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This article will empower homeowners with practical and achievable strategies for maintaining a clean and organized home between professional maid visits, enhancing their living environment and overall well-being.
Introduction
Too often, families and individuals find it challenging to maintain a clean home between professional cleaning sessions. This can be difficult for several reasons, not the least of which is that a cluttered home can cause mental health distress and make it much more challenging to keep your home hygienic.
Those who use professional house cleaning services often feel a burden to pick up after themselves right before the maid comes for fear of being embarrassed. But keeping a living space tidy regularly can reduce stress and lead to a healthier environment without that last-minute rush to clean up a few minutes before the maids arrive.
“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
— Albert Enstein
How to keep home clean
Establishing a cleaning routine can prevent tasks from becoming overwhelming. Like any other routine, whether healthy eating or exercise, small cleaning habits that you can incorporate into your daily routine can make a big difference in your long-term living environment and satisfaction.
There are many tips to keep the home clean between maid visits. You can keep your home clean and comfortable even by using a few:
Tip 1: Declutter Regularly
The first step in keeping a house clean is to declutter regularly. The easiest way for a home to get messy is to allow clutter to build up regularly.
This happens for many reasons:
- When kids come home from school, they leave their backpacks, shoes, jackets, and anything else they were carrying strewn about the house or on the kitchen table.
- Adults come home from work and leave the mail from the mailbox, debris from opened packages, or even things that need to be taken care of sitting on a table or in an entryway.
Proactivity can help declutter your house regularly, not allowing things to pile up literally or figuratively.
Tip 2: Do a Daily 15-Minute Clean-up
A great way to achieve this is to do a daily 15-minute clean-up. Just 15 minutes, no matter how slowly you move and how tired you are, can substantially affect how clean your house stays. In 15 minutes, you can do simple tasks like:
- Hang all the coats in the closet
- Put the laundry upstairs in respective rooms
- Do a load of dishes
- Clear off the counters
- Straighten up the living room
- Fold blankets or bedding
Tip 3: Keep Cleaning Supplies Handy
Keeping cleaning supplies handy is an easy way to make the most out of your daily 15-minute clean-up and attempts at regular organization. Gumption traps refer to things that suck all of your energy without you ever having started your initial task.
Suppose cleaning supplies are always in a closet in the back of the garage where you have to put on shoes or, at the very least, socks. In that case, you are much less likely to use those cleaning supplies regularly. The same applies to cleaning supplies on a different floor or area.
Tip: Keep small containers or buckets with basic cleaning supplies in the most common areas like kitchens and bathrooms. Organize under the sink of both rooms so you have things like cleaning wipes, gloves, a quick disinfectant, or even some disposable mop attachments that you can use to polish off your floors.
Tip 4: Focus on High-Traffic Areas
You want to keep cleaning supplies on hand so that you can make the most of the different ways to keep your home clean whenever you have a few minutes free. But of course, in 15-minute cleaning segments, you might not be able to get to every room in the house.
That’s why tips to keep your living space clean mean you should focus on high-traffic areas. If, for example, you have a front door and a door that leads to the garage, but everyone uses the garage door and comes in through the kitchen, focus on those areas when you have the chance. These areas will likely get dirty quickly and accumulate unattended jackets, gloves, paper clips, and other random items.
Keeping the cleaning supplies in kitchens and bathrooms can also help you focus on those high-traffic areas.
Tip 5: Implement a ‘Clean as You Go’ Policy
Implementing a clean-as-you-go policy is a good way to keep a home clean. Sometimes, just having to “clean” makes it a task on your to-do list, but if you implement a policy where you pick up as you go, it’s an easy way to stay on top of things.
For example:
- Make it a policy that after a shower, you grab a small hand towel from your cleaning bucket, spray some cleaner on the floor, and use your foot to quickly mop up the bathroom floor as you leave the bathroom.
- When you come into the home with your arms laden with things, always put your jackets back on the hooks or the hangers and leave your shoes where they are meant to be in order so that it becomes a habit. You don’t have to clean those things up later.
Tip 6: Use Door Mats and Rugs
Doormats and rugs can help keep outside dirt and debris from getting tracked throughout your house. The same is true in winter when your shoes accumulate snow, mud, slush, and even road salt. Simple doormats and rugs can give you a chance to wipe your feet without tracking things through the rest of the house, which eliminates how often you have to vacuum, sweep, or mop.
Tip 7: Engage the Whole Family
Engage the whole family to keep your home clean. This burden should not fall on one person. Simple rules like 15-minute cleaning sessions should apply to everyone. It can become a nightly routine before bed, where a timer is set and everyone cleans a designated room. It should also be a policy that everyone cleans as they go.
For example:
- Make it a rule that if a family member brings work or homework down to the kitchen table, the dining room table, or the living room, they always bring everything they brought back when they are done, even if they are only done for the night.
Tip 8: Schedule Weekly Task Days
To effectively engage the whole family in figuring out ways to keep the home clean, schedule weekly task days where bigger items that you weren’t able to get through with your 15-minute cleaning get tackled on specific days.
Some people might have flexible work schedules where they have a specific day of the week when they can dedicate an hour or two to heavier cleaning. Other people prefer to do it on the weekends when they aren’t at work.
If you pick a day like Friday afternoon or Sunday afternoon, make it a weekly ritual and stick with it.
Tip 9: Embrace Minimalism
“The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t.”
— Marie Kondo
Another way to keep the home clean between made visits is to embrace minimalism. You might find that as you clean regularly, you realize there are things you use all the time and things you haven’t touched in months or years. As you are cleaning the kitchen, note whether there is an entire set of spare parts, pans, or cups so far in the back of your cupboards that you haven’t used them for years. If you have these things, get rid of them.
Tip 10: Invest in Storage Solutions
Invest in home storage solutions. Home storage solutions are ideal for making sure that everything has a designated spot. When everything has a designated spot, cleaning becomes much easier because things don’t get stacked; they get stored.
Benefits of maintaining a clean home in between professional cleanings
It’s always best to remain consistent with your cleaning habits and employ adaptability. There are several benefits to maintaining a clean home between professional cleaning, not least of which is that it’s good for your mental and physical health, removes things like pollen or allergens, and keeps the space comfortable and stress-free.
Removed allergens
Keeping your home clean in between professional cleanings ensures that you reduce the number of pollen and allergens in your home.
If, for example, you have pets, doing simple things like using lint rollers to roll any areas where they commonly sit, like couches or chairs, can pick up much of the dander and hair that might otherwise get transferred throughout the house.
Better sleep
One way that keeping a clean home in between professional cleanings can be beneficial is that it improves sleep quality. Cluttered bedrooms can be significantly harmful to your ability to relax and fall asleep. Many people end up overcluttering their bedrooms when they clean or when they have company because they put all the undone tasks, like piles of laundry or other items to be put away, in the bedrooms.
But this can distract your ability to focus on your environment, relax before bed, and stay asleep.
Improved mental health
“Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.
— Henry David Thoreau
Several studies have shown that cluttered external environments, such as kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms, can cause high cortisol levels and stress, which can detract from overall mental health. One way this happens is by being unable to find things when you need them, and another is by having too many visually distracting things.
For example:
- If you have lots of boxes, bags, items from the mail, or other packaging material accumulating in your family room or kitchen waiting to be disposed of, recycled, put away, or dealt with, seeing all of the labels and printed materials can be visually overwhelming and take away from your ability to relax in that space.
Summing Up
Overall, there are several benefits to maintaining a clean home between professional cleaning. With these expert tips, you can integrate these strategies into your cleaning routine and keep your house cleaning tasks manageable and rewarding.
