Being a parent is filled with joys and a lot of messes that are hard to keep on top of with today’s hectic schedules. Use our nine time-saving tips from our Scarborough cleaning company professionals to help maintain a clean home so you can spend more quality time with the kids.
- Make sure you’ve got all the right cleaning supplies
Maintaining a stock of all the right cleaning supplies and tools helps save time in a few ways:
- It allows you to make quick work of spills and accidents on the spot to reduce time scrubbing built-up grime and soaked-in stains.
- The right cleaning supplies can tackle all the various cleaning jobs in your home more efficiently because they are designed for that specific task.
- You don’t have an excuse to procrastinate on cleaning because you’ve run out of toilet bowl cleaner!
- Create a cleaning schedule
It’s easy to fall behind on cleaning if you don’t have some sort of cleaning routine. By choosing a convenient time to tackle cleaning tasks, you can clean in shorter, more effective spurts.
Your schedule doesn’t need to include an entire day of cleaning, either. Instead, it tackles specific tasks on certain days, so you’re never faced with hours of cleaning when you should be out enjoying time as a family. The trick is to break things down into the following:
- Daily tasks like picking up after the kids (enlist them to pitch in), doing the dishes, cleaning counters after meal prep, and sweeping up kitchen floors.
- Weekly chores like vacuuming, light bathroom cleaning, and dusting.
- Bi-weekly heavier duty cleaning like mopping floors or scrubbing the tub and toilet.
- Monthly deep cleaning such as steam cleaning bathroom surfaces or dusting light fixtures, ceiling fans and air vents, windows, etc.
To make cleaning much easier, employing a professional cleaning company for your Scarborough home or condo is worthwhile. When you work with professional cleaners like Maid4Condos, it makes it easier to keep your home clean on a consistent basis.
Even if you only add a cleaning service to your schedule once a month, that makes it easier to stay on top of everything. Let us handle the bulk of your cleaning, so you only have to do some light picking-up to maintain it!
- Keep appropriate cleaning products nearby
If space allows, it helps to keep appropriate cleaning products nearby, such as toilet bowl and bathroom cleaners under the bathroom sink (or in a handy cleaning basket under the toilet if your kids are older), kitchen wipes on the kitchen counter, etc.
This makes cleaning each room easier, while also offering an opportunity to do some random cleaning if you notice things are looking a little dirty, like the toilet! Just remember that cleaning products should be kept out of reach of small children.
- Make cleaning a family affair
Cleaning should never fall on the shoulders of one family member. Although it’s harder if you’re a single parent with very young children, teaching your kids to pitch in to keep the home clean is an important life lesson.
It’s all about age-appropriate tasks that teach kids cleaning skills while creating a family activity everyone does together. It also makes the cleaning process quicker.
Teach the kids to put their toys away, place their dishes in the sink after dinner, throw garbage in the trash bin, wipe up toothpaste spills, etc. This will reduce the level of cleaning required, too.
- Keep tidying—clean as you go
A big time-saver is always addressing messes as they occur. For example:
- Make sure everyone puts things away when they’re done with them (no excuses like, “I still need it because I’ll use it again tomorrow!”).
- Clean things like kitchen and bathroom sinks and counters as messes are made (keep wipes handy to make cleaning easier).
- Rinse and clean items you use as you prepare dinner so you can load them into the dishwasher or onto the drying rack to make doing the dinner dishes easier.
- Have a “paper goes in the recycling bin” rule (or, better yet, try to maintain an eco-friendly paperless household) so you don’t have paper everywhere.
- Put the laundry in the laundry basket instead of the floor or tossed on bedroom furniture.
- Consider function
A lot of times, homes feel messy because of a lack of organization. Consider how your family functions, and try to prevent messes by making it easier to put things away.
It might be hooks and baskets at the entry for school bags, coats, shoes, hats and mitts, etc. It could be a toy box in the living room cleverly disguised as a bench that serves as seating for guests.
It might also be hanging a laundry bag on each bedroom doorknob to make laundry day easier. This is a proactive approach that helps reduce the time invested in tidying.
- Avoid procrastination
There’s always something more important (or more pleasurable) to do than cleaning. However, you can actually save time by tackling those unpleasant cleaning tasks based on your cleaning schedule and our clean-as-you-go rule.
Also, making sure you finish the job is just as important as starting it when it comes to efficient cleaning. For example, if you do a load of laundry, always fold it and put it away.
- Consider cleaning in stages
Although we just said you should always finish the job and avoid procrastinating, this method doesn’t work for everyone. There are some jobs you can do in stages while still keeping your home tidy.
Take, for instance, the dinner dishes. When you do the dishes, whether it’s using a dishwasher or by hand, it’s not the worst or most disorganized thing to leave them to dry so they’re ready to be put away in the morning.
Cleaning in stages isn’t about procrastinating, but instead more about making the most of your time. You can also try a trendy cleaning method like the 20/10 approach to see if that helps.
- Multi-task
Technology makes it easier than ever to multitask without over-burdening your brain. For example, you might listen to a podcast you needed to review for work while you neaten the living room. You might listen to an audiobook of the recent bestseller by your favourite author to make cleaning more enjoyable.
You can also throw on a load of laundry and vacuum while it’s running, and then binge-watch your favourite Netflix series sitting in front of the TV while you fold it. You can get more balance in your life by multi-tasking and include a little more fun while you’re at it.
Call the Cleaning Professionals at Maid4Condos
These are just a few time-saving ideas to help you keep on top of your cleaning. If you still find you’re too strapped for time to clean, consider hiring Maid4Condos’ expert cleaning services that parents use to help enjoy more downtime with or without the kids.
Click here for a free online quote for our Scarborough cleaning company services. Also, you can call us at 647-822-0601 or contact us online for more information.
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