s favorite chore and feels like a full-time job sometimes.  It seems there are never ending dust bunnies, spills, and if you add a pet or a couple teenage girls, having a fully cleaned house sounds like the impossible.  Tackle this dreaded task with a couple new ideas and it will feel a little more manageable.  Fire up your Swiffer and grab your gloves, it’s cleaning time!

 

Tackle Smaller Areas

Leaving your whole house to be cleaned all at once is impossible.  You’ll get burned out so fast you’ll never want to pick up a duster ever again.  And then you are right back where you started.  The way to keep a whole clean house is to tackle certain areas at different times.  Come up with a cleaning schedule – whether it’s the bottom floor one week and the upstairs the next week, or bathrooms on Saturday, vacuuming on Thursday night with a glass of wine.  Make your cleaning more manageable by breaking it up into smaller tasks.

 

Tidying Versus Cleaning

Know the difference between tidying and cleaning.  You can tidy as you go, day to day or room to room.  Before bed every night or whenever you are finished using a room, quickly tidy everything up, pick up any trash or used cups, fold the blankets and leave it as you found it.  The room will be ready to go the next time you use it.  Tidying can also make your house look cleaner automatically.  Even if your floors are in desperate need of a mop, the room and house will look cleaner if everything is straightened and neat.  It buys you some more time until you can get out all your cleaning supplies.

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Zone Defense

This is where you get the whole family involved.  Assign jobs or areas of the house to everyone in the home.  Make one person in charge of all laundry for the month, the next person is in charge of dusting, the next is the vacuum specialist.  By setting up expectations of everyone being involved, it will make the cleaning schedule run a lot smoother.  Even if it’s just you and your partner, decide who likes to do which cleaning chores and hold each other accountable.  You can make a game out of it – choose a prize and fight for it.

 

Tools and Your Cleaning Arsenal

Something that makes cleaning easier and a little more enjoyable are the right tools and products.  Go out on a shopping spree and grab products that are made for specific cleaning tasks in your house.  Pick out products with fun and refreshing scents – you’ll feel like you are on a Hawaiian vacation while you clean your toilet.

 

Cleaning doesn’t have to be the huge undertaking that everyone makes it out to be.  Even if you clean little by little, you are working towards and achieving something.  Look at house cleaning a little differently and you will change your perspective.