When I moved into a three-bedroom home back in August after living in a small studio apartment, I knew I needed to hack my cleaning routine to keep the house looking fresh without tripling my cleaning time. And I'm someone who dislikes house cleaning with a passion. Creating a schedule and finding the right products completely changes the game. I'm sharing how I revamped my cleaning routine so that all the lazy girls can have sparkling houses without giving up our precious free time.
Store Cleaning Products in the Room
My mom taught me this and I live by it. Keep the correct cleaning products in the room you're cleaning (or nearby) and it becomes so convenient to clean. I keep multi-purpose cleaner, bathroom cleaner, toilet cleaner, and mirror/glass cleaner in my bathroom and it makes cleaning the bathroom and my nearby bedroom a breeze. When I'm doing a face mask I can spend those 10 minutes cleaning without having to go downstairs for the supplies. Same with keeping multi-purpose next to my kitchen so I can wipe down surfaces while waiting for water to boil, etc. It's already time I'm wasting (usually watching TikTok) so now I'm filling it with productivity versus interrupting time later to clean.
Have a Designated Day for Each Task
This started with me watering my plants every Thursday and realizing it made plant care so easy. But now I instinctually remember certain cleaning schedules. Sundays are usually for cleaning the bathroom, and on Tuesday I run the Roomba since I'm gone almost all day. By having these routines I don't feel like there's any effort into cleaning, and the house regularly gets polished. Same goes for non-weekly routines. Helps if you can associate the cleaning activity with something else in your daily life (i.e. wiping down the kitchen when you listen to a certain podcast each week).
Buy Products You Can Easily Restock
Listen, I forget to go into the cleaning product aisle of Target every time I'm there, only to leave and repeat the process next time I'm there. I stick at remembering to buy all the different little things you need to keep a house clean. Then I started doing automated restocks with Blueland so I always had what I needed. And everything else I randomly add to my Target cart when I'm low and then place a curbside order when I'm planning on heading there. Now I have everything needed for a sparkling house and it requires so much less effort than hoping I remember drain cleaner when I go to the store.
Don't Buy High Maintenance Items For the Home
When I got a dog my one rule was everything had to be able to go either in the washing machine or the dish washer. There will be no hand washing. If your house is full of things that need special washing, you're never going to want to wash them. But when I can grab a armful of random things that are covered in dog spit and throw them in the wash in one go - that's a clean house. Make your life easy and buy low maintenance things.