Part of living a healthy lifestyle includes keeping a clean and tidy home. However, maintaining a clean home can feel like a full-time job at times, and most of us don’t have the time or energy to do it!
So how do you stay on top of your chores, while still working and taking care of yourself and your family? Here are five tips to help you manage and see that it’s not as hard as it seems.
Do Semi-Regular Deep Cleans
Scheduling a day every so often to do a deep cleaning of your home will really help you keep things feeling fresh and hygienic.
You can do this on a Saturday or Sunday every couple of weeks. Scrub down your shower, declutter your pantry, wipe down all your appliances and scrub the grease out of the oven. Use a carpet stain remover to get stubborn marks out, get your upholstery cleaned professionally and even have your curtains washed.
Keep a List of What You’ve Done
To help you stay on track, you could keep a list of what you’ve done (and when) to help you remember. Certain tasks only need to be done once a year or every few months, so if you have a list reminding you of when last you cleaned something, you’ll be less likely to forget.
You might even use an app to track when last you completed certain tasks, which can help you stay on track with your cleaning.
Put it in Your Calendar
Using your calendar to organise your life is a major hack that applies to all areas – work, academics, and even your personal life. This means that you can schedule your cleaning too!
Schedule cleaning days, an hour or two a week or even just 10 minutes each day to help you remember the tasks. This will not only help you to remember to do it, but it’ll make it feel like an appointment that you can’t miss!
Implement a Daily 15-Minute Tidy
A quick, simple and painless 15 a day of cleaning up really won’t have a huge effect on your life, but you’ll feel the difference for sure.
Set a 15-minute timer in the morning or evening and do as much cleaning up in that time as you can. Wipe down counters, make the bed, pick up clutter, wash a few dishes or tackle whichever tasks seem to be drawing your attention at that moment. If you do this every day, you’ll see a major difference in the overall tidiness of your home.
Don’t Let Things Pile Up
Finally, if you avoid letting chores pile up over a few days, you won’t be subjected to three-hour marathons of laundry and dishwashing.
Instead, make a rule to wash your plates as soon as you’re finished using them, and do a load of laundry every second day. If you make these promises to yourself, things will always be more manageable and you’ll never have mountains of chores to deal with when you’d rather be bingeing something on Netflix.
