Tag: Housework

The Secret To Staying On Top Of Homemaking
Today’s fast and furious life has made staying on top of homemaking harder.

Relax, there’s a better way!

Juggling between work, home, and family is a challenging job. Full of ups and downs. Some days you’re more productive, you — rest well, spend good alone time, eat a healthy breakfast, and make sure everything goes as per plan. Other days are about rushing the soccer day, running errands, or doing church activities.

One day you’re out for a cause and your house is intolerable. What if you have side hustles or have to be out a few times a week – can you live in your house?

Will you have something in place to feed your kids when they get home from school/activities? Can you cook today’s meal on top of the mess from the previous night? Will you have a clean pair of work clothes in your closet? Could you find things easily before leaving for the office?

This is how things spiral out of control.

If you’re planning to attend an event, without prioritizing and getting your daily-havetos done, thinking you’ll get to it later, you’re setting up yourself for bigger and worsened chaos when you get home.

How do we get everyone on board?

What’s the secret, the magical potion to stay on top of homemaking regardless of whether or not you’re a working mom.

THE SECRET TO STAYING ON TOP OF HOMEMAKING

And the secret is:

— GETTING YOUR NON-NEGOTIABLE TASKS DONE AT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR DAY.

What are the non-negotiable tasks?

There are a few household tasks that can directly affect our day-to-day living.

Like, you cannot cook in a messy kitchen. This makes dishwashing & tidying a non-negotiable task.

The dirty washing is all over the place because your washer and laundry basket are flooded with the older washing or there are still clothes in the dryer — making laundry a daily-haveto task.

Everyone will have their own set of non-negotiable tasks. These tasks won’t make your home super clean but homey. And put you at ease knowing that your most significant tasks of the day are done.

Keeping up with your daily havetos will ensure — you have a clean kitchen and living space, a fresh pair of clothes, and everything in place, readily available.

Related:

One Simple Trick That’ll Transform Your Homekeeping

5 Ways To Make Your Home A Haven

As for me, the daily-havetos are having dinner made, breakfast wiped, house picked, and floors swept. I can still manage to give laundry a miss for a day or two.

So, in case I get an unexpected call from my friends, parents, or in-laws asking me to accompany them somewhere, important or casual:

I’ll take 30-35 minutes before I leave to quickly throw some rice, and veggies into the pressure cooker (10-15 minutes).

My lifesaving one-pot meal recipe. Super healthy and tastes delicious!

Speedily clean the dishes and counters (10 minutes).

Do a quick pickup (5 minutes).

And sweep the floors real quick (5 minutes).

I cannot tell you how rewarding it is to return to an orderly home with a meal ready to satiate your hunger.

You guys, try it and let me know. You’re going to love it, I promise.

Steps to do this:
- Jot down 4 of your non-negotiable tasks in the order of their prominence. Duties that have the biggest, most prompt impact on your house. These tasks would have your home functioning smoothly as well as allow you to slow down and relax.
- Every day, try to get these 4 tasks done in the first one or two hours of your day. Remember, these are your daily-havetos, so learn to do them quickly and well.
- Identify how much time it takes to get your non-negotiable tasks done. And allot that much time to those tasks only. In between, avoid any deep cleaning and ignore all the messes no matter how noticeable they are. For the moment, focus on your non-negotiable tasks only.
- Include a 5-minute pickup for the widely-used parts of your home to achieve remarkable results.
With a planned outing or an unexpected one, while having someone over; on your office day off, on a sick day, or working outside or at home, in all instances — make sure to get your non-negotiable tasks done. And you’ll be well on your way to staying on top of homemaking.

Final words:

With this one secret, you can succeed in staying on top of your homemaking like never before. Yes, even on a busy day, regardless of how crazy life is. Accomplishing your daily-havetos will maintain your home between the deep cleaning sessions and keep it presentable and guest-ready.

Thank you so much for reading. Happy Homekeeping!

To keep up with my new blog posts follow simpleinspiredblog on Pinterest.
December 3, 2020
How To Keep Your Bathroom Clean In 5 Minutes A Day
Hate the bathroom chore? Want to spare days’ worth of cleaning? No reason to block off the entire day of cleaning. Here are some substantially quick ways to keep your bathroom clean in 5 minutes a day.

The bathroom can get messy, faster, whatever you do to keep it clean. Especially with little kids. Big family = cleanup.

Doing a tiny bit each day can help you keep things manageable.

The best way to keep your bathroom neat and clean is by assigning 5 minutes, every day.

You’ll be amazed at how much this 5-minute bathroom cleaning routine will save you labor and time, during your deep cleaning sessions.

Now, it is up to you. Either you allocate 5 minutes each day and do the cleaning in one stroke. Or break up the 5-minute routine and do a little bit of cleaning every time you’re in the bathroom.

Both ways work just fine provided you keep at it.

Pro tip:
- Following the steps in the same order every day – beginning and ending in the same place will prevent toing and froing.
- Another way to save time is by having an organized cleaning caddy — a bucket full of cleaning supplies ready.
HOW TO KEEP YOUR BATHROOM CLEAN IN 5 MINUTES A DAY

Prepare — Time: 30 seconds

Open the windows to air out the bathroom. Start by spraying the shower, toilet, sink, and counters with a cleaner to allow some time to let the product do the work while you complete step 2.

Clear the surfaces — Time: 1 minute

Store the out-of-place items. Including everything from gadgets (blow-dryers/hair straighteners) to knick-knacks (face wash, toothpaste, hairbrush, skincare/makeup products.

Take off used towels. Remove any dirty washing. Place it into the laundry basket.

Cleanup — Time: 2 minutes

Using a paper towel or microfibre cloth – wipe down the mirror, sink, counters, and bath fixtures that we had sprayed earlier. Squeegee shower walls and floors. Work your way top-down.

Quickly wipe off the toilet tank, the external face of the toilet, the lid, the seat, and the rim with paper towels. Scrub the toilet pretty quick and flush.

Dust the bath rugs — Time: 30 seconds

Dust off the bath rugs before you sweep or mop the floors. This small step makes a big difference in keeping the bathroom lint and soil-free.

Sweep/mop the floor — Time: 1 minute

Lastly, clean the floor.

I prefer wiping the floors with a damp mop over sweeping. Still, sweeping makes for a good option when pushed for time. This is the final step of your daily 5-minute bathroom cleaning routine.

End step — Time: 10 seconds

Lastly, place fresh towels. Turn on the fragrant diffuser filled with essential oils. And, you’re ready to go.

Read: How To Get Motivated To Clean

Final words:

There you have quick ways to keep your bathroom clean in 5 minutes a day. Following this simple routine (day after day) your bathroom will feel fresh and safe. The routine will be more of a habit and will take a little time to maintain.

Don’t forget to share your bathroom cleaning tips and tricks in the comment section below. Thank you so much for reading. Happy Cleaning!
October 28, 2020
How To Get Motivated To Clean

The holiday season is here, it’s time to shake things up a little bit at home.

During this time of the year, when you just want to get cozy snuggling up in your warm blanket with a hot cup of coffee. Cleaning is the last thing on your mind.

Sunny mornings have something to brighten up your mood and get you to clean without thinking much. Fall cleaning? Certainly calls for motivation.

If you’re still easing up, I’m here to help you with some tips and tricks to get motivated to clean.

HOW TO GET MOTIVATED TO CLEAN

Have a cleaning caddy:

Firstly, in order to make the cleaning process convenient, buy yourself the appropriate tools. Trying a new appliance or product is a great way to get motivated to clean.

Having a well-organized caddy will make cleaning the entire house a lot easier (grab and go).

Check out why you must own proper cleaning tools and some affordable options here

Dress suitably:

Outfit changes our attitude. So dress up for success.

I have a separate pair of cleaning outfits. Something comfortable and nice-looking. I also like to tie my hair up in a bun and wear my apron and gloves.

Identify your cleaning personality type:

Do you like to get the cleaning done in one go or one thing at a time? Determine your cleaning personality type to work accordingly.

If you’re someone who likes to clean in one go, set aside two or three days depending upon the level of cleaning. Dedicate those days to cleaning only.

What I do on the days I deep clean is – order food from outside and use disposable cups and plates to save additional workload – cooking and cleaning. I also skip the laundry that day. I don’t blog and don’t exercise. Instead, I only spend my time cleaning to get it done as quickly as possible. That saves me energy and time from my daily activities and helps me get the deep cleaning done real quick.

Limit the time:

I love how The fly lady says “your house didn’t get messy overnight don’t expect it to get clean in a night “.

Ascertaining time is the key to getting motivated to clean. The timer technique does well in this case.

Stopping amidst a project you could no longer resist the urge to clean the next day.

Speed up:

Often, the chores take lesser time than we think.

Getting lost/consumed in thoughts or distracted by your phone or TV reduces our pace of work drastically. But actually being sluggish is a huge stumbling block too. Nobody wants tedious tasks.

Similarly, some mistakes can impede speed.

For many years, I didn’t realize what was taking me so much time to do just a few dishes. Then I figured I was using the dish detergent excessively. By excessively I mean awfully.

I don’t know what got me thinking more product means cleaner utensils. In fact, more product means 5x times more rinsing; more waste of water; more cleaning to do. Plus, it is harmful to your health if the dishes didn’t get rinsed properly.

One way to increase your working speed is by recording the time it takes you to complete each task (from start to finish). Then, next time, while performing the same tasks set the timer five minutes early than the time you require to finish them.

Challenge yourself to finish the task before the timer goes off, and do it well.

Practice this every day to increase your speed of work.

Make a cleaning checklist/use free printables:

Having a visual checklist will keep you sane. You’ll have a basic idea of what you want to accomplish.

With a list, nothing will be forgotten or undone. Printables will point out unremembered tasks.

It’ll help you keep track of your progress as well.

Conquer OCD:

Once you have cleaned one thing really well. Proceed. Don’t get stuck in one place ensure everything is clean over and over again.

As we saw in the earlier post, there’s no such thing as perfection.

Don’t strive for it. Or you will feel unfulfilled all the time.

Remember done is always better than perfect.

Related: One Simple Trick That’ll Transform Your Homekeeping

Avoid needless cleaning:

Clean only what needs care and attention. You shouldn’t get caught up with things that are clean already.

Watch someone clean:

Watching someone else cleaning or working hard on their home is a surefire way to get motivated to clean. I have learned far simpler dusting, cleaning, and organizing techniques from YouTubers.

You can check out a few cleaning YouTube channels to see how they do things differently than what you’re doing.

Are you following an inappropriate cleaning sequence, using the wrong tools, or following improper methods? Is there anything you do inaptly?

A friend or an aunt who always has a clean home can be your perfect cleaning guru as well.

Final words:

Forget about festivities, for ones like me, need the motivation to clean – Every. Single. Day.

So, I keep on looking for ways that make cleaning dreadless.

I hope these tips will come in useful and get you motivated to clean.

Would you like to add something to the list? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Thank you for reading. Happy Cleaning!

October 19, 2020

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