Overwhelmed by cleaning? Our speed cleaning routine and checklist will show you how you can have a clean house in just minutes a day!
There are lots of reasons a clean house is important to me, but the biggest is probably simply that my brain works better when my house is clean. Over the years I’ve had lots of people ask how I keep things tidy most of the time. So–at the risk of having you all think I am completely crazy–I thought today I’d share my little “speed cleaning” routine. I probably spend, on average, about 45 minutes to an hour each morning making my house sparkle. This means I spend about 5-7 hours a week cleaning. That is still a significant amount of time!
However, to me it is well worth spending 5-7 hours a week cleaning in order to have a house that is pretty darn neat & tidy most of the time. The trick is staying on top of it.
I am a list kind-of girl, so I actually have a daily checklist that I use each day. It is located on my “control center” wall where I have a dry-erase monthly calendar and where there is also a spot for a weekly meal plan and important phone numbers. Since it is all in one place, I can easily check the calendar for any pressing activities or appointments. This helps me prioritize my cleaning activities and to cut things out or add things as necessary.
My “Control Center:”
I don’t use a wide variety of cleaning supplies, and I have never been that picky about brands. I used to use a lot of commercial products, including the disposable wipes, but I have slowly transitioned to using mainly homemade green cleaning products. They are cheaper, they smell better, and require me to keep far fewer bottles of stuff lying around! The two commercial items I do use frequently are my Swiffer Wet Jet and my Swiffer dusters. What a great invention! It makes mopping so much faster & easier.
Here is my speed cleaning system:
General Guidelines:
- Start at one end of the house. (I start in our Master Bedroom and work my way through the living room and kitchen to the girls’ room and bathroom.)
- Cleaning is much easier when everything has a home. Work on creating organized storage for all of the things that end up being scattered around the house, like papers, mail, shoes, & toys.
- Use a large laundry basket to collect items such as toys or clothing that need to be returned to a different room. If you have multiple offenders, use multiple baskets. After you have finished tidying every room, take 5 minutes to put away the collected items.
- Save sweeping/mopping and vacuuming until the end, then do it all at once. We have mostly hard surface floors, so I use an industrial dry mop to wipe the floors each day. It takes only a couple minutes to run it over all the floors and then shake it off outside. About once a week, I do a really thorough sweep and then use a Swiffer WetJet to mop. I vacuum the rugs about 3 times a week.
- Likewise, save the glass cleaning for the end as well. Once the house is completely clean, I will grab my windex and rag and run around doing spot checks on the glass doors and windows. I wipe the bathroom mirrors as well as the fixtures and sink.
- Keep daily shower cleaner in the bath/shower and spray down after each use.
- Store your toilet brush in a container of bleach; replace the bleach once a week.
Bedroom(s) (5-10 minutes each, depending on how much to pick up):
- Always make the bed. Even if there are other things laying around, the room will look much, much cleaner.
- Quickly pick up any clothes, toys, or dishes that are lying around.
- Use a duster or dry rag to quickly dust all surfaces, including the headboard and footboard.
Bathroom(s) (5 minutes each):
- Squirt toilet bowl cleaner around the rim; let sit.
- Use disinfectant wipes or a wet rag and disinfectant spray to quickly wipe down the sinks, tub, and shower.
- Use toilet brush to quickly scrub toilet, rim, and seat.
- Use disinfectant wipes or a wet rag and disinfectant spray to wipe down toilet seat & surrounding floor.
Living Room/Dining/Home Office Areas (10-15 minutes):
- Quickly pick up any shoes, dishes, toys, or other items laying around. (Put them in basket to put away later.)
- Use duster to quickly dust all surfaces.
- Use damp cloth to wipe down furniture (if leather), table(s), and dining chairs.
- Tidy desk area and make sure all paperwork & mail is filed & sorted in its proper spots.
Kitchen (10-15 minutes, depending on how many dishes):
- Quickly pick up any items that don’t belong in kitchen and place them in basket(s). Gather any dirty dishes and put them next to sink.
- Quickly unload (if necessary) then load diswasher.
- Hand wash dishes/pots/pans as needed
- Spray all counters with disinfectant spray, then use soapy water and wet sponge to wipe them all down.
- Wipe down stovetop.
- Dry and put away any hand-washed dishes, then drain and rinse sink–the secret to a truly clean-looking kitchen is clutter-free counters and a nice clean sink.
Finishing Up:
- Use a dry mop to clean hard floors. Spot clean with a sponge if necessary.
- Vacuum rugs/carpet.
- Clean glass surfaces & mirrors as needed with glass cleaner and a lint-free rag. Don’t forget to spray & wipe the bathroom fixtures for extra shine!
- Put away items collected in baskets while cleaning.
It may take a little getting used to, but once you are in the habit of speed cleaning each morning, you will be done in no time and free to enjoy a clean house for the rest of the day!
Happy cleaning!
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I love, love, love your web site! You are inspiring to live well, frugally :) thank you!
Do you work? As in not someone who stays home?
Can you tell me more about using a dry mop? I've never heard of anyone doing this before - especially before sweeping/vacuuming. Thanks for the great post - found you thru Pinterest :)
Best,
Adrie
Any suggestions for a large house? Like 4500 sq ft with 4 bathrooms? Even just wiping down bathrooms/sweeping floors/countertops takes hours! We moved here last year from a 1600 sq ft house and I still haven't found a good system (also we own a business, have 3 small children + 1 on the way, and we homeschool:). Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Move. Downsize.
I have the same problem - house is about the same size with 8 people living in it. We both work from home, care for elderly family members at home, and have 4 kids under 3...I honestly can't keep up with the cleaning, it's just meals, basic tidying, and laundry for me. The only way I know to survive with a big busy house and not spend every waking minute cleaning is to get a house keeper (or better yet, a nanny that cleans! *dreaming*)!
Also with a large home here, 3700 sf, I am just choosing not to have things perfectly clean all the time. I COULD do this system every day but I don't want to spend 1 hour every day cleaning; there are other ways I would like to spend my time. I do obsessively vacuum my hardwood floors downstairs where I spend most of my time with my DC59 because of the constant dog hair and crumbs from my toddler, and a few other things, but it's a personal choice how clean to have a house. For me, it's just not critical to have it this clean every single day.
First, I'd like to thank you for sharing all those useful tips and your life experience. You truly are an inspiration ! I am a parisian girl, soon to move in a beautiful house we just bought with my fiancé. I couldn't be more excited and I now spend hours on pinterest, reading about organizing and decorating.
I found your post about speed cleaning amazing but I do have a question. I work full time and have a 2h commute every day. Between cleaning, cooking and grocery shopping, I don't have that much time. Any advice on how to stay on top of things with a busy schedule ?
Thanks again for this wonderful blog ! I hope I haven't made too many mistakes in this comment. I try and improve but English isn't my first language.
He can and should help too. Been married 57 years and first thing we do everyday on getting up is make bed. Pick up after your self immediately ( this applies to both) and get dishes out of the way immediately after a meal.
Laurine,
Your English actually seems very good. I would not have noticed that it isn't your first language if you hadn't said so. Congratulations on the new house!
Thanks for your tips! Don't forget to get your kids involved so you don't burn out! You shouldn't have to do it all...it might not sparkle as much, but they will learn some valuable lessons! Even young ones can squirt and wipe. :)
LOVE this post! I would be very interested in your checklists as well. Thanks!
Great tips! I love them, thank you!!
I don't mind the 45 minute routine, just can't figure out how to keep clean the inside of the refrigerator, toaster oven, microwave, etc. in that daily process. I work from home as a Graphic Designer, so I don't have much time in my day between kids and work. Speed cleaning HAS to be my method, but I find the "deep cleaning" an issue. Any helpful tips from those who have to work and keep up with the house as well?
Hire a house cleaner to do heavy cleaning twice a year Spring and Fall. Keep up weekly with dusting, vacuuming and mopping floors.
If you include most of those items in your quick daily wipe-downs there isn't much need for deep cleaning because they are always clean. I do throw away old items and wipe the inside of my refrigerator clean before we leave for our weekly grocery shopping. If a drawer or shelf really needs work I take it out and clean it in the sink then lay it out so that it is dry before we come home, but that doesn't happen often. For other deeper spot clean items I often work on them while preparing dinner. While something is cooking I use those little few minutes at a time to do things like wash the microwave platter in the sink (and wipe under it while it's drying), wipe spots off the cabinets, wash the trash cans, clean part of the freezer, wipe off the top of the frige, etc. I find that since I'm on top of them, it takes no time at all to do.
Keep the clutter down - I try to find 100 things a day to donate, recycle or throw away, but I have a lot of paper files I'm trying to get rid of (one page = one thing.)
Try to prevent cleaning as well as cleaning efficiently. For example, if you bring fewer things into your house, there's less to clean or move around when cleaning. Can you use covers when microwaving, etc?
Start with great cleaning products, like Bar Keepers Friend, Scrubbing Bubbles (if you can stomach it), and Krud Kleaner. Either deep clean one room a weekend at a time, preferably with helpers, or just focus your time on cutting clutter, then hire somebody to clean your whole house (a room at a time if needed) so you just have to maintain it.
Use a mini-vacuum to clean up sma. l messes and dust. Keep the bathroom fan clean so it doesn't blow dust around that turns into mud when it gets wet. Use an automatic shower sprayer and toilet cleaners that you put in once a week and they clean when you flush.
For food that sticks onto pans when you cook, take out the food, then fill the pan with hot water and maybe a little bit of dishsoap. Put it back on the turned off burner while you eat. The hot water plus the heat from the burner while it's cooling down get most of it off.
Wipes also help a lot for maintaining between cleaning. You or someone in your house can take a 5 minute "Walk with Wipes" around the house and just clean up anything they notice. You can do the same thing with a duster or the mini vacuum.
I also love a Roomba (robot vacuum) that I bought. I thought it was kind of dumb at first because who can't spend a few minutes vacuuming. But now that I have it, I run it much more frequently and it gets up a ton of dust and allergens that I don't then have to spend time cleaning off of everything else. It's also fantastic for hard floors, because very often vacuuming is enough to save a mopping job.
The fastest and easiest way to clean the inside of a microwave (no matter how messy it is) is to take a small bowl or mug, put some water and a splash of lemon juice or vinegar in it. Heat the bowl/mug for a couple of minutes and then let it sit for a couple of minutes and let it get nice and steamy in there. Then you simply need to wipe down the inside with a wet sponge or cloth. You probably won't need to scrub anything because it comes off that easy!
Yes! I tried this method for the first time a few weeks ago and I was absolutely amazed at how well it worked. I'm planning to put it to the test on the community microwave at work one of these days, as soon as I remember to bring in some lemon juice.
I spray mine down with a mix of Castile soap and water and let it sit while I'm doing my dishes I also throw the glass plate in the dish water to soak while I wipe down the counters. I use that spray for everything and it works wonderful!
You use a DAILY check list? You vacuum every day? I won't be doing that! :-)