You don’t need to sacrifice your entire weekend to keep your home sparkling.
Cleaning can sometimes feel like a bit of a redundant task. You spend your whole evening reluctantly scrubbing the floors, mopping, vacuuming, and bleaching the bog – only to take a step back and not be able to see any difference. Instead of breaking out in a sweat by hours of gruelling scrubbing – it’s time to start cleaning more efficiently.
We’ve therefore compiled nine ‘magic’ hacks that will keep your home feeling brand-new without putting in all the effort and time. So, let’s dive straight into it.
1. Top to bottom, then left to right
If your cleaning routine holds no specific order, it’s likely you’re creating more work for yourself. Instead of entering a room and wiping down the first sight of mess you spot – it’s worth following the ‘top to bottom, then left to right method’. For example, there’s no point in cleaning your coffee table – only to then clean your light shades and watch all the dust fall back onto the area you’ve cleaned.
Dusting before vacuuming is the perfect mantra. Doing this job the other way round means you’ll be putting in all of the work for very little reward. “Most people see something and clean it, then they look up and see something else and clean it, and the dirt falls down on what you just cleaned,” speed-cleaning ace Debbie Sardone told Popular Mechanics. “If you work top to bottom and left to right, you’re working once instead of cleaning areas you’ve just cleaned.”
2. Multi-task
Waiting for each cleaning task to be complete before you move onto the next is bound to drive you crazy and postpone the cleaning process. Instead of idling around for your limescale remover to kick into action, or watching the grout cleaner fizz for 10 long, boring, minutes – see what else you can do around the house.
“Place an oven-proof bowl filled with hot water in the oven and set a timer for 20 minutes; this loosens any food residue that you can wipe away,” experts over at Strata advise. “In the meantime, mop the kitchen floor, vacuum or clean the bathroom during this time.”
3. Use a caddy
Running up and down the stairs for every single cleaning item, cloth, or Scrub Daddy might be good for your daily step-count, but it makes cleaning extremely inefficient. Before you start scrubbing the upstairs loo, make sure you have a caddy fully-stocked with everything you need.
It might sound super obvious, but this hack will save you so much time in the long run. You can pick up a cleaning caddy from your nearest general store or online (or you can use a washing-up bowl). For example, Amazon is currently selling a twin-compartment version for just £6. If you live in a three-storey house – these are a real life-saver.
4. Stop scrubbing
There are some jobs that require a bit of elbow grease, but you’re probably putting in way too much effort on certain tasks because you’re using the wrong products. For example, instead of trying to crawl into the drum and clean your stinky washing machine with an old toothbrush you can deodorise and clean the appliance with this super-fast lemon and toothpaste hack.
If your bathroom and kitchen taps have become riddled with limescale, it may be tempting to try and manually chip off the chalky substance. However, not only is this time-consuming, it can also lead to damaging the faucet and leaving it scratched. Instead, save the time and energy by checking out this genius paper towel trick.
5. The laundry basket method
It can be hard to even start cleaning when your home is filled with clutter. If you have kids, or a partner who can’t seem to put anything back where it belongs, the laundry basket method could help you get started. Instead of spending hours trying to put each item away, simply go through the house and dump anything that is out of place into an empty laundry basket (doesn’t have to be neat).
Now, you have a blank canvas to start cleaning. You can leave the laundry basket in a convenient place and instruct your household to take one item every time they go upstairs.
6. Delegate
This leads us nicely on to our next hack: delegate. If you’re constantly the only person in the house mopping the floors, bleaching the loo, or taking the bins out – it’s time to start delegating. If you split the deep-cleaning chores with your partner, it’ll be done in half the time.
This is also a great way to start getting your kids involved with being tidy. Set them small tasks like putting their toys away, emptying the ‘wash basket’ (from the previous hack) or folding their own clothes. Remember, team work makes the dream work.
7. Create a schedule
If you’re having trouble getting your family to chip-in with cleaning, or you live on your own, creating a schedule could help you stay on top of things. Doing this can also help you become less likely to get distracted or waste time thinking more about what needs to be than actually doing it.
Cleaning schedules can also help reinforce some of our previous tips, including cleaning ‘top, bottom, then left, right’ and multi-tasking. Once you’ve perfected this, achieving a sparkling house won’t seem so impossible.
8. Deadlines
The perfectionist in us sometimes means we spend much longer cleaning than actually necessary. If you are spending too much time on one specific task, it might be worth setting a deadline.
“You need to be strict on what you’re intending to clean and how long for, so setting a timed deadline will help you structure your cleaning – and add more organisation and routine to this exercise,” Strata added. They recommend setting a timer on your phone or smart-home device, and moving onto the next task once the time runs up.
9. Speed-clean regularly
While a deep clean is necessary every now and then, speed-cleaning regularly can help prevent dirt and grime from getting out of hand. Giving the kitchen surfaces a quick wipe at every meal is a much more efficient way than waiting until the end of the week – and having to tackle stubborn stains and build-up.
Once you hone in on this habit, cleaning will feel like a much less gruelling chore. It takes practice, and some will-power, but is likely to free up your weekends and keep your home feeling fresh.
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