You don’t have to spend all of your time cleaning to get your home pristine. With these easy home tips, you can get your home more organized, more efficient, and cleaner in no time—and keep it that way.
Designate a storage space right inside your front door.
Don’t allow clutter to follow you into your home and become a larger issue throughout your space. Instead, “Pick the exit/entrance that everyone uses most often, add good vertical storage for coats, shoes, and backpacks/purses/gym bags,” suggests organizing coach Lisa Dooley, founder of Your Organized Life.
Dooley also recommends keeping items used outdoors, like bugspray and sunscreen, in this space, and adding some shallow baskets to consolidate any clutter, like toys or miscellaneous accessories.
Have a “no shoes in the house” rule.
Instead of walking through your home wearing dirty shoes, giving you yet another thing to clean up, make sure to kick off your kicks at the front door. According to Luke Babich, a real estate investor and the co-founder of Clever Real Estate, this simple change “significantly reduces the amount of dirt, muck, and debris that you normally track into the house.” It’s particularly important for homes with wall-to-wall carpeting or rugs, which require a more involved cleaning process than hardwoods or tile.
Create a cleaning schedule.
If you find that you never seem to have time to clean your house, put it on your calendar and make it a standing event.
“Plan out your to-do list in sections of daily, weekly, and monthly chores to outline what needs to be done first,” suggests Leanne Stapf, chief operating officer at The Cleaning Authority.
Make to-do lists for each room.
Want to get your housework done more quickly? Try making to-do lists for each individual space and you won’t lose sight of your goals along the way.
“Writing out each room’s chores will assist in staying organized and create a visual kudos as you begin to check off each task,” explains Stapf, who notes that this is also helpful if you’re divvying up tasks among members of your household.
Create a central command center.
That mudroom isn’t the only space you should designate as a nerve center for your home—creating a command station within the house will keep important items organized.
“This is a centralized place to keep family schedules, bills and important paperwork, grocery lists and weekly menus, spare keys, and a home management binder with important phone numbers, family medical information and home maintenance schedules (like air filters, water filters, AC checkups, etc.),” says Jen Breitegan, founder of Organizenvy.
Use a squeegee after you shower.
Want to keep your bathroom cleaner without spending hours scrubbing? Then it’s time to break out the squeegee.
“Keeping it stored on a hook inside the shower,” suggests James Scott, co-founder of Dappir, a residential cleaning company. Scott explains that this is so helpful because “the mineral content of the shower water settles on the tiles, walls, and glass over time,” leaving hard-to-clean spots if you don’t wipe them away while they’re still wet.
Run your shower curtain through the washing machine.
Instead of trying to remove the soap scum from your shower curtain while it’s hanging, run it on a gentle wash cycle in your washing machine. To boost the soap scum-removal power, toss a little ammonia in there, and allow it to hang dry.
Put things away immediately instead of putting them down.
Instead of coming home and immediately setting your phone, wallet, and keys on the kitchen table, “put things away where they go,” says Tracy McCubbin, founder of dClutterfly, a home organizing company based in Los Angeles, California. “If people can make that part of their daily routine, that’s a huge game-changer.”
Give yourself the 20-minute test.
If you can’t neaten up a room in 20 minutes or less, you’ve likely got too much stuff in it, says McCubbin. Set a stopwatch, time your clean-up, and if you’ve still got clutter once the clock runs out, it’s time to start giving things away or tossing them.
Open your mail over a shredder.
“You probably only have one or two pieces of mail that are actionable” in every batch, says McCubbin. To quickly separate the things that need your attention from those that don’t, open your mail every single day—and do so over a shredder, immediately disintegrating anything that’s not pertinent.
Abide by the six-month rule.
If you haven’t worn something in six months, it’s time to donate it—no ifs, ands, or buts. “If you didn’t use it last winter, you’re not going to wear it this winter, either,” says McCubbin. (If you want to give yourself a bit of leeway, though, feel free to extend that timeline to a year. But no more than that!)
Do an an nual coat drive every fall.
Before your local coat drives get inundated with donations, McCubbin suggests having your family go through their coats in the early fall, setting aside anything that’s too small. Not only will you be doing a good deed, but you’ll also finally have more space in your entryway or closet!
Teach your kids a “like goes with like” organizing mentality.
Even very young kids can learn how to organize if you make it clear where everything goes in their bedroom or playroom. “Organizing bins and baskets of all their My Little Pony or all their trucks is a great way to get them started,” says McCubbin. Better yet, this can help stop some of those epic meltdowns when things might otherwise go missing. “If they put something away [themselves], they know exactly where they left it.”
Leave the door of your washing machine open to combat mold.
Finding your clothes a bit musty after a wash? Ron Shimek, president of home and commercial appliance repair company Mr. Appliance, recommends leaving the door to your washing machine open for a few hours after your last load has finished.
If this isn’t enough to combat the smell, or if you have actual mold in the machine or on its seals, mix white vinegar and baking soda to help freshen things up.