The place to start cleaning house is always – yes, always – going to be picking up. Neatening, straightening, picking up, putting away… All phrases dealing with the day to day management of stuff that gets taken out of it’s proper place and used without being put back. It’s probably the biggest obstacle to cleaning in any home, and a close cousin to clutter.
How to Plan Cleaning of the House
You can have neat clutter, and you can have messy un-clutter, but more often than not you have messy because you have clutter. At least that’s been my experience. In my case, I continue to have messy even after I consider myself 90% decluttered. Sigh.
So the first step in where you start cleaning house is to spend 15 minute blocks picking up and putting away things that are out of place. If the long term is the priority, then declutter as you go – whenever you have to touch something, decide whether you need to keep it, and dispose in some manner of as much as you can along the way. Toss, donate, sell, give to friends; whatever works for you and the items in question is the way to go.
If, however, short term cleaning, as for an imminent visitor, is the priority, then settle for putting away everything and put decluttering in your plan for later. It, like nearly everything else, can be done 15 minutes at a time and doesn’t have to be a huge weekend chore.
Any reasonably observant person looking carefully around a house can probably figure out nearly everything that needs to be done. But the order in which to do it all is not always as obvious. I often get caught in a vicious circle of “before I do x I have to do y, but before I can do y z needs doing, and I can’t do z before I do x.”
At some point that cycle has to break or I end up sitting in the middle of a mess babbling about where to begin. The basic guidelines are: higher before lower, dry before wet, inside before outside, and (the one that my husband has the hardest time comprehending for some reason) start long automatic processes before doing smaller chores.
Bare Minimum Cleaning
Not all aspects of housework are created equal. Some chores are for health and safety reasons, some are purely cosmetic or convenient, some are combinations of both. Chances are in life that you can’t have everything.
Someone who works full time and raises a family will have less time for housework than someone who works part time or not at all and has no children at home. Somewhere along the line, compromises must be made, priorities set, and routines adjusted to take reality into account.
Routines are the backbone of running a household. I don’t think I’ll get much argument for that statement. Not only do they tell you what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done, but they enable you to *be* done.
Housework in a sense is never finished, because most of the tasks are repetitive, but there has to be a point in the day where you can say – and mean – that you are finished. The house is clean, and while there are always more chores to be done, the day’s work is completed. Without routines we tend to reinvent the wheel and speed rapidly away toward burnout.
This is why I use the Progress Counts Core System not only for the points and motivation but for the schedule and routine. Themed days set up a weekly routine that assigns specific tasks to specific days so you don’t need to wonder when you last did them.
Your bare minimum routine should include dishes, laundry, heavy traffic area floors, and general picking up. If just those things are done daily, you can keep your home from sinking into a pit of despair.
Last Minute Cleaning
If you have company coming in half an hour, where do you start cleaning? Where will they be? If they’re coming for dinner, the dining room, bathroom, and space in between these and the front door should be your priority. If it’s the babysitter, the living room and kids’ room might need more attention.
Decide if there’s any room that’s going to be off limits. Use that to temporarily store anything unsightly or difficult to put away in any of the rooms to be used. Put away what you can, straighten what you can’t, give surfaces a quick wipe down, and sweep or vacuum.
Dishes and laundry, if you’re behind, can be stashed out of sight, or at the very least stacked somewhat neatly in an out of the way location.
Also remember, whoever is coming over is interested in seeing you, and probably won’t notice or care if you dusted the ceiling fan or polished the table. So set a timer, leave yourself 5-10 minutes before they’re due to relax, get done what you can, and don’t sweat the rest.
Tips for Cleaning Quickly
I find it faster to do all of one task at once, rather than taking on one room at a time. Example: if you’re cleaning 3 rooms, pick up in all 3 together, then wipe down surfaces in all, then sweep all 3. Switching gears takes time and slows down your brain and causes you to pick up and put down the same tools over and over again. Use the dust cloth once, not 3 separate times.
When you’re picking up, carry a box or laundry basket or some container with you for items that belong in other rooms. That keeps you in the room and on task instead of running around putting things away. As you move to the next room, put away whatever’s in the basket for that room.
Also have a trash bag or can and a laundry bag or basket handy. As I’m sure you’re aware, you can find laundry in places you would never expect. If you live with children (or some husbands) I bet you’ve found socks in every room in the house.
Use a timer. If your goal for the time being is to get the house into a reasonable shape rather than perfection, then allow yourself to stop each task at the end of the timer. The rest will still be there the next time you clean – or you may find yourself picking up on your way by the next time you pass something on the floor or counter.
How to Clean a Messy House Quickly
The messier the house, the harder it is to find where to start cleaning. Decide what your priority area is, whether that’s by which room will be used when having guests over or which room drives you the most nuts when you see it.
Is your home messy or cluttered? Messy is trash, dishes, laundry, daily use things lying about in disarray. Cluttered is too many objects for the space of the home. You can have one or the other or both or neither.
Messy is easy to pick up quickly and then cleaning can commence. Cluttered is harder, and harder to clean, but a shortcut might be to temporarily box up whatever collection is taking up space and stash it out of the way.
If you have both, take care of the messy first and decide if the clutter is intrusive. Clutter can be cleaned but it takes longer and makes cleaning surfaces more difficult. If you have neither, congratulations, you can skip straight to cleaning! Remember: higher before lower, dry before wet, and inside before outside.
Cleaning a Neglected House
If your home has been neglected for some time, due to absence or illness or simply apathy – hey, I don’t judge, I’ve been there – you definitely have messy and maybe have clutter.
If you have a problem with a chronic illness or depression, check out these posts (here, and here) for motivation and how to get started cleaning. I’d recommend just starting with a trash bag and walking around from one end to the other filling it. Then do the same with a laundry basket, followed by going around with a basket of things to put away in other rooms.
Set a timer, and don’t go more than 15 minutes at a time. With a difficult, large task ahead of you, the easiest way to burn out is to do too much at once.