Contrary to popular belief, cleaning is much more of a skill than a talent. It can be learned. It can be mastered. But it must be practiced. If you’d like to return to a clean apartment every day after work and ensure your apartment is perpetually ready to impress visitors, follow this advice.
Adopt a minimalist lifestyle
Depending on your innate and learned tendencies, parting with belongings you don’t need can be difficult. For almost everyone, however, carrying out a large-scale purge of clothing, paperwork, books, or some other category of possessions results in a sense of freedom. The fewer possessions you keep in your apartment, the fewer items you have to clean and store. For those oft-featured individuals who reduce their total number of possessions to 100 or less, cleaning is a breeze.
Adopt a minimalist lifestyle, and you shouldn’t have to worry about most of the rest of the advice on this list. If minimalism is not compatible with your lifestyle or personality, don’t worry. Just keep reading.
Have a place for everything
And keep everything in its place. Following this rule helps prevent clutter, makes finding things easy, and makes tidying up a relatively mindless activity. In order to have a place for everything in your apartment, you may have to consolidate your belongings and invest in furniture organizers. The time and hassle you’ll save over the long-run will make these investments more than worth their cost.
Tidy up each evening
Ideally, you’d store everything you use as soon as you finish using it. In practice, this can prove difficult. If you spend between five and 15 minutes tidying up as part of an evening ritual, you should be able to keep clutter from accumulating in your apartment. It will still help to clean up after yourself whenever you can, but don’t sweat it when life gets in the way. Just tidy up at the first opportunity so there’s no chance for a mess to build up.
Assign weekly and monthly chores
Supplement your daily cleaning ritual with weekly and monthly cleaning tasks, and your apartment shouldn’t have the chance to get too unruly. Common weekly cleaning tasks include surface dusting, vacuuming, mopping, trash removal, and bathroom cleaning. At least once a month, you should also clean windows and appliance interiors, dust behind furniture and in other hard-to-reach places, and spot clean carpet in your apartment.
Dust before vacuuming
To maximize the efficacy of your cleaning routine, follow this method used by almost all cleaning professionals. Dust before you sweep. Sweep before you vacuum. Vacuum before you mop.
The benefits of keeping a clean home are far-reaching. Follow these tips or any other advice for keeping a clean home that work for you, and enjoy a healthier, more productive life. Keeping a clean, tidy apartment is one key to Live Life + Love Life.
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