Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Household Tips


It is amazing being domestic. So many appliances to keep running, floors to kept somewhat free of crumbs and stickies, carpets to be vacuumed, counters to keep uncluttered. It is a constant chore, and I know you're feeling burdened just thinking about it!

I found the solution to household cleanliness satisfaction for all.

  1. Set standards lower. For example, yesterday I had one goal and one goal alone for the whole day. Mopping the floor. If I could get that done, I would feel like my whole house was clean. So I did it and I was accomplished and had high self-esteem (oops- that's a bad term amongst my family: we believe in humility) I mean high self-worth, or maybe just self-satisfaction.
  2. Clean even in your most relaxed moments! An example of this is when I take my 1 or 2 potty breaks during the day. Whilst in the safety of the bathroom, I grab my Clorox Wipes, use one to sweep and wipe the whole floor. Then another to clean the sink area. Voila! The whole bathroom is clean! Save the toilet for another day.
  3. When you see smudges on the door, clean them ASAP or you'll forget until the next time you're feeling excessively anal with cleaning inclinations. And for some of you, that could be months. Keep baby wipes in various places around the house for quick clean-ups on walls and doors.
  4. Have wipes in the car for when you're stuck in the car forever waiting for whatever it is you wait too long for. Be useful and wipe the honey mustard off the cup holders!
  5. Throw away, throw away, throw away! If it's on the counter and you want a quick clean space, just toss it! If it's that important it will come again in the mail (bills usually do that), or be re-colored or whatever. Just throw it out.
I hope this list is useful? Or was it just a plug for Clorox and baby wipes? Any which way, please share your useful and unique house cleaning tips.

8 comments:

TisforTonya said...

once we had graduated from the baby wipes stage I realized how many things we used them for BESIDES babies! I now stock them religiously as they make a much needed bare foot cleaning station much easier and all those annoying sticky floor-spots/wall-spots/door-knob-spots are much more likely to get taken care of it I don't have to think too hard!

Today's goal - I am folding all the laundry (the kids can put it away though)!

Megz said...

I just leave a rag right by our computer. That way I can dust when I'm waiting for something to download. And another great tip---only invite people over when you need to deep clean. That is my only motivator to get spots I would otherwise ignore.

Nikki said...

I needed that....Thanks. Hey any household tips out there, send them my way. One goal at time, right?

rut said...

Hey, has anybody seen that super-important note from my meeting on Sunday that I scrawled on the back of something? I'm sure I left it here somewhere...

Thanks for mopping. I'm sorry I didn't notice... but the floors do look nice!

LC said...

Good post. I liked the tips.
I'm like Megz. If people in the fam. would just randomly call and say, "Hey we'll be there in a coupla hours." You know I"d get right to work cleaning and de-cluttering. You wouldn't even have to show up and I would have such a nice clean house.

We need to wear mama carpenter belts so we can have those wipes at our fingertips, along with a magic eraser, couple of bandaids, the possibilities are as limitless as the pockets on those things.

Anonymous said...

Good tips Erin u crack me up! Sorry not so talkative this morning I needed one more hour of rest... Ha ha ha

Sherie Christensen said...

My favorite "cleaning" tip is the one that Der gives me at night when I have what he calls the night time cleanies. He says "just turn out the light". My only problem with that is that I know the sun comes out in the morning and I'll see all of those dirty things and become weighed down for the day. I like the having guests approach too. It gives a happy reason to get busy. I like to make my bed so that if the rest of the house is dirty I can hide in my room.

Anonymous said...

Hey neighbor! To answer you're q: my sister Kelli took them for me!