How to Spend Less Time Cleaning

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I enjoy cleaning. I like to vacuum, I like to use the dishwasher, I love organizing. When everything is clean and dirt-free in our home, I am satisfied. What I don’t love is when I have to spend too much time cleaning when I could be doing more things that make me happy.

Living in a clean and tidy environment helps me to be focused and sharp. My mom told me growing up that everything should have a home, so things aren’t misplaced. Since everything has a home, things aren’t lost and forgotten and slip to the wayside. For example, can you imagine DMV registration renewal papers being lost somewhere in the home? Not good.

Stop Cleaning and Start Living: How to Spend Less Time Cleaning.


I think cleaning and organizing go hand in hand. Organization expert Marie Kondo says, “Can you truthfully say that you treasure something buried so deeply in a closet or drawer that you have forgotten its existence? If things had feelings, they would certainly not be happy. Free them from the prison to which you have relegated them. Help them leave that deserted isle to which you have exiled them.”

However cleaning is a chore, and there are many times it indeed, feels like a chore. It sometimes feels like if I don’t stay on top of my cleaning, before I know it, cleaning turns into a dreaded time-sucking project.

Nobody wants to spend hours cleaning instead of spending time with friends and family. Unless cleaning is your favorite hobby, I can’t imagine anyone would want to choose cleaning over doing a fun activity or hobby.

I’m going to go over tried and true methods to spend more time enjoying life and less time cleaning:

How to Spend Less Time Cleaning and More Time Living Abundantly

1. Clean As You Go

This is a lesson I finally started to implement a few months ago. This is my number one tip for good reason! I was watching Sam the Cooking Guy and his video on YouTube about how to pickle radishes. Sam said something so simple yet genius: “Clean as you go, always.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have made ginormous messes in the kitchen when baking. By the time I am done baking my desserts, I am ready to jump in bed (I do a lot of night-owl baking). This is such a great rule to live by. Think about when you spill a drink on the floor. Do you walk over it and go do something else? Most likely no, you would clean up the spill immediately. You just did the “clean as you go” method!

Here are some practical examples for your home: 1) if you are changing your clothes, either hang/fold or place in dirty hamper immediately; 2) when cooking, wipe up little messes, throw trash and scraps away, and rinse dishes to put in the dishwasher.

2. Let Automation Work for You

If you are going out grocery shopping, to pick up your kids from school, going to watch a movie, whatever-now is the time to turn the automatic stuff on. Throw a load of clothes in the washing machine, turn on your dishwasher, and walk away! If you don’t have a dishwasher, no problem! Fill a clean sink with hot soapy water, and let the dishes soak, so when you come back to it (try in 2 hours or less) the dishes will be easily washable.

Going back to laundry, if there are clean shirts that have been wrinkled, hang them up, take a spray bottle add in some fabric softener, and spray with water. This will help release the wrinkles!

Try to lessen the amount of manual work you do. For example, instead of mopping the floor, or getting on my hands and knees to deep clean the floor, I use my Bissell Crosswave Max which has a tile/multisurface/carpet cleaning feature. I use this only on our tile, and it makes cleaning the floor not only efficient but it’s fun for me haha. The Swiffer Wet Jet is an excellent alternative. This is more sanitary because there is no need to constantly dip in a bucket of soapy water and squeeze out the excess liquid.

3. Don’t Give Your Bathroom a Chance to Get Dirty

This is going to be TMI, but hey, we’re all human and this happens to everyone…You sit down for a number 2, and it smears the bottom of the toilet bowl after a flush. Gross. Hopefully, you don’t walk away with it being in that condition. I keep a canister of Comet next to the toilet. If the toilet gets dirty, I just place some of the Comet bleach powder in there, and take the toilet brush to give it  good scrub and flush. Done!

Also another little hack, if you know you are about to go number 2, before you do, lay some toilet paper down as a “blanket” to catch your poop. Then 99% of the time when you flush, it won’t get the toilet bowl smeary and gross. I also like this cute blue bear Toilet Bowl Cleaner to put in your toilet tank to continually freshen your toilet bowl with each flush. Another piece of advice is when you are brushing your teeth, shaving your face (if you are a man), putting on makeup, etc-this can leave residue in the sink bowl. Keep a little scrub brush or Magic eraser under the sink to quickly clean messes in the sink, so they don’t get stuck on.

4. Don’t Allow Dirt in Your Home

We have a no shoes in the house rule that we have implemented since the day we moved in our home. The bottom of shoes carry dirt, bacteria (even fecal bacteria), toxins, etc. Even though that might not kill us-I don’t want that in our carpet and tile! Not wearing shoes in the home makes vacuuming and cleaning much easier, and guess what? The floors STAY clean longer!

Adopting this rule may be hard if you are not accustomed to living this way. However it is never too late to start a clean habit. It will take some time but eventually, you can get your whole family on board.

I can almost guarantee this because they won’t want to be scrubbing the floors instead). If you go to the beach/desert/mountains a lot, have an area in your garage, or outside where you can “dump” the dirty clothes and gear to give it a good rinse before bringing inside.

5. Work Smarter Not Harder

What if I told you your floors could look spotless by using a small head toothbrush, and it would take about 24-48 hours to complete? You’d be like “are you kidding me!?” And yes, I would be kidding. This ridiculous example is just to get my point across that you can clean either the hard way or the easy (smarter) way and get the same results.

In my example of cleaning the floors, by switching to an automated mop/floor vacuum you are drastically cutting down the time, and increasing your efficiency. Take a moment to look around your home, and try to find what chores drain your time, and see if there is a more efficient way of getting it done.

What are your favorite methods of cleaning to save time and energy?

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