Does Cleaning Your Home Have to Be Hard Work?

Introduction
Most people think of cleaning as a tiring chore that takes a long time. If you’re the same, you can search for “cleaning services near me” and hire professionals to do the job. However, with the right approach cleaning doesn’t need to be a tiring and cumbersome chore. Let’s check out how you can clean without tiring out yourself:
The Details
- 20/10 rule – Most people clean inefficiently without a system. Everything gets piled up and chores are delayed till they all come crashing like bricks on the weekend. When you have to clean the entire home in one or two days, it’s obviously going to be tiring and inefficient. It also eats up all the time you get for leisure and recreation during the weekend. Instead, go for the 20/10 rule.
Quit the marathon and get used to doing short bursts of cleaning with breaks in between. Get your smartphone or a loud timer and set the cleaning time. The cleaning time can be 20, 30 04 even 40 minutes, whatever suits you. After the timer goes off, take a break and indulge in recreational or relaxing activities, or do whatever brings you joy. It may be the ritual of brewing your coffee, walking your dog, or streaming your favorite show.
After the break is over you set the timer and get back to work. You take care of all your chores this way through the cycle of short bursts of cleaning followed by breaks. Experts believe that the perfect combination is 20 minutes spent cleaning and 10 minutes spent on break. Hence, the 20/10 rule. However, you don’t need to be rigid if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Set your cleanup and break time however you want. It may be 30/15, 25/10, or even 45/15.
- Don’t worry about the big picture – Your whole house is a mess, and you feel like you need to clean up everything to remain civilized. However, that only causes panic and stress. Instead, start by forgetting about the mess and think about what you need to do right now. Focus on the small things instead of visualizing the bigger picture for something as simple as cleaning.
When you focus on the small thing repeatedly over a long time, it can make a huge difference. Most people get overwhelmed when they think about the big picture. Instead, try to shift the focus from the “plot” to the “scene”. That means forgetting about your home for the moment and trying to get a clean kitchen sink. It’s a small concrete thing that can be achieved quickly and gives you the motivation to move on to the next mess.
- Make your bed – Making your bed is certainly a small thing that has a big effect. Making your bed takes a few minutes at most. It’s a small commitment and time investment. However, once you’re done your bedroom immediately looks much cleaner and fresh. Even if you have a pile of clothes on the floor, a clean bed simply pulls things together and makes your bedroom seem calmer with less chaotic energy.
- Don’t put it down, put it away – This is a practice that would help you ease your future cleaning woes by a great margin. Instead of putting things down, put them away. A lot of mess can be avoided by simply putting things away instead of putting them down. That means putting away the snack bowl to the sink instead of putting it down on the desk. The same holds for stationary, cables, clothes and more.
- Know where you keep the laundry – After you wash clothes, linens, bedding, and other fabrics, you’re not done. It’s a three-step process that includes washing, drying, and putting it away. Most people stick to the first two steps and forget about the last one. However, the whole laundry process isn’t complete without putting away freshly clean clothes at the right place.
Otherwise, you end up with a big pile of clean clothes that collect dust, get wrinkles, and need to be ironed even more. Moreover, you won’t even find the right clothes when they are needed. To develop this habit and avoid future wardrobe woes, you can stick a large deterring poster in the laundry room where everyone piles up fresh clothes. It can say something like “Big mountain of fresh laundry”, “Apparel hunt when the pile grows”.
- Step away from the phone – Your phone with all the social media apps is a major distraction when you’re trying to get something done. Everything from Instagram to Snapchat and TikTok. These apps are designed to get all your attention all the time so that they can show you more ads and sell your more products. A notification from these apps is all you need to leave your cleaning chore and get back to scrolling. Instead, put your phone in Silent or Do Not Disturb mode. Remember you can get back to it during your breaks with the 20/10 rule.
- Bribe yourself – Parents often bribe their kids with all kinds of things to make them do something. Anything from desserts to toys to make them eat their veggies and do their homework. However, the same thing works for you as well. You get incentivized with money, vacations, or other benefits to perform better. The same can happen at home.
For instance, you can bribe yourself with a special cup of coffee or the next episode of a show after you’re done cleaning. This gets you motivated to be done with your cleaning chore so that you can indulge in your guilty pleasures without, well, the guilt.
Conclusion
As you can see, with the 20/10 rule you can clean much more efficiently and take care of the right things at the right time without tiring yourself out. On the other hand, if you need to get your home deep cleaned, you can search for “cleaning services near me” and hire the right professionals.