Want to know a simple cleaning hack that works every time?
In this post, I share one tip that we can expect from grown ups and children alike (once the kids have been taught and our expectations made clear).
Wouldn’t it be nice if the little elves could secretly clean up after us and the kids while we slept? Because, hey, we are no shoemakers but we are running a house 24/7. That’s a pretty tough job too. In fact, there are days I am certain it’s the hardest job there ever was.
I’m talking about days when one of the kids gets off the wrong side of the bed, the other kid has an allergy flare up and you wake up to find you caught the flu from the person sitting next to you at Uncle Joe’s Barbecue last night!
For the longest time, our house was in the ‘memory-making-mode’ a.k.a a mess. My oldest is 9 now so he’s getting way more organized. My kindergartner is still ‘making memories’ day in and day out.
Let’s be honest, while there are times you pause and smile at them and how their little minds work, half the time these memories can really annoy the heck out of you. We can’t afford to work like a mommy i-Robot all day.
While we can certainly teach our kids some clean-up rules, tips and tricks, we can’t expect them to be i-Robots all the time either. That pretty much sucks (pun intended) the fun out of the day.
So I’m sharing a tip that works like a charm and doesn’t require a ton of brawn or brains. This is my number one cleaning hack that is quick, affordable and you can use it any time during the day.
Here is the cleaning hack:
Clean up as you go.
Sounds like a no-brainer and pretty much anti-climatic despite the fancy font doesn’t it? Read on, hear me out please.
When there’s a bunch of clean laundry sitting on the couch for you to fold, or a ginormous pile of legos and Hotwheels and whatnots that have found their way into the living room, or even a stack of clean clothes waiting to be pressed, each task when you look at it, appears to be time-consuming and intimidating.
However, if you break the task in micro-tasks, the picture changes. For example, on your way to the kitchen, you pick up 2 of the plushies and toss them in the Sterilite tote (I use these totes), on your way back, you grab a handful of legos and dump them in the container, it does add up.
Similarly, if you’re on the phone telling mom how you’ve lost 2 lbs with intermittent fasting, and you pick up two, only two, clothes and fold them, and then 2 more while you’re listening to your son telling you for the 3rd time how awesome the Wild Kratts are, the pile will decrease. Scientifically proven. The best part, your work is reduced without you having to put aside a large chunk of time.
At the end of the day, there are some tips and tricks that could be of great use but the way we perceive our problems, sometimes prevents us from taking action. What I mean to say is, sometimes the answer is actually very simple. We just have to stop ourselves from doubting it, and give it a go.