10 Rules For A Cleaner House

10 Rules For A Cleaner House, Let me start off by saying this is our first article of the new year and the new decade so I’m gonna make sure it’s a really really good one, I mean we do that with all our articles but I’m gonna put a little bit of extra salt and pepper into this one so here’s the 10 Rules For A Cleaner Home in 2020. With new year comes this whole “New year new you” it drives all of us crazy cause we’re like yeah yeah we’ll do all of this stuff in January and then by February it kind of plummets so what I’d like to do instead of giving you this whole new year new you chat is, I want to actually give you ten rules for a cleaner home that you can actually implement things that I have used over the years as a lot of you know I’m a recovering slob and these things are incremental and they actually work so they’re not hard to do and they make a difference so in this article I’m gonna share with you those 10 Rules For A Cleaner Home in 2020, and you can really and truly live in a cleaner home if you follow them.

Right tell me if this is something that you do it’s certainly something that I do when someone comes over one of the first things that you do after you greet them is you apologize for the state of cleanliness or lack thereof in your home. Now this isn’t to say that I live in a pigsty, but of course I don’t live in a magazine ready home and if you sometimes feel this pressure that your home needs to be perfectly clean when someone comes over and if it’s not you’re all stressed out then when that person comes over you immediately feel this need to apologize and what does that do to the other person it makes them feel awkward they don’t know how to respond to that and it’s uncomfortable you know they came over for another purpose so rather than apologizing take a deep breath on where you’re at I’m like telling you this but I’m also like putting it up here for my own news I can use and just own it say fine this is what my place looks like I’m not gonna make a big deal out of it and if I want to change it I know that I can since building my cleaning business out and training cleaning specialists.

I have instilled this idea of figuring out the products tools and techniques that you need for any cleaning job at hand so that way you always know how to approach something before you actually get there then you’re not going to be spending as much trying time trying to figure everything out while you’re actually in the thick of things so the rule here is to know the products tools and techniques in your cleaning arsenal so that you can approach any cleaning task confidently and efficiently.

One of the big trends that’s going on right now and I’m actually a fan of living a more minimal lifestyle now this doesn’t mean having three or four items in every room in your home but it just means being mindful and present about the items that you have or bring into your home now this also extends out to let’s say those sentimental items that you’re hanging on to that you just can’t get rid of or those kind of one-time items that you have at home for like the one occasion that you need them every year this tends to put people into a bit of a tailspin when it comes to decluttering or thinking through the things that they have at home.

So if this is you and you’re stuck here’s what I would suggest to you be present and be mindful think about what you have what you need what makes you happy in your space if you have something from years ago and you don’t really need it or use it anymore you can safely move on from it I mean so many times I’ll go to my basement you know where we keep things like that and I’ll kind of look at something and I’ll just say I don’t really have use for this anymore and I’ve been holding on to it for so long and then I just kind of get to a point or a cliff and I’m like I’m over it I can move on from this now.

But the other part of this is just being mindful about what you bring into your home so anytime you pick something up with the intent of bringing it home ask yourself do I need this do I want it do I love it do already have one because if any of those things kind of make you rethink bringing that item home you should probably leave it where it is. One of my favorite things to do and one of the first things that I learned about in cleaning was this concept of doing multiple things at one time, but sort of having things happen passively in the background while you’re actively cleaning this is something that I call layering with cleaning so you can kind of think about all of the tasks that you have at hand when you’re approaching a cleaning job and then thinking about how you can use layering to reduce the actual amount of work that you have to do for a given chore so a great example would be cleaning your bedroom the way that I would layer is like this the first thing I know I need to do is strip the sheets so I will just quickly strip off the sheets throw them in the wash and then the wash can happen that’s a passive thing while I’m cleaning the rest of the room that way I know by the time I put the sheets in the dryer my room is going to be clean and I can move on to another cleaning task the only other thing I have to do is throw my sheets back on the bed so in doing these sort of bigger tasks you can break them down and say what can I put on autopilot or passively do so that I can accomplish a lot in the same or less amount of time.

Another thing you can do or another kind of layering concept is pre-treating a lot of you have heard me talk about pre-treating before it’s because i love it and it works products are designed to work really really well if the opportunity and what that means is just pre-treating a surface putting your product on there for a few minutes two three five seven ten however long it needs you get all your other work done so that by the time you come back to that pre treated surface all you have to do is wipe you don’t really have to scrub or break a sweat the product has done a lot of the work for you and that’s just because you use the power of layering it’s more than likely that one of the most popular Pinterest topics is weekly cleaning routine for a reason people love having cleaning routines laid out for them and when I started my cleaning business one of the first things I did was created a checklist that I could then use to show my clients the exact work that would be done they could visualize the cleaning the cleaning routine that I would be doing in their homes and that was such an effective thing for our clients I also know how effective it is for people who are just cleaning themselves at home because you know sometimes when you go into a room the first thing that hits you is overwhelmed you don’t know where to start and you don’t know how frequently you should be doing this and this is like a cause for anxiety and uncertainty so a great way to just bring it back home is to have a weekly cleaning routine or a monthly cleaning routine and then you know exactly what it is that you need to check off on your cleaning list so you know that you’re getting everything done now.

The second part of this is actually scheduling it in so that you make sure that you’re getting your work done I’m a firm believer of what gets scheduled gets done if you need proof you should just see what my weekly calendar looks like it’s a little bit scary but I have to tell you that I just get everything done on that list generally speaking and if I don’t I can roll it over to another day so just remember how to routine and what gets scheduled gets done. There are two things that you can do to stay on top of your cleaning the first one is to clean as you go and the second one is to stay on top of your messes so what the first thing looks like is this let’s say you’re in the kit and you’re cooking of course I’m thinking about cleaning you’re cooking something and you’re serving dinner as you’re doing the cooking think about cleaning as you go that way you have less to clean up at the end of the meal and the second one cleaning messes immediately looks like this if something spills juice on the floor if there’s toothpaste in the sink or you know some schmutz on the counter rather than just leaving it because you think oh it’s small no big deal small things build up I have a couple of points to prove this for you I have this one thing I love saying about cleaning that messes are magnetic so mess attracts more mess and there’s also a broader theory about this called the broken window theory where if somebody sees a broken window and the next thing you know there’s graffiti there’s garbage and it just becomes this disaster derelict building so rather than letting that happen stay on top of your messes and clean as you go.

Cleaning is a family or group responsibility whether you live with family members or you live with roommates everybody has to pitch in it’s a matter of taking ownership taking responsibility and taking pride in the space that you live in so what this could look like is calling a family or a group meeting and saying this is where I’m at this is my capacity this is what I need help with and saying what are all of you good at and what is everyone willing to take on then it has to come down to everyone in your family getting on board I can tell you that going after this from a negative standpoint is not gonna get you where you want to be now I will tell you we have a article called how to get your spouse to clean I think it’s a really good article because we talk through a lot of the challenges that come up when having this conversation with your spouse your partner your roommate or your kids so I’m gonna link that article for you down below but I just want you to know cleaning cannot fall solely on one person’s shoulder shoulders if that person lives among other people so make sure that your kids are participating and that your family is participating because it’s really important for your mental emotional and physical well-being what I want to say here is a rule is to be ruthless with the stuff in your house and not to let your clutter control you your clutter sometimes we ascribe an emotional value to the stuff that we have in our home but that is just something that we’ve imbued upon that item it doesn’t actually exist it’s not a real thing it’s just what we’ve given it because maybe there’s guilt or shame or fear or a history with that thing but if it doesn’t serve you and you don’t need it then why hang on to it which is why I say be ruthless be like a Blackbeard pirate be just like a psychopath don’t have emotion when you’re looking at your stuff if you need it great if you don’t need it move on if you love it I mean that’s kind of where the emotion comes in so bye-bye Blackbeard but if you love it then yes you should keep it but if it’s like a box of something that is just not serving you or a thing from years ago that you found it a garage sale that’s just kind of there because it’s there maybe it’s time to move on so look at your stuff with fresh eyes if it doesn’t serve you be ruthless with it and say goodbye.

If you liked this tip leave me a comment and let me know or if you have any cleaning questions, if you’re really interested in my cleaning tips on an ongoing basis subscribe to our blog and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin