Cleaning our homes is a necessary evil. I don’t hate cleaning, but lets be real, there’s a million other things I would rather be doing. The less time I spend cleaning the better in my book. If you feel like cleaning has taken over your life, or you would just like a more simplified routine, you’re going to love these tips.
I was a typically messy kid, but as and adult I am what my loving daughter dubs a cleaning Nazi. I have anxiety and OCD, and I have learned that having a clean, calm environment is vital to my mental health. Knowing that cleaning is going to make me feel better has helped me to enjoy it a LITTLE more. But I’m a busy wife and mom and don’t have time to clean around the clock. I have also heard from a lot of readers who suffer from depression or a physical disability and cleaning can be an overwhelming task. I think we can all agree, we need a simplified cleaning routine!
Have Less Stuff
The best advice I can give you, is to seriously declutter your house. The less you own the less you have to clean and maintain. I find the more minimal my possessions the longer my house stays clean. Not only does decluttering create less stuff for you to maintain, it can dramatically improve your mental state which makes it easier to motivate yourself to clean. Need some help getting started? Check out this post.
Streamline Your Tools
Having a bunch of different cleaners and tools can be overwhelming. I use one basic cleaner through my entire house, on almost every surface! I use Young Living’s Thieves cleaner on glass, in the bathroom, on my floors, and even clean my fresh produce with it. It is purchased in bulk, then diluted down by the bottle. I can get 35-60 bottles out of one bottle of concentrate! That means I always have the cleaner on hand I need to do whatever job I am tackling, and I am only hauling on bottle around the house.
I use a mop, a broom, and a duster. Along with some rags and an occasional paper towel, that is my entire cleaning arsenal. It makes it simple and no fuss.
There Is No Magical Cleaning Routine
There are a lot of cleaning routines out there – bathrooms on Monday, laundry on Saturday. Or even more complicated ones that detail certain chores each day. In my experience, these can add to the overwhelm and ultimately aren’t effective. A cleaning routine make work for some, but if you have struggled with sticking to one, its time to drop it.
I have found the system that works for me is writing down what I already did. For instance, today I dusted the downstairs of my house. I will mark it in my planner, so tomorrow when I have some time to clean tomorrow, I’ll move onto another task. When the week is up I can refer back and see its about time to dust. This way I am able to clean what fits into my daily schedule, instead of dictating it ahead of time and setting myself up for failure.
Make Your Home A Place You Love
Most of us don’t have thousands of disposable dollars to remodel and make our homes exactly what we want, but there are a lot of small, inexpensive ways to make our homes places we love. We moved into our house in October and it had been freshly painted. I put our furniture in the same general layout the previous owners had theirs, and really haven’t done anything in the way of decorating or personalizing the space. I hated it! And I certainly wasn’t motivated to clean and keep out nice.
This past weekend I took a day and completely rearranged the downstairs. The layout finally works with our lifestyle, and I like how it looks so much better than the way it was. I am planning on painting a few rooms and finally replacing some flooring. I am SO much more motivated to clean and keep it looking nice! Whether it’s buying a new shower curtain, or just decluttering your cabinets, make your home someplace you want to spend time and you will enjoy cleaning and maintaining it.
___
Our homes should be a blessing and not a huge obligation that eats up all of our free time. Our society has convinced us to buy larger homes, then fill them with a bunch of stuff and now we are on an endless cycle of spending all of our time working to buy more, and maintaining what we already have. Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? When I finally decided it was time to stop living for stuff and to start living simply, it changed my life in more ways that I could imagine – including simplifying my cleaning routine.
Are you a clean freak by nature, or do you struggle to keep your house clean? No matter which end of the spectrum you fall on, I think these tips will help you to simplify your cleaning routine and make your housework manageable.
It was certainly a lot easier to keep my house clean before I had children. Now it seems like once one spot is clean another spot is dirty. But I do like the deculturing. I have been slowly getting rid of the extra stuff and it is making life easier to manage. I also just live in the mess. I can mop everyday, but even then it is still messy. I mop and vacuum once a week and sweep almost every day. That works with my life and isn’t overwhelming. 🙂
I always say my house would be SPOTLESS if I didn’t have kids and a husband! But decreasing what we own has definitely helped in that aspect, too.
I have to admit I love cleaning. When I was in seminary, the admissions office used my room to show to potential students.
I love that!