7 Ways to Make Cleaning Faster

If you're tired of giving up your weekend to do housework, try these ways to make cleaning faster. You'll get your home clean in less time, which means you'll get to enjoy your weekend, too!

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How to Make Cleaning Faster

Your free time is already at a premium. These ways to make cleaning faster will help you get your house tidy without taking all day. Isn't that what it's all about, anyway? I mean, we all want our homes to be tidy and pleasant, but who wants to spend all of their time on it? I sure don't.

1. Keep Supplies Handy

Housework willalways take longer if you have to go back and forth between rooms to get the proper supplies. Keep a cleaning stash in each bathroom and your kitchen, or use one well-stocked caddy you can carry to every room. Fill it with an all-purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, furniture polish, microfiber cloths, rubber gloves, trash bags, and a squeegee. You'll clean faster because you won't have to spend time hunting things down.

2. Follow This Pattern

Don't start dusting one area, then pause to put clutter away elsewhere. To clean your house efficiently, you need to make every step count. That's why professional house cleaners work a room from top to bottom, left to right, starting at the door. Following this pattern means you declutter, dust, scrub, and polish one area before moving onto the next. Once you've worked your way around the room, sweep or vacuum the entire floor starting at the far wall and working your way out the door. (And make sure you're vacuuming the right way.)

3. Pre-Clean

Pre-cleaning makes it easier to clean a surface well. If you plan to disinfect, it's crucial that you pre-clean to remove dirt since too much of it on a surface prevents disinfectants from working properly.

  1. Clear the surface completely. For example, instead of picking up one thing at a time from your bathroom vanity and wiping that spot, clear all of the items off of it at once.
  2. Dry-wipe before you spray.Using a dry microfiber cloth, go over bathroom surfaces and kitchen counters before you apply products. The dry cloth will pick up debris, hair, and other messes rather than making them stick.

4. Don't Waste Waiting Time

Some products need time to work, like disinfectants and de-greasers. This goes for homemade cleaning products, too! So once you've pre-cleaned, spray on the products that need time to do their job and move onto cleaning another part of the room. For example, in a bathroom, you clean the counters, tub/shower, and toilet — in that order. Then apply disinfectant in that order, too. While the disinfectant works, wipe down the things you'd removed from the countertops or tub surround. Then rinse away the disinfectant in the order you applied it, put things back, and polish the mirrors to finish the room.

5. Use the Right Tools

Having the right tool for the job is a basic rule for most projects. It applies to housework, too. For example, a broom willnever get your floors as clean as a vacuum. If you have hard floors, a cordless stick vacuum is faster to use, and you won't have to deal with that annoying line of dirt that never seems to make it into the dustpan. Mopping is quicker when you have one that dispenses floor cleaner while you work — and it's more affordable than the mops with disposable pads, too. (Here's a list of the specific tools and gadgets I use in my home.)

6. Find and Follow a Routine

Some people like to do all of their dusting one day, do the floors the next, then deal with the bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry on other days. Others, including me, like to clean an entire room top to bottom before moving to the next. However you prefer, the important thing is knowing how often to clean things in your home and following a system that keeps you on track.

7. Clean Even if it Looks Clean

Don't wait until your home looks messy. It takes alot less time to wipe a lightly-soiled countertop than it does to move things aside, sweep up the crumbs, then spray and scrub it. The same goes for dusting, vacuuming, even mopping. Clean proactively to make cleaning easier. When you do it regularly, there's less dirt to cut through, so you can clean your house faster and have more time for things you enjoy.