Keep Your Home Clean With These Tips

Work, errands, running children to after-school activities, family obligations, and the unexpected are all things that prevent many individuals from keeping up with home cleaning. Even though homeowners often have the best intentions to spend a little time tidying up every day, life can get in the way. Cleaning may be an endless task, but with the right habits and actions, it is possible to keep your home clean all year long.

Take a look at these nine tips to keep your home clean and remember that creating new habits can take up to 30 days of repeating the same action. Be patient, and if you feel overwhelmed, implement just one or two at a time until you conquer the list.

1. Make the bed every day.
   It only takes a couple of minutes to make a bed every morning. While it may seem like a useless task, when you start the day with an accomplishment, you are more likely to remain on track. Making your bed goes a long way in making bedrooms look tidier. If a room already has a neat appearance, it is more likely that you (or your family) will put other things where they belong.
2. Empty the sink every night.
   A good house rule is to never go to bed with dishes in the sink. Take ten minutes every night to load the dishwasher (and start it) and wash any dishes by hand. This will create a better start to your day.
3. Do laundry daily.
   Having an established “laundry day” is common, but not always efficient. If laundry day stresses you out, make it a point to start a load of wash every day when you get home. Switch it to the dryer before you sit down to eat supper, and then fold it while watching nightly tv or when your kids are getting ready for bed.
4. Dust during commercial breaks.
   There is nothing wrong with taking a little time to relax in the evenings and enjoy your favorite television programs. Nobody said it couldn’t be a productive time too! Take commercial breaks to dust the living room furniture.
5. Delegate tasks to other family members.
   Delegating is a wonderful strategy that helps you accomplish so much more. If you have children, create a daily chores list suitable for their age. One approach is to have them put away a certain number of items every night based on their age. For instance, a 4-year old has to put four things back in their rightful place each night.
6. Use an app to keep you on track.
   Many individuals rely on schedules to stay on track, and the same can be applied to cleaning your home. This schedule can then be uploaded to a calendar or task app that automatically creates tasks on a scheduled basis when you mark the original one complete. This keeps you from missing anything important or those yearly tasks that are easily to forgotten.
7. Never leave a room empty-handed.
   Before leaving a room, check to see if anything belongs somewhere else and take it with you.
8. Do a walkthrough nightly.
   Walk room to room every night, picking up forgotten about items, so the next day begins clutter-free.
9. If it takes less than 5 minutes, do it.
   A good rule when going about your day is if it takes less than five minutes to put it away, do it immediately. This prevents items from piling up over time and getting out of control.

AR Management is a full-service property management company that assists homeowners associations with daily tasks and responsibilities. For more information, contact our office.