Clean Smarter, Not Harder!

Try these easy cleaning ideas to make your cleaning easier and faster, so you don’t need to procrastinate! Use these tips and have a cleaner home today!

Clean Smarter Not Harder

For years, I have studied strategies and techniques for cleaning homes and I’ve shared many of them with you. Still, many people struggle daily with messy homes.

I have discovered that the number one reason people don’t usually clean their homes, or why they are always procrastinating when it comes to cleaning, is that they simply lack the motivation.

Another thing that prevents many of us from having clean homes, and a big reason for procrastination is that most of us make the job so much harder and more complicated than it needs to be. We often make more work for ourselves than is necessary.

Try these easy cleaning ideas that will help you clean smarter and not harder:

• When I did professional cleaning, they taught us to take long slow strokes when vacuuming instead of short fast ones like most people do. Doing short fast strokes just wears you out and the vacuum can’t pick up things as well.
  If you think about it, when a vacuum salesman is demonstrating a vacuum cleaner how does he do it – long slow strokes. There is a reason for that.
• I don’t like to ask my guests to take off their shoes, but if you place a mat right inside the door with a pair of shoes sitting on it, many guests will remove their shoes without being asked.
• Place body wash in place of bars of soap in all of the bathrooms. It will mean no or less soap scum to clean up.
• Use pump soap at all of the sinks.
• Always use some kind of bubble bath in the bath water when you take a bath. Make sure the guys and children use it too. (I kept a bottle of dish detergent in the tub for them to use.)
  For little toddlers and babies, use baby bubbles or even a squirt of baby shampoo since their skin is more sensitive. Doing this you will never ever clean a ring around the bath tub again.

• Not all of us have real wood furniture anymore. Most furniture that looks like a wood finish is simply a laminate but many of us still use wood furniture polish on it. If your furniture is a laminate, the next time you dust, try putting a little fabric softener on a cloth to dust. The fabric softener attracts the dust and it leaves things smelling so nice. Don’t use fabric softener on regular wood furniture or antiques.
• Whenever you clean anything, always let the cleaning product work for you and soak things as much as you can. Don’t use liquid cleaners on gummy and dirty vertical areas. Instead, use foam cleaners for these surfaces. No matter what kind of liquid product it is, it usually streams right down the wall or surface. Liquid cleaners don’t cling enough to do any cleaning on the walls and other vertical services like the foam does.
• Keep a set of cleaning supplies in each bathroom and in the kitchen where they are very easy to see and reach. The adage, “Out of sight, out of mind,” is so true when it comes to cleaning supplies. Store a couple of rags and 1 – 2 cleaning products in a cabinet that you use every day, where you will always see them.
  You don’t have to keep a lot of cleaning stuff in each space. I know many people recommend carrying a tote of supplies with you from room to room. This might be fine if you are doing a major all day cleaning but most people do better cleaning in small moments of time. If you have 1-2 minutes and the bathroom sink is dirty, you are more likely to reach down and grab the cleaner to clean it right then if it is easily accessible. If you have to walk into the other room to get your tote full of supplies, one or two things will usually happen. You will either be out of the mood or out of time to do it by the time you get to the supplies or you will likely get sidetracked with something else that needs your attention.