Some people make keeping a tidy home seem so simple, while others constantly seem to find themselves faced with a mountain of housework, dishes, laundry (i.e. small chores that have snowballed into mammoth tasks). If you’re firmly in the latter camp, there’s still time to develop new habits that will make keeping a tidy home a whole lot easier.
That’s because keeping a home tidy isn’t about working harder; it’s about working smarter by doing small household tasks daily.
Here are 10 daily cleaning tasks that will help you say goodbye to the concept of spring cleaning for good – because your home will be tidy all year round!
1. Make your bed every day
Set aside just three minutes every morning to make your bed. Regardless of the style or storage situation elsewhere in your bedroom, a freshly made bed makes you feel in control and on top of your day. Everything will follow from here.
2. Always load your dishwasher at the end of the day
Clearing away the dishes after a meal is one thing but loading your dishwasher and handwashing your pots and pans, knives and chopping boards will ensure you wake up to a spotless kitchen each morning.
Make a habit of loading up your dishwasher and setting it to run before wiping down the sink and benches. Then, make your home smell amazing by spritzing a little air freshener or homemade linen spray.
Begin the next day by unloading it for an empty dishwasher ready to handle the meals to come.
3. Keep unavoidable clutter contained
Shoes, hats, dog leads, and umbrellas collect in your entrance hall—and not all are attractive. With daily use, they tend to look untidy if not given adequate storage.
Choose a set of drawers or freestanding baskets to organise your hallway and style it up with decorative hooks and holders to create a stylish welcome to your home.
4. Tidy bathroom vanity after use
Always put away your makeup and grooming products after use and wipe down your bathroom or ensuite vanity each morning. Keeping a stack of reusable microfibre cloths in the bathroom cabinet is handy for this task.
Organising the cupboard beneath the vanity will ensure there’s a place for everything so you can easily pack away daily items to keep clutter at bay.
Wipe out the basin and replace the hand towel daily.
5. Put things away after you’ve used them
Repeat after me: don’t put it down, put it away. There’s a reason this mantra has gone viral on TikTok – because it works! A few examples:
- Once dinner is over, put the olive oil, salt, pepper and other ingredients away
- Once you’ve finished scrubbing the house, put the caddy of cleaning products back into the laundry
- If you return home after a heavy gym session, don’t just kick your shoes off and leave them at the door – put them away!
- Adopting this simple habit will see the clutter in your home drastically reduced.
6. Invest in a lightweight vacuum cleaner
Easy to carry around your house and kept within easy reach, a portable vacuum cleaner is the answer to your incidental cleaning woes.
Rather than lugging the whole unit everywhere, you’re more likely to grab a stick or hand-held dust buster for quick clean-ups and to whip around high-traffic areas in no time.
Check out our roundup of the best cordless stick vacuum cleaners if you need help deciding on the right model for your home.
7. Start a system to organise paperwork
A simple filing system for keeping and storing paperwork and receipts will not only save you time looking for papers, but it will also keep surfaces in your home clear of papers building up in piles.
A cheap file organiser or set of chic drawers works well for keeping receipts, school notes, invitations and invoices ordered and handy.
8. Keep a cleaning cloth in each room
Having a small sponge or cleaning cloth in each room will make incidental clean-ups easier and more likely to happen. Tuck a sponge behind your vanity or in the corner cupboard, keep one in your bathroom and laundry for daily wipe-downs and hide dusting cloths at the back of bookshelves or cupboards in your home office or rooms removed from the kitchen or laundry where you store cleaning equipment.
Hot tip: Paper towels are great for cleaning up spills quickly and efficiently. Keeping a roll on the kitchen benchtop – or in every room, as suggested above – will ensure you don’t feel like you’re always cleaning as you’re able to ‘clean as you go’. Our favourite paper towels at the moment are the Viva regular multi-purpose Cleaning Towels. They’re versatile, absorbent and durable, making them ideal for a wide range of cleaning jobs.
Shop Viva at various retailers such as Woolworths or Amazon.
9. Empty your bin often
Rather than letting kitchen and household rubbish bins pile up into a groaning, bag-splitting mess, empty your kitchen tidy and recycling bin often. This is a great job for children learning to contribute to housekeeping if you make it fun.
Wiping down the inside of your bin with a paper towel each time you this will keep things clean and hygienic. Place small bins into each room in your home – bedrooms, bathrooms and home office to ensure litter doesn’t collect.
10. Add indoor plants to your home
Not only a beautiful addition visually, indoor plants purify your air and keep you healthy, offsetting chemicals thrown off by plastics and finishes found in your home. You can find a variety of indoor plants that’ll suit your preference and lifestyle at an array of nurseries or (even better) online. One of our favourite places to shop for plants online is Oldboy’s Flowers. You can buy indoor or outdoor plants as well as seedlings if you’re big on gardening.
Shop Oldboy’s Flowers’ extensive range, here.
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