It doesn’t matter who you are or what season your life is in, there is always housework to be done. We all know about the basic chores and I don’t need to go through all of them here, but keep reading if you want some tips that will hopefully save time, effort and energy.
Bedrooms:
I always start my cleaning for the day in my bedroom As soon as I climb out of bed I make it. This takes all the temptation of climbing back in to it away! You’re up, your bed is made and if nothing else, you have accomplished at least one thing! Which sometimes is all you have in you.
Putting all stray clothes in the hamper, folding blankets and stuffing phone cords away will go a long way to making you feel productive before your day has even started.
Closets:
Going through your closet a few times a year never hurts. I typically reassess what kind of clothing I have front and center depending on the time of year. Packing away thick, chunky sweaters in the summer and bringing out the dresses and shorts is a simple and practical choice. While you’re already looking in the closet and rearranging your staples is a good time to ask yourself: what haven’t you reached for in 6+ months? What doesn’t fit? What looks too dated or too young to keep? Anything that answers one of those questions has got to go.
Sometimes pulling things out of your closet can be difficult. Maybe you have something that you absolutely love so you don’t think you want to get rid of it, but you never choose it when you have the opportunity to wear it. My suggestion is to put that item in a bag in the back of your closet. Just hold on to it for a few months, you have already been hanging on to it for a while, if you don’t miss it; away it goes.
I also like to group like items close together. In my closet, I have a few pairs of Converse and I like to keep them all on the same shelf of the shoe rack. I just enjoy the aesthetic and I can find a pair that match the vibe of what I’ve got going on super quickly.
Kitchens:
Wash your dishes right away so they don’t pile up. It’s so much easier to maintain things instead of having a huge mess to deal with when it gets out of control. Actually, now that I think of it, this is true for most things, not just dishes but anyway: tangent. Most people I know have dishwashers and that makes it so easy, just put the dishes directly in the machine instead of setting them in the sink. My sister and I don’t have a dishwasher so when we have too many dishes we have to lay out mats for everything to air dry or do the dishes in phases and it takes FOREVER! I typically like to just wash the few dishes that I dirty up with my meal and be done with it all at once.
And maybe it’s just me but, nothing feels better going to sleep at night than knowing you don’t have a huge pile of dishes waiting for you in the morning when you get up. Trust me on this! Once you get in the habit, it’s second nature.
Laundry:
Just like dishes, laundry is unending. The same afternoon you have empty hampers; someone changes their socks or throws a dish rag in the bin. It is such a great feeling to be caught up despite it being so short lived. The best way I have found to not make if feel like I am constantly running the machines is to do large loads of laundry once a week instead of a bunch of small loads all week long (if possible, depending on your family size). I have a laundry hamper in my bedroom that I pile things in all week long and on the weekend I will separate it in to colors and lights and I have two big loads and that’s that until next week.
Folding the clean clothes is another story all together. In the recent past I have definitely been the type to pile it all on the table we never eat at and live out of the heap instead of out of a closet and dresser. This causes so much chaos in the morning when you’re getting ready for work and can’t find something or the shirt you wanted is a wrinkled mess… The only tip I have here is to just buckle down and do it, knowing that it will save you so much time and stress later. I know it sucks!
As for putting the clothes away I always separate them into piles that go in the same place and in the same room. My PJ shorts and my workout headbands live in the same drawer of my dresser so when I’m folding, I stack them together in our laundry basket and bring them into my bedroom. It wouldn’t make much sense to mix a bunch of my sister’s laundry in with it all.
Still Just Hate Cleaning?
Maybe this is another one of those times where you have the opportunity to trade tasks with someone? Hate dusting? Trade chores with someone who doesn’t mind doing laundry. It could be as simple as sitting down with who ever you live with and have a quick chat about preferences. You never know, you might be taking something they despise off their hands!
IF at the end of the day you still really hate it and IF you have some extra money in the budget, maybe you could outsource this and hire a cleaning service. I’ve never done this before but I know quite a few people that do and it works out great for them to not have to even be bothered with it.
