Do you have a love-hate relationship with those people who always seem to have a clean home? Do you shudder at the thought of someone stopping by your home unexpectedly, without giving you ample time to clean? If you always wanted to be one of those people who never have to worry and who always have a perpetually clean home, you should know that it’s not as hard as it might seem. All it takes is a little effort, a few good habits, and before you know it you’ll be working smarter instead of harder. 

Ready to give it a try? Here are six daily habits of people who always have a clean house.

Clean While You Cook

Love making home-cooked meals but hate dealing with the cleanup? The kitchen is one of the busiest (and oftentimes one of the messiest) rooms in your house. Even if you aren’t cooking big, formal dinners, it’s amazing how making a quick breakfast or a couple of snacks for your kids can add to the dish pile. 

The best way to keep your kitchen spotless is to clean as you go. That means cleaning out the fridge and wiping down the countertop while you’re waiting for the water to boil or the oven to preheat. It only took a minute to dirty those dishes or make that spill on the floor, so use every minute you have to clean it up before it becomes an even bigger mess. Leaving dishes and spills for “later” will only make things harder and more difficult to clean up.    

Do a Load of Laundry Every Day

Do you hate facing the “laundry monster” every weekend? Instead of letting the week’s dirty laundry pile up so you have to spend an entire day washing and folding, try tackling a little bit at a time. Aim to do one load of laundry every day. Simply put a load in the washer in the morning before you leave and then put it in the dryer as soon as you get home. Take just a few minutes before bed to put away your freshly laundered linens, and you’ll already have one load complete! The best part of doing a little bit all throughout the week is that you’ll have more free time to do the things you really want to do once the weekend rolls around.   

Take Care of the Mail Right Away

If you’re like most people, you probably stumble into your home each day with your hands full of at least one, if not all of the following items: keys, groceries, purse, coat, kids and/or their toys, as well as whatever was just retrieved from the mailbox. The first priority is to unload whatever you can onto the nearest unoccupied surface and get on with your evening. 

Unfortunately, this is a perfect example of how clutter starts to creep into your home. It's amazing how just a few pieces of mail each day can quickly turn into a mountain of envelopes, magazines, and ad flyers.The simple act of quickly going through the mail before you do anything else will save you time and headaches in the long run. Plus, if you sort the mail as soon as you get it, it’s less likely to get lost or scattered throughout the house. 

The first step is to get a mail sorter. This can be just about anything from a small, tabletop organizer you would find at an office supply store, to a few, nicely decorated folders, magazine holders, or boxes. The idea is to have something ready for quick and easy mail sorting. With a system in place, it should take less than 30 seconds to place the day’s correspondence and parcels into more meaningful categories such as “bills”, “file”, and “trash”.      

To make sorting the mail even easier, make an effort to reduce the amount of mail you get in the first place. Take your name off of unwanted mailing lists, signup for paperless billing, and cancel those magazine subscriptions you never read. Doing these things will help cut down on the mail you get and in turn reduce clutter and waste. 

Initiate a Nightly Tidy-Up Routine

It might be hard to think about cleaning at the end of a long work day, but spending just 10 to 15 minutes each night tidying up can prevent you from having to forfeit all of your free time on the weekend. Before turning in for the night, try to make sure a few key tasks are done – do the dishes, wipe down the countertops, put away a few things that were left out, and maybe put a load of laundry into the washing machine. Making an effort to spend a little bit of time each night on these necessary tasks will make maintaining a clean home that much easier.

Continuously Declutter Your Home

Do you ever feel stressed just looking at all of the “stuff” in your home? On the contrary, have you ever walked into another person’s home where everything looked perfectly clean and tidy and instantly felt as ease? If your home has never felt like an oasis of calm despite spending an endless number of hours cleaning, maybe it’s not because of how you clean, but rather how much you have to clean.

No amount of scrubbing, dusting, or polishing will give your home the truly “clean” feel you desire if you have an overabundance of material things taking up every square inch of floor and countertop space. That’s why, no matter how difficult it may seem to get rid of those collectibles, mementos, and things that will come in handy “someday”, it’s better to get comfortable with living a more minimalist lifestyle. 

When you have fewer things, you’ll naturally have fewer things to clean – or at least fewer things to clean around. Instead of moving piles from one room to the next, get rid of the pile altogether. It might be easier said than done, but if you really want to enjoy a clean, clutter-free home, it’s worth the effort. Keep boxes on hand that can be used for donating. Make a regular habit of going through a drawer at a time and throwing away or giving away things that you really don’t need. If you make this a habit, you’ll eventually realize that you have less to stress about and you can finally enjoy that peaceful, orderly space you’ve always wanted.        

Enlist Help

Keeping a clean and tidy home is a big job – especially if you have kids and/or pets. The next time you think about someone’s perpetually clean home and wonder if you’ll ever be able to achieve the same for yourself, don’t get frustrated. Even if you initiate good habits, spend time everyday cleaning, and make a conscious effort to downsize and declutter, you still may not have the time to create the pristine space you’re longing for. That’s why you should save your sanity and make more time for what really matters by enlisting the help of a professional house cleaner. 

Whether you want someone to handle the things you never get to (such as dusting, mopping, or cleaning windows), or you’re interested in spending less time cleaning altogether, let Clean Bees of Fort Collins take house cleaning off of your never-ending to-do list. We offer weekly, monthly, and bi-weekly house cleanings, as well as one-time and deep cleaning services. Just fill out our online form and we’ll be happy to provide you with a free quote!