If you never feel like you’re on top of your housework, try this neat trick.
Cleaning the house is a big job and not all of us have time to put aside every week to knuckle down and give the entire house a once over. Even when we do, it’s never long before things start to get messy and dirty again.
You may have heard of incidental exercise – where you add little spurts of extra movement into your day to stay in shape; park further away from the shop to get your steps up, do 3 trips with your grocery bags from the car, take the stairs instead of the elevator…
Staying on top of your cleaning is much easier when you break it down into small tasks and do “incidental cleaning” around the house on a daily basis. This will help address cleaning and organisation of high traffic areas and lessen the job when you do have time for a deep clean.
Here are some examples of little daily cleaning hacks that make a big difference:
Kitchen
- Wipe down the toaster and kettle when you wipe down the bench each morning
- Wipe down the stove top and splashback when you wipe down the bench each evening
- Wipe out the kitchen tidy bin each time you empty it
- Wipe out the fridge shelves and crisper drawer when you get down a only a couple of items
- Wipe the doors and seals of the freezer when you refill the ice trays
Bathroom
- Use facial wipes and tissues to spot clean walls, floors, toilet and window sills
- Keep an extra cloth or scourer hidden handy to the basin in each bathroom for a quick wipe over
- Vacuum hair and dust collecting with a stick- or hand vacuum cleaner in between your big cleans
- Use a squeegee to wipe clean your glass shower frames after every shower
Living Room
- Dust a small area with tissues or a hidden dust cloth when you notice it collecting on a surface
- Place items to go upstairs on the third or fourth step to take up with you on the next trip
- Buy a pretty watering can and keep on display so you’re more likely to tend your indoor plants
- Clean living room mirrors when you clean your bathroom mirrors
Outdoors
- Hide a broom at each end of the house or on the front verandah for incidental sweeping
- Shake out the front door matt each time you sweep the verandah
- Hose down the garden path once a week when you water the garden
This article originally appeared on Home Beautiful
Looking for more crazy cleaning hacks that really work? Watch the video below!
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