Hacks: Top 10 Ways to Finally Conquer Your Housecleaning

One of the biggest sources of Davis roommate drama is cleanliness. One roommate loves trash more the Oscar while another wants to live in Level 5 Clean Room.

Lifehacker.com has a collection of great advice that includes Top 10 Ways to Finally Conquer Your Housecleaning. Here is just a very small sampling:

10. Make a Schedule (and Stick to It!)

If you’re struggling to keep things tidy, the biggest thing you can do (and equally the smallest, aside from actually cleaning things) is to make a schedule for your big and small cleanings, and stick to it.

This sample schedule from Real Simple is broken into weekly, monthly, three-to-six month, and even yearly periods, and is a great one to get started with. Even if there isn’t much to tidy on a day you’ve scheduled a big clean, do what you can and enjoy the results. With small cleans, do the same. As long as you make it a habit, the rest will come naturally. You don’t even have to set aside a lot of time for it: even 20 minutes is more than enough.

6. Clean in Bursts

When you do get down to actually picking up the gear, putting on some gloves, plugging in the vaccuum, and getting things done, make sure you clean in short bursts—only a few minutes at a time. There’s a reason why those “one room” guides are only 10 or 20 minutes. If you go on too long, you’ll burn out, get tired, get sweaty and uncomfortable, and just give up on the whole thing. Even if you do power through, you’ll never want to do it again.

Keeping things short and giving yourself plenty of breaks also lets you get things done without getting stressed out, and it also trains you to get a lot done in a short period of time, so you can feel accomplished while you sit down for a few minutes before you get up and tackle something else.

5. Let Your Appliances Clean For You

Remember, getting things clean doesn’t have to mean doing all the work yourself. We’ve talked about some great lazy ways to let other devices clean for you while you do the stuff you can’t get away from doing manually. You can toss everything from keyboards and stove ventilation hood filters to light fixture covers and vacuum cleaner attachments into the dishwasher. Then turn around and let your washing machine refresh your pillows for you while you do other things, and then let it refresh your towels while it washes them when the pillows are done.

3. Fake It When You Have To

There’s nothing wrong with doing the absolute minimum to give you some peace of mind if you don’t have the time or the willpower to actually do a deep clean.

Quick brush-ups, tidy-ups, and well, just hiding everything that should be out of sight and covering up your clutter is just fine for those work weeks that are just out of control, or those days where you’re sick or just dead tired. Cut yourself some slack when you need to and show some self-compassion. Not only is it good for you, it’ll help you rebound and tackle the job again when you have the time or energy.

Illustration by Tina Mailhot-Roberge. Photos by Tim Regan, Morgan, Melissa Barrett, Maarten Takens, Dana Robinson, Kodomut, and condesign.

Source: Top 10 Ways to Finally Conquer Your Housecleaning