If you have a house cleaning service cleaning your home for you, then you know that there’s no better feeling than coming home after the house cleaners have just left. The floors are clean, the counter tops are clean, the carpet is clean, the bathrooms are clean and in that moment, you feel completely relaxed. No doubt, the house cleaning service spares you hours of scrubbing, dusting, and vacuuming, not to mention the exhaustion you would feel afterwards. However, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the family is home, and life and all of its little messes start to mask your “clean house” feeling. Extend that moment of relaxation with these simple, low-maintenance cleaning tips to keep the house clean -- between cleans.
Focus On Four Main Areas:
Managing the Mail
Since mail is coming home almost daily, what may start as a small, organized pile can quickly turn into a cluttered mess. Implementing a system to help you organize your mail each day will help keep clutter to a minimum, and we all know how clutter has a way of growing exponentially over time! Below is an example of how to manage your mail:
Managing the Clothes
Stick to the fundamentals and set an expectation for all family members that clean clothes are put away immediately and dirty clothes go in the hamper. As often as we change clothes, it’s easy for a self-contained closet full of clothing options to seep out and cover any available surface in your bedroom, especially if you’re having to dig through clothes that no longer fit or aren’t for the current season. Laundry is an on-going, never-ending chore that can take a lot of your time. However, you can minimize the amount of laundry you have by ensuring only the right clothes are being washed. To do this, after every washed load, sort out the clothes that no longer fit and store them to be donated or passed down. Also, box up and store away your winter clothes during the summer, and summer clothes during the winter to maximize the space you have for the clothes you can actually wear.
Managing the Trash and Recycling
Take the trash and recycling out more frequently. It’s more likely that items and trash will begin to gather and clutter the counter tops if the trash or recycle bin is full. This step has a direct impact on the success of managing the kitchen.
Managing the Kitchen
The kitchen is one of the busiest rooms in the house. Not only does it get the most foot traffic, it also tends to house the most mess. Implement these rules and roles to best maintain a clean kitchen longer:
Everyone is responsible for clearing their place, disposing of their scraps and placing their dirty dishes in either the dishwasher or sink (assuming they are age appropriate!).
The person who cooked is responsible for putting the ingredients they used away, throwing out any trash that was generated, and gathering the dirty pots, pans, and utensils and put them in the sink.
Then an age appropriate person (who did not cook!) puts away the leftovers, washes the dishes and wipes down the table and countertops.
As a result, when implemented consistently, this strategy makes cooking and cleaning in the kitchen easy, quick and less stressful.
Got Kids? Add Managing School Papers To Your List
Despite living in a digital world, the primary form of correspondence and communication from the school is still in the form of paper. Five days a week, papers are sent home with your child, and whether it be a note from the teacher, permission slips, graded classwork, finished homework, the amount of papers can be overwhelming. Managing the school papers throughout the year will not only help you stay organized, but will enable you to keep that inevitable paper clutter to a minimum. Here’s how to do it:
For each child, label three folders: ATTENTION, IMPORTANT, and SCHOOLWORK. Then, store the papers that come home in one of those three folders using the following strategy:
ATTENTION – In this folder, store the papers that need your attention or signature and then need to be returned to the school. Papers such as permission slips, school picture forms, signup sheets, etc. This way when you remember a form is due, you know exactly where to find it, instead of having to search through a large pile.
IMPORTANT – In this folder, place the important documents that you need to keep on file or use for future reference. Examples of this could be the teacher’s contact info, classroom or school policies, receipts, progress reports and report cards.
SCHOOLWORK – This is where everything else goes that comes home from school! Every day your child is completing classwork or drawing pictures, receiving graded homework, etc. Since there is so much, you will need to eventually go through it all, but wait until the end of the school year. That way you can decide what shows their progress, or what was a special project, and just keep those.
Got Pets? Add Managing Pet Hair To Your List
Seeing rogue balls of animal hair on your furniture or floors can make your house feel unclean even though it has just been professionally cleaned. Swiffer your floors and squeegee your carpet (yes, a rubber squeegee is a fantastic way to remove fur!) to gather and dispose of the pet hair. Keep Fido’s hair under control by brushing weekly with a professional-style brush or professionally grooming as needed by breed.
If you have not experienced the benefits of hiring a house cleaning service or are currently not using one, you can learn more about house cleaning at www.thecleaningauthority.com
You may also like the blog post:
How To Hire a House Cleaning Service and Know What Questions To Ask: http://www.thecleaningauthority.com/blog/2015/may/how-to-hire-a-house-cleaning-service-without-the/