5 Tips for a Cleaner Home

If you are a homeowner, then you know a good chunk of your time is spent cleaning your home. 

I did a little research and found that on average, we spend anywhere from 10 - 20 hours a week cleaning and caring for our homes. This includes laundry, dishes, deep cleaning, and just general pick ups. We all fall into different categories when it comes to caring for our homes -- there are those who love cleaning (me!), while others find the process really loathsome. Today, I am giving you 5 tips to help change your mindset towards cleaning so whether you love it or you hate it, you can make cleaning your home an easy, manageable, and dare I say enjoyable experience. 

5 Tips for a Cleaner Home

1. Pick Up Daily
Sounds general, but before you start a deep clean do a walk through of your home. Take items that have migrated to other parts of the house and put them back in the room they belong in. This may take you a few minutes or it may take you a lot longer. I listed this as step one because this is something you should take time to do every day. If you spend 5 minutes in the morning or evening just putting things back, you'll be amazed at how much less cluttered you're home will feel.

2. Work Room by Room
Most people get overwhelmed with cleaning because they look at the big picture. Instead of focusing on your entire house, look at it room by room and ONLY work on one room at a time. Here is the order I work in: kitchen, bathrooms, bedroom, living room, and offices. If I only have time to clean one room, I want it to be my kitchen so that's where I always start.

3. Do What You Can
This is a good rule of thumb for life in general, but when it pertains to cleaning "do what you can." You may not have time to go through every room and deep clean it to perfection, but you may have time to get a load of laundry started and one bathroom clean. That's awesome! Do that! For cleaning, there's really no reason you have to dedicate one day every week to clean everything, unless you like doing it that way *cough cough*. Take the 10 minutes that you have to do a few things instead of doing nothing. This is a lot more manageable, and it will help you feel a little more put together.

4. Evaluate Your Belongings
Maybe one of the hardest parts for some of you, but on a regular basis I go through my belongings, evaluate them, and throw stuff out. Here are some questions to ask when you are evaluating your items. 1. Have I used this recently? 2. Does it still serve the purpose I need it to serve? 3. Do I still like it?  If you answered "No" to any of those questions, consider tossing it. This is where you have to set emotional attachments aside, and think about if this is actually adding any value to your life. Wow, we just went deep there.

5. Finish What You Start
By Far the most important tip is finish what you start. I think a lot of people have messy homes because they started cleaning or organizing, got overwhelmed, never finished and in turn are left with a larger mess than what they started with. Even if you only get to one room today, finish it! I guarantee you, the sense of accomplishment you'll feel with completing just one room will help push you to finish the others.

Sallie's Favorite Cleaners
Here are my most beloved cleaning products. You'll notice they are all one brand -- Mrs. Meyer's. Mrs. Meyer's catchphrase is "hardworking home keeping" and boy is she right! If you aren't familiar with Mrs. Meyer's products, let me tell you why I love them.

• They are free from harsh chemicals.
• They work wonderfully.
• They smell amazing.

1. Multi-Surface Concentrate - This stuff is the bees knees! Use it by itself for tough cleaning, or
    dilute it in a gallon of warm water. This is concentrated so it lasts a long time, and the honeysuckle
    scent is simply divine.

2. Multi-Surface Everyday Cleaner - I use this cleaner on everything! From countertops, to sinks,
    to toilets, it does the job and smells fresh. This spray comes in a variety of scents -- Rosemary,
    Cranberry, and Honeysuckle are my personal favorites.

3. Surface Scrub - I just started using this one and I'm already hooked. This surface scrub gets off all
   the grime and gunk from any surface! I used it to deep clean my bathtub, and to get the grime off
   my oven door. It did both jobs effortlessly.

4. Laundry Detergent - Another one I just started using. This bottle will give you 64 loads of
   laundry! This is the lavender scent, and it's just dreamy.

5. Dryer Sheets - If you use the detergent, you might as well have the dryer sheets also.

6. Dish Soap - Make dishwashing fun! I think when you have something that smells nice, and leaves
    your hands soft it makes cleaning a lot more enjoyable. This is the Geranium scent, but in the
    summertime I love Lilac!

You have what you need, no go forth and be clean! 

xoxo Sallie