How To Clean Your House Fast When You Work Full-Time
Inside: Are you wondering how to clean your house fast when you work full time outside the home? By utilizing proven cleaning tactics, working full-time outside the home, and cleaning your house will no longer be a challenge.
The best way to clean your house fast is to have a game-plan put in place for the days you come home from work only to find the coffee table’s littered with half-eaten bowls of fruity pebbles, an open pack of Oreo’s and 3 Red Bulls waiting to greet you at the door.
If that’s not enough, the dogs perched in the corner of the room too busy finishing off a box of Nutty Buddy’s to notice you’re home.
Both feet aren’t fully in the front door when you scream at the top of your lungs, “KIDS! What the heck did you do to the house”?
Typically this is followed by silent sobs of despair and the feeling of being nothing more than a maid; or as I like to refer to this as, Cindermom.
Before we get to the juicy part of how to clean your house fast, there are a few key components that need to be discussed first; such as balance.
How to balance working full-time and keeping a clean house.
Trying to balance working full-time while cleaning your house is a struggle most full-time working moms have to deal with. It doesn’t matter how wonderful your spouse is, the cleaning is always going to default to you.
That’s okay. We got this covered.
The key to balancing your home and working full-time is to set up a flexible cleaning schedule.
Flexibility is essential because what works for one person, may not necessarily work for another. Flexibility allows you not to feel like a failure when you didn’t get everything done on your to-do list.
What you need is to set up some realistic expectations of what you can, and can’t accomplish during the day.
As a working mom for over 32 years, I’ve concluded, that in order to balance work and housework in your daily schedule and clean your house fast, you need to come up with some small, yet actionable strategies.
How to keep your house clean while working full-time
You’ll want to set up a schedule or use the one in the one-hour cleaning plan.
Spend some time making a list of all the items you typically clean, want to clean, or any other household duties you need to do every week.
We’re not talking about moving the sofa or the Grandfather clock to clean the dust bunnies that are living back there. We’re talking straight-up standard gotta get it clean every week.
Your list may look something like this:
- Clean the bathroom (scrub toilets, clean the bathtub & shower door)
- Clean the kitchen
- Change the linens
- Vacuum living room
- Dust bookshelf
- Laundry
- Check to see if the plants need water
- Meal Plan
- Change the water in the fish tank
What household chores should be done daily?
Keeping a clean home when you’re a working mom, isn’t really difficult if you enlist some daily habits into your everyday routine.
One. Put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher as soon as you’re done cleaning the breakfast or dinner table. If you don’t have a dishwasher, you’ll want to wash your dishes immediately after using them.
Two. Throw a load of laundry in the washing machine daily when you get home. By the time dinner is done, it’s ready to go in the dryer. You can fold it when you’re watching TV or YouTube and put it away the next day.
Three. Clean as you go. If you see something that needs to be picked up; pick it up. Wipe down your kitchen countertops when they’re either visibly soiled, or sticky.
Four. Make your bed every day. Honestly, I still struggle with this one, but I do it, and I’m happy to see my beds made when I get home.
Five. Wipe up the toothpaste that falls into the sink after you brush. The only thing worse than trying to scrape off hardened toothpaste from the sink is trying to chisel dried fruity pebbles away from the sides of the cereal bowl.
This is how you clean your house fast
Break up your day into two 1/2-hour blocks
No one in their right mind wants to get up earlier than they have to, but for your sanity, I’m recommending you try doing so.
Test it out for a week and see if you notice any difference.
Since I’m a proponent of baby steps, wake up 1/2 hour earlier than normal. If you want to try for an hour early; knock yourself out and go for it!
Take the list you made earlier with all the areas of your house you need to clean daily and rip it in half (or use the free download I have for you since I did the work for you already).
Limit your cleaning list to 4 to 5 items at a time for your morning or evening cleaning duties.
With that list in hand, start working on the items you designated for the morning. If your bathroom counter is really gross, that’s okay; you don’t have to finish it all during that cleaning session.
Do you know why?
Because it’s on the schedule to do again tomorrow.
The goal is to use a half-hour in the morning and a half-hour in the evening to tackle your cleaning. Now that’s cleaning your house fast.
No one ever said you have to clean your house all in one fell swoop. Just think of this. When you clean your house by breaking it up into easy-to-chew pieces, by the time the weekend rolls around, pretty much everything is done.
This method of cleaning your house fast by using two half-hour cleaning increments will become a habit. You’ll no longer have to struggle to try to balance working full-time and keeping a clean home.
As for the fruity pebbles which turn into cement. Do yourself a favor; tell your kids it’s being discontinued.
The struggles of cleaning a home while working full-time
What do you struggle with when it comes to balancing work and house cleaning? Share in a comment.
Stay Peachy!
Hey there speed cleaner. Before you go, don’t forget to download your One Hour Cleaning Plan. You’ll be thanking me later.