What do you do to make house cleaning easier?

[WhatPollyForgot]

I hate house work, but I love a clean, tidy house. Do you have any tips for making it easier / more tolerable?

I try to clean regularly, so there isn't a build up that becomes overwhelming. I also have a cordless vacuum, so it's not such a faff to do a quick clean.

Anything else?

Polly I feel the same about the name TOMM but it really helped me to break everything down in to manageable chunks and sort of stay on track.

Make the dc’s screen time contingent on housework.

www.theorganisedmum.blog

I do a big clean once a week (4 bed house). During the week I do worktops daily, sweep the downstairs floors as they're wood and tiles, and I do wipe over the toilets and sinks in the bathrooms every day as they do get pretty messy. Anything that needs to go up or downstairs is left on the stairs and the house rule is the next person going up or down takes them to the right room.

Hoovering is a once a week job as it takes me about an hour. Same with bed stripping/washing. Deep cleaning bathrooms is once a week as well. Mopping the downstairs - I have a steam mop, cant recommend one enough!

Would love advice on a) how to keep it tidy and b) how to clean a crumbling house (you know, when you wipe down the windowsill, the paint comes flaking off). It seems like every cleaning job leads to a major £££ repair!

I find it helps to take my glasses off :o

I should do that, right now. Staring at a very bitty rug and it's really annoying me. but dh has been on conference calls in the room next door, all day. I think if he shows no inclination to get out for a walk, when he's done, I'm going to give him the job to tackle whike I'm preparing dinner.

I clean to the old military march out ( move house) standard, i just cant do it any other way. I got so fed up with 3 bathrooms to deep clean everyday and miles of skirtingboard to scrub with a toothbrush every week that i downsized to one livingroom, farmhouse kitchen, 1 bathroom and a outside loo. Can clean the whole place in 2 hours a week.

Took ages for me to actually grasp the difference between cleaning and tidying. I think some systems confuse the two. For me they are two separate jobs.

My tips:
Cordless vacuum for a quick hoover round. Bought this when heavily pregnant and was fab especially when DS started crawling and I wanted to get up bits regularly.
Trying to put things away. I was guilty of tidying a room and putting a pile of stuff next to the door to put in other rooms, then never getting round to it. Now I try to put away straight away.
I have my own loose TOMM schedule. It includes a specific day for bathrooms and is two weekly. I couldn't get on with the one week one.

I like the TOMM principles too of a load of washing on every morning. This helps me keep on top of things.

Own less stuff and have low standards.

I have spent a bit of time through the Easter holidays going through every room and de-cluttering and making sure everything has a place, a proper home. I bought some baskets and things to make sure everything has somewhere it goes. This has also helped DH and DD be able to do their share of tidying too as they know where things actually live!

By doing this I have now managed to make it so that ten minutes or so will be enough to tidy, Hoover and dust each room. I now have a routine of doing a room or two each day, which means that the house stays relatively tidy.

Lists help me. So I have a list each week of what needs doing and I tick them off as I go. Each tick on the list makes me feel like I'm achieving and motivates me to do something else on the list. Definitely doing little and often seems the best way for me. Keeping on top of it seems key.

Put some music on
Start with bathrooms, spray cleaning product on surfaces, Harpic down loo. Leave it to work while you do other rooms.
I do bedrooms first, then downstairs. Kitchen is done last because it takes the longest. Dusting always done before vacuuming.

Less stuff (Kon Mari) and the Organised Mum Method (I use the app which gives me a tick list each day).

Much easier to keep on top of when in lockdown though as loads more time!

Get rid of clutter. Constantly deplete the clutter.

I have a cleaner. It's my biggest luxury and I love it.

Wireless Earphones. Honestly! Mostly music, sometimes I will listen to films, or put a stand up comic on, and crack on with the cleaning. Makes it much more pleasurable, and less of a 'chore'.

I couldn’t bear a cleaner in my house, I’m far too private.Plus I realise that I like cleaning!

Dh has been amazing doing the garden, and diy stuff

Is that a fair distribution? At least in my house, there's rarely ever any diy to do, but the cleaning is constant.

Sticking in headphones and either phoning someone or listening to podcasts / audiobook / work training stuff makes the time fly by for me

We have a cleaner in normal times but for the last 6 weeks we’ve reverted to every member of the house has one chore per day. This means for us the kitchen and living areas gets cleaned twice per week, bathrooms 3 times per week, ironing, bins and random DIY once per week. Everyone is responsible for their own bedroom and the beds get changed once per week. One load of laundry done per day.

Never takes more than half an hour to do the daily chore except the ironing which took about 90 mins today for family of four plus bedding. House is looking fairly good at all times though I try not to look into kids bedrooms!

Do a certain job on a certain day, e.g bathrooms get thoroughly cleaned on a Tuesday with a quick wipe around when needed on other days. Ditto kitchen on another day, I find this helps to keep everywhere clean without spending a lot of time doing the whole house in one go! Hoover every day though as have constantly shedding dogs.

With hindsight, stay single!

Music on, telly off.
Cup of tea when upstairs is finished.
Cup of tea and a bar of chocolate when upstairs is done.

I have a chore list that I made. So there's daily tasks like dishes and general tidying then each day of the week is a different chore. Monday is bedding and kitchen, Tuesday is the bathroom, Wednesday is washing, fish tanks and gerbils and then Thursday is hoover and polish.
There's also monthly chores like cleaning light switches and things like that and seasonal like windows and fireplace. I have it all on a google sheet that I shared with my husband. Now I must say I don't always stick to it rigidly but it is a great help. It's just the two of us at the moment so it'll change as we have kids and stuff.

I know it sounds really anal but it helps me.