15 tricks to speed up your weekly house-cleaning

15 tricks to speed up your weekly house-cleaning 07/01/2011

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Here is what you need

Toilet bowl cleaner
Toilet bowl brush without metal rings
White nylon scrub
Stiff bristle brush that looks like a toothbrush. It is ideal for scrubbing around faucets.
Paint brush. Use it to dust cobwebs along window frames and doorways etc.
Window cleaner
Tote tray with dividers
Concentrated orange cleaner without petroleum distillates
Bar Keepers Friend
Rubber Gloves
Plastic bag with old but clean terry cloth towels and a few lint free towels for dusting. Tuck in a second plastic bag to store soiled towels as you clean.
A large trash bag for emptying the trash.

Here is how you do it

Ideally, you should aim to have your entire home cleaned in one day. Should this not be possible due to busy schedules, try and break up your individual tasks so that you can do them when it suits you best (e. g. do the hoovering on one day and the dusting the next). Make sure that you plan your tasks in such a way that you can go from start to finish.
Always start at the top and work your way down to the bottom.
In each room, start at the back and work your way to the front. This way, you prevent yourself from having to drag you equipment over freshly cleaned floors
Once you have established a cleaning routine you are comfortable with, stick with it. Practise makes perfect and if you stick to the same pattern each time, you will automatically speed up.
Make it part of your cleaning-pattern to trash everything you do not need anymore while you are cleaning a room. Empty the trash bin(s) accordingly as you go along.
Try keeping similar actions bundled together (if you spray one object e. g. your sink, you might as well spray all the others in the same room. Each time you put a bottle down only to pick it up again, you are wasting time.
Generally, you should try to do your dusting first and your hoovering last. Any dust raised by you dusting the room can be finally got rid off by finishing off with the hoover or the mop. Always have an extension-lead handy for your hoover. Depending on the size of each floors, your extension-lead should be long enough to hoover one section completely (with the hoover plugged into one socket). This saves you from having to carry your hoover from one room to the other.
Always leave the floors to the very last – this way, you automatically clean all the remains from your previous cleaning-procedures in one go.
When dusting, you have too different options. You can either pick up any objects in your way with one hand and dust with the other, or you have a little basket ready for everything to go in – and you do the dusting off all surfaces in one go. Personally, I prefer option two but I would advise you to try both options and see, which suits you better.
Begin dusting from either the right or the left and work your way around the room dusting window sills and wall hangings as you get to them. Once you have completed a full circle, you know you haven't skipped anything.
Move your furniture towards the centre of the room while you are dusting. Afterwards, hoover
For homes with pets, a pair of new rubber gloves can come in handy. Have them tucked away in your back pocket and, when you come to couches or chairs with pet hair, use the gloves and work you hands in a circular motion moving over the furniture. Toss the rolled up lint onto the floor for the vacuum to pick up.
When cleaning your kitchen, clean one section of cabinets each time paying special attention to door pulls. This will make you yearly “big clean-out” much easier and faster.
To clean all your workspace properly, move appliances to one side then spray the counter, dishwasher, refrigerator or microwave if it is in that immediate area and wipe it thoroughly. If you are living with cats, always keep a spraying bottle with cleaner and a clean towel handy to wipe over the surface again in case the walk over it.
Rooms that are not used on a regular basis (guest-bedrooms, formal dining rooms etc.) may not need to be cleaned as often as rooms that are used daily (kitchen, bathroom). Therefore, you should always clean those rooms after use. The time saved can be allocated for “bigger tasks” such as cupboards or windows).