Fifteen minutes a day is all the time it takes to speed clean a standard room in a house. Sounds easy, right? Well, there’s a lot of changes you'll have to do before you make the top speed, and once you do, you’ll be a speed cleaning machine!
Daily cleaning jobs include wiping benchtops, washing dishes, emptying trash bins and sorting out the laundry. Speed cleaning is made up of emergency and weekly cleaning. Autumn/spring cleaning is done twice a year only.
Here are some speed cleaning basic rules.
10 Steps for Each Room
To speed clean each room, follow these steps in an orderly manner.
1. Prepare the cleaning kits.
2. Empty wastepaper bin and remove clutters from the room.
3. Clean light fittings and ceiling.
4. Dust the tops of wardrobes/bookshelves/cupboards and walls.
5. Clean picture hangings, paintings and other wall features.
6. Dust window sills, door jambs and light switches.
7. Clean your furniture.
8. Wipe or sweep the floors clean.
9. Arrange and refill fresh flowers, add fragrance to them.
10. Adjust your lists of cleaning needs, empty the clutter buckets and put your cleaning kit away.
Everything in Its Place
Arranging things in their own place will speed up your cleaning and make it easier for you to locate them. All items should have their own designated spot then. You’ll need a tape measure, pair of scissors, a piece of plain paper and a graph paper. The graph paper will represent your room.
- Choose a room inside your house and measure the furniture there.
- Work out to find the corresponding size of your furniture and scale it.
- Using a pair of scissors and a piece of plain paper, make flat cutouts of your furniture.
- Keep on arranging the furniture (cutouts) to your room (graph paper) until you have the best layout for your room. Another option is to draw the furniture using a pencil onto the graph paper, but it will be harder if you want to change the furniture arrangement again and again.
- Working out your floor plan: Take into account the breezeways in every room, because each room has different breezeways. To know where the breezeways are, simply light a candle and see which direction the flame goes. The flame will indicate how the air circulates by bending away. Your aim is for the air to flow as easily as possible, so don’t put a heavy furniture near a window so as not to block the airflow. Good airflow creates a healthier atmosphere, prevents moulds and makes the room cooler every summer.
- While re-arranging the room, store items where they are most commonly used. As an example, you can store your scissor either in an office drawer or a kitchen drawer--or both, if they’re mostly used in different locations.
- Colour coding: Consider this if there are several people in your house. This works by allocating a particular colour to each person, which will be attached to their belongings. And there should be a household colour for shared items. With this method, you’ll have a system for storing and sorting out things in your home.
- Note: Even if you’re too enthusiastic, don’t overwhelm yourself and attempt to overhaul the whole house in one go. Do it one room at a time!
Men and women see cleaning differently. Men, generally, clean one side of the room to another, while women are more job-specific. Men tends to be more visual in cleaning--they may need to sit on the floor or stand up on a ladder to see the dirt. Women clean even if they don’t see the dirt because they know it’s there, and they’ll wash the clothes on the dirty pile because it’s in there (not because someone needs it).
Both ways of cleaning has pros and cons, and neither is better than the other. You can try either of the two approaches.
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