10 Professional Tricks That Can Help You Clean Your House In a Fraction Of The Time

Oct 24, 2018

Gluttons for punishment and OCD cleaners aside, most people dread cleaning their houses. Yet, it’s a must. In fact, this research shows that the average woman spends about 12,896 hours, which equates to around four hours per week, in her lifetime on cleaning duties.

That’s a lot of living sacrificed, but the good news is that there are a lot of professional cleaning tips and tricks that can speed the process along! They are designed to make such a long day of cleaning, and help prevent small chores from turning into big jobs.

Every single time you hunt a stray sock or spend hours hunting an important item, you say you’ll declutter. How often do you actually follow through, though? Start by making an effort for everything in your home to have its own designated space that makes practical sense for its use.

It’s much easier to put shoes, for example, away, if they all have designated homes based on how they’re used.

A good rule to help you distinguish between clutter that just needs a good home and clutter that’s taking up precious space is to ask yourself when was the last time you used the item. If you haven’t used it in 10-12 months and it’s not a precious keepsake, then it’s most likely time to re-home, recycle or trash it.

Once you get organized, remember to declutter room-by-room before each cleaning. If something gets left out of place, go ahead and put it up instead of trying to clean around it. This will make the overall cleaning process a lot more efficient and faster.

As you’re spot decluttering room-by-room, take a garbage bag with you and empty the wastebaskets and pick up stray garbage from each room.

These handy little contraptions make cleaning life so much easier because you save a multitude of steps and time by having everything you need right there with you at all times.

Think about the products you’ll need - glass cleaner, tile cleaner, bleach or vinegar, limescale cleaner, detergent, brush, rags, and so forth.

Did the chicken or the egg come first? That’s debatable, but, in the case of vacuuming or dusting, dusting wins the race. People that do it backwards often wonder why their floors are still dirty after they’ve spent all that time cleaning.

The reason for this is because you’ve just dusted all sorts of particles into the air that will eventually just resettle on your floor that was clean five minutes ago. Always leave your floors as the last thing you clean.

Chairs, sofas, mattresses, etc can have over 10,000 multiplying dust mites calling them home.

These fellas can worsen or trigger allergies, especially in those already suffering from a respiratory ailment like asthma.

The roller treatment is fine for spot cleaning, but upholstery should be vacuumed routinely at least once a week to keep it healthy and clean.

Start in your most trafficked room and work your way around it in a clockwork pattern doing surfaces. Move to the next room and do the same. Continue until all surfaces are cleaned. Go back to start and move on with the next chore in the same room-by-room pattern.

This helps ensure that you don’t miss surfaces that seem clean to the naked eye but are actually full of microscopic bacteria and germs.

Have you ever hand-washed a crusty casserole dish? It takes a lot of elbow grease to get it clean if you just immediately start scrubbing away on it, but all those burnt bits come off with little effort if you let the pan soak a few minutes first, right? It’s the same principle with surfaces.

Follow the pattern spraying all your surfaces room-by-room. By the time you finish spraying everything, you can go back to the first surface you sprayed and clean it up with very little scrubbing.

These are areas that are often neglected or forgotten, but they tend to catch a lot of dust and splatters and can make a clean house look less than sparkling clean when they’re all dingy and dirty against clean walls and floors.

Hard surface floors can be swiped with the edge of a mop for a quick clean as you’re routinely mopping your floors. Baseboards in carpeted areas and any molding should be wiped down with a cloth.

Dish soap is great at cutting grease on kitchen windows and scale buildup on bathroom, laundry, and mud room windows.

Use it on all your glass and mirrored surfaces for a streak-free shine that removes sticky and hard to cut buildup.

Did you know that detergent molecules dissolve in water to create supermolecules? They fight oil, residue, dirt, and grime!

Appliances are areas that can turn into huge jobs quickly if they’re not attended to after each use. Cleaning them right before using them also leaves your food exposed to whatever cleaning agent you just used. Not a good idea.

As food particles and spills get heated repeatedly, they turn into something that almost requires a sledgehammer to clean. So, give your appliances a wipe down after each use to save you a lot of time in the long run.

Coffee pots and dishwashers should be cleaned monthly to prevent buildup.

All of the above tips work best if you develop a schedule to keep up with what to clean and when to clean it. Here’s an example schedule broken down to daily, weekly, and monthly chores:

• Laundry
• Dishes
• Make beds
• Clean and sanitize kitchen and bathroom surfaces
• Keep work and traffic areas decluttered
• Clean any accidents or tracking immediately

• Sweep and mop
• Vacuum floors and upholstery
• Wash removable upholstery and bedding
• Clean tub/shower
• Clean mirrors and windows
• Clean kitchen appliances
• Clean baseboards
• Wash bathroom linens

• Clean cleaning utensils (vacuum, mops, dishwasher, brushes, washer, dryer)
• Clean fridge and remove expired foods
• Clean trash cans
• Wipe off and out cabinets, drawers, and other furniture
• Dust light fixtures and other dust-collecting structures

You’ve got the cleaning tips, tricks, and schedule recommended by pros. Have you tried it and loved the results? Pass it along to a friend, and do be sure to tell us your experiences and any cleaning tips you’ve learned along the way.