Cleaning can be boring, which is why we often put it off until the very last minute. But cleaning doesn’t have to be such a drag—if you know the right tricks, that is! These eight tricks are guaranteed to help you clean even when you don’t want to, so you can get your house in tip-top shape as soon as possible.
Imagine A Neat House
If you’re someone who has trouble getting started on cleaning, it might help to imagine what your home will look like when you’re done. Mentally picture each room as a clean, organized space that you can be proud of. Once your home is tidy, ask yourself if there are any other areas in your life that could use some streamline. Before long, cleaning will become second nature and a regular habit for you.
Have Your Cleaning Tools Ready
Instead of running around your home looking for a broom or duster, have your cleaning tools ready. All you need is a bucket and a mop. Put some soap in your bucket and keep your rags or towels nearby. As soon as you feel like you’re too busy to clean, grab what you need and get started. You’ll be surprised how quickly it all goes when you’ve got everything at arm’s reach!
Make A List To Pick Your Next Chore
Outlining your chores can be an effective way to stay on track. Pick a couple of specific chores and assign each one a numerical value. When you’re tired, pick up your list, add up all those numbers, and go for whichever task is worth more in terms of time. If vacuuming is worth seven points and washing dishes is worth two points, it doesn’t matter how tired you are: Vacuum first. The longer-term reward should always beat out momentary laziness! Outlining your chores can be an effective way to stay on track. Pick a couple of specific chores and assign each one a numerical value.
Rearrange Your Furniture
If you’re too tired to do a deep clean, move your furniture around. Rearranging furniture is both tedious and time-consuming, meaning you’ll be less likely to skimp on it in favor of another quick task. Over time, clutter can build up, which makes it even harder (and more overwhelming) to tackle deep cleaning. If you don’t have an extra 30 minutes or so every day after work to do a full home clean, try rearranging your furniture before bed instead—you may surprise yourself by how much that ends up doing for your space!
Build A Cleaning Playlist
Research shows that we tend to like tasks better when they’re set to our favorite music. So if you want a more enjoyable cleaning experience, try setting up a music playlist that makes you feel more motivated. One study by Kevin Goral and his colleagues showed that participants who listened to a cleaning playlist were less bored and thus enjoyed their chores more than those who didn’t listen to music at all. Another study found that people listened for about 22 minutes before becoming bored—so make sure your playlist is long enough! And whatever you do, don’t procrastinate on making your cleaning playlist: research suggests people spend fewer hours cleaning when they have one ready to go.
Dress For The Occasion
Having a professional come in and deep clean your home is an amazing way to give yourself a break from cleaning. If you’re lucky enough to live in an area with home cleaning services, go for it! There’s no shame in hiring help, especially when there are plenty of services at a variety of price points that can take over your dirty work. Hire An Offsite Maid Service: Many companies offer packages that send cleaners out every week or every other week. These are great if you have time constraints but need some help keeping things tidy between deep cleans.
Have Reward System
After you’ve cleaned a room, use a cleaning service or home cleaning services and reward yourself with something nice. Or, if you can’t afford a house cleaner at present, set up incentives for yourself that will make it easier to continue cleaning. For example, give yourself time off from your full-time job for every day of work you do at home. Use Activity Recognition: Place your laundry basket in front of your closet door before starting on that pile; when it’s empty, then it’s time to move on to another task. Don’t Multitask: While everything is still out of place, set aside some time (say an hour) to get started with just making order out of chaos.
Hire A Cleaning Service
Some people find that they work best when they have a set time each day or week to clean. Letting someone else do your dirty work can help you stay on top of chores and avoid using cleaning as a way to procrastinate. Hiring acleaning servicealso frees up your own time so you can do other things like… breath! There are lots of home cleaning services available, but it’s important to find one that you feel comfortable with. Quality is key; it might be worth spending an extra buck or two if it means getting a high-quality, dependable service.
Conclusion
Nobody likes to clean, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. This post offers a variety of advice on how to make cleaning your home exciting, from incorporating a DIY cleaning kit into your workstation to getting a mini fridge for all those shampoos and body washes you have laying around. Hopefully, these tips will help take the sting out of doing the dishes, lugging the vacuum back down the stairs and keeping your home fresh and clean. Even though housework is anything but glamorous, there are still ways to make cleaning fun!