While most of us don’t particularly enjoy cleaning, this is why some homes have a maid service, but everyone appreciates the sense of returning home to a spotless house. Today’s most organized households have discovered methods to incorporate small habits into their daily routines that make cleaning less bother. So, what’s the key to keeping everything tidy? Consider incorporating these daily home cleaning routines into your routine, and before you know it, you’ll be confidently inviting friends past your front door without notice.

Put away

Set items down where they don’t belong to avoid adding to your workload. Take the time to put everything back where it belongs instead of dropping your shopping bags to deal with later or kicking your shoes off and letting them land wherever. It may take a few additional seconds to put things in their appropriate places, but it will save you a lot of time in the long run. Consider it a favor for Future You.

Multitask

Are you waiting for your coffee to finish brewing? While you’re waiting, use that opportunity to do some dishes. Are you bored during a commercial break? In those few minutes, fold as much laundry as you can. Try to discover those small pockets of time throughout your day and use them to work on your to-do list in small increments.

Set time

You can limit the time you have to invest in your duties by setting a timer or only working until the end of a podcast or TV show, and you’ll know you’ll be able to stop sooner rather than later. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by a whole-house cleaning marathon, retrain yourself to work around the rest of your life and yet have a clean home.

Improve

These small efforts, whether it’s putting away a few stray items, dusting a shelf, wiping down a counter, or straightening up a tabletop, pile up quickly.

Daily reset

Cleaning an area or surface that invites clutter and filth once won’t help you keep it clean in the future. Make it a goal to “reset” that area to clean at least once a day so that the clutter doesn’t build up again. After a while, you’ll forget that spot was once a problem region because the habit will have been so established.

Not leaving laundry

How often do you do your clothes and then leave them in the basket (or the dryer, or the end of your bed, or that pile on your chair), taking out what you need and repeating the cycle until there’s nothing clean left? Spend an extra 10 minutes or so putting your clean clothes away.

Tidy your bed

You don’t want to, you don’t see the point, and you’ll probably screw it up anyway. Just give it a shot. It only takes a minute, and a made bed may help bring some order to an otherwise chaotic space.

Before you call it a night, take a quick sweep around your most-used rooms. Toys, shoes, and blankets should be put away, and backpacks and bags should be ready for the next day. In the morning, you’ll thank yourself. If you’re too busy to do all this, you could always provide cleaning services. 

Begin adding these clean-house practices into your routine gradually, and you’ll soon be on your way to having a clean home every day.