Simple clean house strategies.

I have friends who say they can’t seem to keep a clean house. With today’s busy lives, housekeeping seems to have become an art lost to overwhelming time eaters. The clean house strategies in this post are my answer to keeping it done without a lot of stress; A quick daily easy list.

First, maybe, we all need a quick reminder as to why a clean home environment is important. 

Cleaning up your house and environment is a simple way to improve not only your daily life, but your physical and mental health. It is part of self care, a way of respecting yourself.

When we keep our homes orderly, we feel better, less stressed, more on top of things.

In addition, we feel more comfortable, less chaotic. Less items are lost, so we don’t waste time looking for things.

In fact, escape from daily chaos is one of the reasons people love vacations. A clean room, crisp white sheets, mental peace, and no to-do list is bliss, so we feel cared for.

Clearly, a clean house feels better, but scientists say it is also healthier.

“A study led by associate professor NiCole R. Keith, Ph.D., research scientist and professor at Indiana University, found that people with clean houses are healthier than people with messy houses.” 

Additionally, A clean house helps to clear the mind of clutter.

When we hold on to useless, outdated, or the broken, we feel those feelings when we see the item. Keep the useful, the vital, and the beautiful or meaningful, but let go of the rest to feel lighter.

Sometimes we are exhausted because our minds are full of unfinished to do lists.

With a little effort, we can create habits that will keep our home much cleaner in simple ways. As a result, we feel happier, healthier, and less stressed.

The best simple clean house strategies:

1. First, make it a habit to quickly straighten the main room every night. Fold lap blankets, replace the pillows, put away the glasses or dishes. Do a quick pick up. Throw away trash. Keep a basket for kids to toss stuff into and require them do it on way to bath or bed. A quick pick up leaves it looking nice for the next day. If it is a habit that everyone gets up and clears as they leave the room, it will do amazing things for your psyche.

2. Make your bed as soon as you get out of it. Your bedroom will look cleaner with this one effort. It helps if you have a simple bedcovering and not too many pillows. Keep it simple.

3. Daily, keep your kitchen countertops as clear as you can. Put something up as soon as you use it. Put dirty dishes in the sink and rinse with soapy water if you don’t load them immediately. Wipe your countertops down every day. In a pinch, I clear the countertops, clean with counter spray and run the soapy water over the accumulation in the sink. Rinsed dished create less odor and whole room smells cleaner.

4. For real satisfaction, run the vacuum over the most used room often. You could give a child this chore. It is quick effective and easy.

Because I work from home, I am able to vacuum my family room rug every single day. We have black dogs who shed and it just looks and feels cleaner. If you have animals, you may also have nose blindness to the odor that comes with pets, so vacuuming regularly helps with that. Keep that litter box clean too.

If you read my blog often you know I invested in an I-robot vacuum (I named him Not-Me) . Not-Me vacuums while I write. What an amazing concept! We run it at night when we go to bed several times a week to keep the hard to reach places free of doghair and the kitchen floor clean.

When I wake up, the house is already vacuumed and the main room was picked up the night before, kitchen smells clean. It is energizing like staying in a resort!

5. When someone spills something or there are muddy footprints, quickly clean the spill, but expand the clean to an area at least 3-4 feet square. Even if the spot is small, I clean a larger area. I rarely have to mop the entire floor, because I keep my floor clean in sections as needed.

6. Weekly, keep the entry and front door looking nice. I have a small front porch on which I keep an outdoor rug, so I vacuum that rug once a week when I am vacuuming the entry. I also sweep the porch, and wipe down the door every few weeks. It’s a simple five minute clean that makes your entry more welcoming.

7. Clear the corners and surfaces. Once or twice a week, I take 15 minutes and clear corners, surfaces, and areas that accumulate stuff by returning items to the rooms they came from or tossing trash. Clear corners and surfaces will make your whole house look nice.

8. Throw out junk mail as you get it standing over the trash.

9. With simplicity in mind, keep your fridge organized with bins. In my fridge, I placed multiple acrylic bins for condiments, drinks, pickles and relish items, cheeses and other appetizers etc. Having the packages of cheese in one spot alone in a great idea in my house.

This strategy keeps my fridge cleaner, more organized, and I can take out a bin at a time to make things or serve easily. I can also see what needs to be replaced and don’t have to look for anything. If something apills, I take out the bin and wash it and put it back clean.

Everything has its own bin!

10. Finally, do a five minute clean out the fridge sweep the night before grocery day and eat or toss leftovers.

Then, you can take a moment and empty the leftover containers or wipe any spills. We have finally conquered overbuying because we can see what we actually need. 

These ten ways will help you keep your house clean as a matter of habit. No need to reinvent the wheel or wear yourself out every weekend doing a big cleanup that takes all day.

Your time is valuable and life is worth a little tweaking to give you more time for quality things. Less stuff, more time. Less work, more life.

For more on simple quick cleaning, read: The quick clean up homemaker hack list.

Barefoot and writing instead of cleaning 24/7,

Kim

Work smarter, not harder. Clean house strategies.