| There seems to be so many better things to do in life than spend hours cleaning, but as the old adage goes, a tidy home brings with it a tidy mind. Luckily there are a number of ways you can make sure your house looks and feels presentable every day. And do you know what's the best thing about them all? They only take a few minutes...max! |
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1. Wipe Down the Shower After Use This is hugely important if you have a glass door on your shower cubicle, but can make a difference to tiled or plastic shower rooms as well. Just keep a towel or cloth handily in reach of the shower door and give the door and taps a quick wipe over as soon as you get out. It will save you a much more strenuous and back breaking job scrubbing away limescale and dried soap further down the line.
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2. Wash Up As You Cook Once you have sat down to enjoy your latest delicious, culinary creation, you will immediately be in 'relaxed mode'. So there is little worse than getting up after the meal and seeing a huge pile of pots and pans in the kitchen sink, all in need of a good scrub. It is much easier to wash up as you go, since the food will not dry on the pans and most of the time will pretty much rinse straight off. So while your meal is cooking, wash up what you can before you eat! |
3. Put Your Clothes Away Whether you have done a sniff test and decided that today's t-shirt can be worn again before being washed or just worked your way through a huge pile of ironing, it will always be easier to just chuck your clothes into a corner than put them away. However, little makes a room look more untidy than piles of your favorite shirts and pants. So, if it's dirty, put it in the wash and if it's clean hang it in the closet! You room will feel so much nicer when everything is where it should be. |
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4. Tidy Up as You Go Along This one's a no-brainer, but it is so easy to get into bad habits. Leaving that DVD out of its case or that magazine on the floor might not seem like a big deal at the time, but by the end of the week you might just find that your house is unrecognizable for the amount of objects that have collected around the place. It only takes a few seconds to put items back in their right place so there really is little excuse! |
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5. Open a Window or Two Stale air can make a house smell much less inviting, especially to visitors. Fresh air, on the other hand, makes us all feel immediately more relaxed! So it's amazing that so many of us fail to make use of the windows and doors we have to air out the house. It might not always be possible in winter, but do your best to throw open some windows and doors every day, even if it's only for five minutes. It will make a huge difference!
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6. Avoid Hoarding Having more belongings than you have storage space is the best way to assure your house will look untidy. You don't need last week's newspapers, so throw them in the recycling. If you buy that new set of kitchen knives you saw on sale, take your old ones down to the charity shop. And do you really need those sets of pants that you haven't worn for ten years? Get into the habit of replacing old with new, rather than supplementing what you already have with further additions. |
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7. Always Make Your Bed You know the routine! Despite setting our alarms in good time, it is just so tempting to keep pressing that snooze button until the last possible second, before throwing the duvet off and staggering to the bathroom in a rush. However, a neatly made bed makes a huge difference to the appearance and comfort of a bedroom. So try to get out of bed just a couple of minutes earlier and make sure your bed is left nicely ready for you clamber into later after another exhausting day.
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8. Vacuum or Sweep on a Regular Basis Running the vacuum or broom around a few times a week can save yourself from having to do a deeper clean on the weekend when you want to relax. Just pick two or three rooms every other day and give them a quick once over. You don't have to move the beds and tables every time, but a little bit of effort regularly is better than a whole day being wiped out because you have to go on a major cleaning mission. |
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9. Put Your Shoes and Bags Away The entryway is the first place we see when we come through our front door but it often becomes a dumping ground for all those items we don't need once we are inside. Try to avoid kicking off your shoes and throwing your bag on top of them - these things can soon pile up. You will feel even more great about being home after a hard day if you walk in to be greeted by a lovely, tidy entrance. |
10. Shhh, But Close a Door if It's Necessary! Ok, ok, this one is cheating a bit! But there will always be the odd occasion where that home office is just too piled high with papers or that pesky teenager's bedroom is so drowned in plates and cups you just don't have the time to clean it. You don't want to see that so just shut the door and operate an "out of sight, out of mind" policy. Just don't turn it into a habit! |
