5 Rules Guaranteed To Cut Your Cleaning Time In Half

Please welcome guest contributor, KM Logan of KMLogan.com, as she shares...

The dishes are piled sky high, the laundry room looks like it threw up, and every room looks like a playroom based on the number of toys strewn about. It feels like your mess has taken on a life of its own like some cheesy 1950’s, sci-fi, goo, monster that consumes everything in its path.

To put it mildly you’re overwhelmed at how messy things are, and you know it’s going to take a while to conquer the mountainous mess that is before you. For a moment you contemplate hiding in your bedroom closet and consuming an entire pint of triple chocolate toffee ice cream, but scratch that idea because that’s where you shoved everything the last time you “cleaned.”

Your house got messy, really messy. Unfortunately for you, it’s going to take a while to clean. With scads of toys, baked on messes in your kitchen, and a hundred other things that need to be relocated to their rightful places your cleaning will easily consume an entire weekend even if you work lightning fast.

You’re house got messy for one reason and one reason only, there is a family living there.

It’s not just some house staged for pictures, it’s a real home with real people, and fabulous memories. Messes happen. It doesn’t make you a bad wife/mother etc. it makes you NORMAL!

There is nothing you will be able to do to eliminate the need for cleaning if a family of normal people (as opposed to highly disciplined robotic aliens) live in your house.

No need to despair though, there are some things if you do consistently that will cut cleaning time down drastically.

Clean Before Crusty: If you take no other tip from this list today take and implement this one. Make this rule your mantra, it will save you more time than anything else. Whether you spill something on your counter, your stove, or if it’s simply a dirty casserole dish: clean whatever gooey mess there is before it dries and becomes harder to remove.

Let Your Cleaners Do The Work For You: Whether you prefer natural cleaners or buy the stuff that would make hippies cry, let your household cleaner do the work for you. Spray your cleaner, then come back a few minutes later to wipe it, and the mess it’s broken down and quicker to remove.

Hide Your Children’s Toys: No not all of them, but depending on how many toys they have, maybe ½ of them. Box up the toys and store them. This has 2 benefits. The first being, when there are less toys to get out it will take less time to clean up. The second benefit is on a day when your kids are getting in your hair or on your last nerve you bring out the old toys they’ve forgotten about.

When In Doubt Throw it Out: The more stuff you have the longer it will take you to clean, plain and simple. Rather than spending a weekend organizing a closet of possessions you haven’t used in 2 years and probably won’t use for the next 6, take an hour and throw those exact same things out (or donate them).

I know I can hear you saying, “but I know I’ll need that yellow Disney World Poncho one day with Mickey Mouse on it.” Perhaps, but let me ask you this, what situation would you be in where a regular jacket (which you probably have too many of) wouldn’t work? If you have an actual answer for this that will actually happen within the next few years, fine keep the poncho. For the most part we all have too much stuff, and we have multiple items that serve the same purposes (think counter top appliances). It’s time to let go of the stuff. If you need extra motivation watch an episode of hoarders, these are people that have let their stuff become a god to them, and have refused to let go for decades.

Oh and on the same note: Don’t save garbage just because you saw some crazy craft on Pinterest that uses old CD’s, pop bottles, and t-shirts. (seriously, enough said)

Stop Buying So Much Stuff: This goes hand and hand with the previous point. We almost all have more than we need in the way of stuff. Don’t bring any more in your home. Seriously, step away from the “Goodwill” you’ll find a bargain that you just need to have, then it will sit just collecting dust, taking up space, and adding one more thing for you to clean.

Now it’s your turn. What do you do in your house to speed up cleaning and minimize messes? What are your time saving tips, do you have any that are better than the ones listed above? These are my top 5 time saving cleaning tips, what would be on your list?

KM Logan is the author of Amazon’s best-selling The ABC’s of Freezer Cooking and writes devotions for women at KMLogan.com. You would bless her socks off if you stopped by to say hi.

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Thoughts from me, the blog owner, Debbie of Debbie's Digest

Her book Called To Write, Biblical Truths For Authors and Bloggers is free, for now. Get it FREE while you can.

Thanks for those tips KM.

I do have to say that, as a homeschooler, I have saved paper towel rolls, old cd's and milk lids and lots of other "garbage" to use in our homeschool. I needed some of the supplies for science, some for art and some for other subjects. The milk bottle lids I wrote letters on and used for phonics/spelling games. I didn't keep enough 'garbage' around to be on an episode of hoarders but I had a couple boxes of assorted items for this purpose. The milk lids I saved intentionally, knowing what I wanted to do with them. Some items I saved for science because they were on a list of supplies I needed, for experiments I wanted to do with the kids. I don't keep much of that around now, but when my kids were younger I did. I still have one tub of "stuff" for science class that gets used mostly when we do chemistry labs.

I have even been know to pop into Goodwill. My hubby and I love thrift shops, sorry KM. Hubby stopped at one just the other day and bought a cd for $1 of the soundtrack from the Courageous movie. So sometimes you can find GOOD useful things at Goodwill.

Also, note that the photos were REAL photos of my dirty home and trash on our curb waiting for the trash men after we cleaned and organized the basement. We live in a real house with real kids. My kids were homeschooled all the way from K-12 so they were home just about 24/7. We had science experiments on the kitchen counter and school books all over, then add the "normal" barbie shoes and Lego's, on top of 5 or 6 people needing to eat 3 meals a day at home. On any given day, even now, if you popped in you may find dirt on my floor and dishes in my sink. I clean really well when I know someone is coming but if you just pop in you will see a real house with real people living in it.


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