10 Things You Can Do Daily To Avoid That Big Weekend Clean

While it might seem like an unnecessary, repetitive task, making your bed each morning is the best way to kickstart productivity and your daily cleaning routine. As the largest piece of furniture in your bedroom, having your bed made will subconsciously inspire you to keep the other areas of your room tidy too. Plus, a made bed keeps the sheets free from wrinkles and dust. Remember to strip your bed linens on Fridays for washing rather than making it. Having a set day for changing your sheets means you’ll never forget or miss a week–which is good considering a UK study found that pillowcases have 17 thousand times more bacteria after just one week of use than a toilet seat. *Immediately strips sheets.* 

When you finish getting ready for the day, wipe down your bathroom counter with a multi-purpose spray and microfibre cloth. Alongside the kitchen, the bathroom can hold more bacteria than any other place in your house. Adding in a quick wipe of the surfaces will inspire you to keep the space clear from the undeniable clutter of makeup and skin care products that pile up daily.

While you sip on your morning coffee, it’s time to unload the dishwasher and prepare it for the day’s dishes and activities. By having an empty dishwasher each morning, you can avoid buildup of dishes and bacteria in your sink (which by the way is home to more bacteria than a toilet seat) and encourage your entire household to keep a clean kitchen throughout the day. With this task set within your morning routine, you’ll likely be ready to start the cycle after dinner and continue this task the following day.

Your kitchen counters and sink see a lot of action daily. Each time you cook or prepare a snack, get in the habit of wiping them down with a natural multi-purpose spray. Beyond aesthetics, keeping your counters tidy will keep your food preparation safe from the undeniable bacteria. Not to mention, unexpected company almost always ends up in the kitchen. If your counters are wiped and cleared, the entire house looks relatively clean.

Ready? Set a timer on your phone for just 10 minutes and only allow yourself to declutter the house for this time (you’ll get a chance to finish anything you miss tomorrow so try not to get carried away). Start at one end of your home and work your way systematically through the rooms carrying a laundry basket to gather all miscellaneous items that need to go back to their proper homes. This way you won’t waste time running to different rooms each time something is out of place or your hands are full. Simply check your laundry basket before you move on to each room to make sure nothing you’ve collected needs to stay in the room you’re in.

Rather than having a set–and often dreaded–laundry day, commit to doing a load a day (or less depending on the amount of laundry your household produces). Avoiding piles of dirty laundry will help deter bacteria and odor in your home and allow for the more miscellaneous linens, such as curtains, to be washed more frequently. Popping in a load of laundry only takes a couple minutes, and can instantly give you a boost of feeling productive, but don’t forget to come back later in the day to move the load along.

If you’re avoiding this task, it’s likely that you have too much clutter in your closet and drawers making it difficult to put away clean clothes or you are simply overwhelmed by the sheer height of your clean laundry piles. We’ll let you in on a little secret: Laundry baskets are not meant to be rent-free storage; they are meant only for the short-term transporting of laundry. Every weekday, fold the laundry in your dryer or on your drying rack daily before immediately putting it away to avoid this becoming a daunting, multi hour task.

If you feel like your weekends are being stolen due the overwhelming amount of work that is required to maintain a home, this daily task will change your life. Each day choose just one room to dust and vacuum–and in this order as when you dust you’ll undoubtedly get debris on the floor. By Friday you should have completed most of the main rooms of your home, and any additional rooms can be cycled through the following week. And if you run out of rooms, opt to tackle a bathroom instead.

Oh, the entryway– AKA the culprit of your forever dirty floors. With the dirt and debris that come in from your household’s shoes, the entryway can become ground zero, dispersing dirt to all areas of your home. Taking a couple minutes to vacuum the area around your home’s most used doors can save you hours of extra vacuuming everywhere else.

When you think of cleaning the fridge, do you think of an all day job removing every sauce you never actually use and sterilizing each nook and cranny? Those cleans are definitely needed a few times a year, but let’s simplify this task. Every day spot clean any spills or crumbs with a microfiber cloth and natural multi-surface cleaner (for one you can make at home, read this), and your future self will thank you profusely. Similarly, wiping any spills or crumbs in the microwave with each use will prevent them from being cooked on, becoming a deep clean task rather than a daily one. If you don’t have one already, invest in a microwave splatter cover that can be periodically tossed in the dishwasher.