Housework, cleaning and organisation, hate it or love it, the one constant is that it has to be done and seen as I can not afford a cleaner it mostly falls down to me. In the past we have gone from control freaky clean, to total mess depending on my mental state! Now we are somewhere in between. The house is not always clean and tidy, but it is lived in and can be tidied in a flash.
Want to know my secret?
Today I am going to let you in to my tips for what I call a chaos clean. You know the manic clean that you have to do when someone is coming to visit (and no, not shoving it all under the bed and in the cabinets)!
How to Chaos Clean your home
Remember we are only making things presentable, not doing a deep clean, so focus on the surface.
Set the timer – I do things in 15 minute chunk and work against the clock. There is something about trying to beat the clock that makes you go faster.
Start on the right – go a room at a time and work from the right hand side of you and work around. Put anything that doesn’t belong in that room into a laundry basket and take this room to room with me.
Dirtiest room first – I do the most challenging room first, it will make all the others seem a breeze.
Work down – Start at the top of the house and work your way down. Dust settles, so wet wipe, then polish before vacuuming.
Worry about the bits people will see – For me this is the entrance hall, downstairs rooms (we are pretty open plan) and the toilet. I shut the door on the rest of the house! Life became so much better when we had a conservatory put on the house as a playroom, so I can just close the door on the clutter and chaos.
Delegate – It is amazing just how much work the family can do. We all make the mess together, so we tidy it together.
So this is how I make my home presentable for visitors on short notice when we have visitors. Six tips that make life easier when my home is untidy.
Great ideas, good idea about delegating
I love this – we often clean in this crazy, slightly panicked way. I like the idea of doing the worst room first – I’ll definitely use that!
Great tips. I am just about to try and write a little weekly cleaning plan to help me keep on top of things. This is helpful, thanks x
This is exactly how I clean before people come round, the laundry basket is fab for moving ‘stuff’ I need to put away or hide!!
Thank goodness for visitors I say – its the only time I have a proper clean! Some great tips here tho!
Great ideas, I am a cleaning freak so these will come in very hand for me xxx
Some great tips – I think I should start from the top as by the time I have finished downstairs the upstairs gets neglected!
Great tips – would you like to come and do ours now?!
I also work top to bottom and funnily enough last day of Christmas holidays today saw me and the girls tackle their room
I do a few of these myself. I never knew how good 17 year old sons were at cleaning the bathroom since recently 😉
Shutting doors is definitely the one I do.
I like the idea of doing thing in 15 minute chunks, I might try that instead of doing the whole lot in one x
I clean to the music. One bit per song… it works well 🙂
What great tips! I love the one about setting a timer. I work better and faster when I’m up against the time.
REally good tips. Working against the clock works for me too.
Some fab tips Jenm need to get these into practice! Hope you had a lovely Xmas break x
I created a cleaning schedule and I’m trying to stick to that as much as possible 🙂 Thanks for all the tips!
setting a 15 timer is brilliant I am going to do this
Great ideas. I’m setting myself an area a day to sort and clear/clean in a bid to get straight.
I have to do a room at a time but often get distracted and then start them all and never actually finish one lol
I’ve just done your first tip of setting the timer and I’ve finished the kitchen in record time! 🙂
Great tips. I do similar – just do downstairs and the stairs. Although now N’s at the wandering age where he wants to drag toys up and downstairs and take friends up there, so I have to make sure I close the other 2 bedrooms and only leave his door open.
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