After working from home for so long, it’s a really nice change to go into the office! But that also means that by the time I arrive home from work, I’m beat. And while cleaning is important to me, I also tend to pile my stuff up on the nearest empty surface. Luckily Mr. Science and I are really good at working together to make the home a nice, friendly, healthy, happy environment to live in – below are some of the things that work really well when you want a clean home but don’t want to have to really work at it!

1) Set aside one day each week (Sundays are a good one) to do a deep clean. This might mean that one day you dust the house, the next week you scrub the bathtub, and the third week you mop the floors, etc. You don’t necessarily need to do all those things in one day, but if you tackle one room each week, the rotation of cleaning won’t make it seem like such an enormous task.

2) If you only have 10 minutes to clean, do the following three things: make your bed, wash the dishes, and tidy up the “hub” of the house. For most people, that means the living room or the kitchen; all you need to do is straighten the cushions on the couch, sweep the receipts and unopened bills off your dining room table, and add a nice centrepiece to the coffee table.

3) Light a scented candle. It will make the house smell beautiful and it will relax you, too.

Photo from sxc.hu

4) Wipe down the kitchen counters and table every evening when you’re doing the after-supper clean-up. Seeing crumbs and jam caked onto the counter first thing in the morning isn’t a great start to the day.

5) Focus on one thing at a time. If your house looks like a disaster, it’s enough to make you throw up your hands and decide that it’s too much of a bother to even begin! Instead, focus on one thing, like doing the laundry or cleaning out the fridge, and once you’ve completed that little task you’ll feel much better and more confident in your ability to move onto the next task.

6) Keep a grocery list in full view of everyone in the house. Stuck to the fridge is a great place to have it, but if you have a stainless steel fridge (like me) and magnets don’t work, you can stick your grocery list on the nail that your family calendar hangs on. We use that calendar to list our meals for the week, so it’s an extra good thing to have the grocery list there.

7) Have three or four spots in your house where you keep your writing utensils. If you’re constantly putting pens in drawers or stuffing them into bags, it’s going to drive you crazy trying to find something to write with! It’s better to have several places in the house where you know you’ll find some good writing utensils.

8 ) If you enjoy buttery popcorn, eat it out of a metal bowl. It’s a million times easier to clean!

9) Do an evaluation of your house on the weekend. Are you low on food? Is your laundry piling up? Is the recycling bin overflowing? It’s easier to deal with these things when you aren’t in the office, rather than starting Monday morning off by realizing there’s nothing for breakfast and your best shirt is still in the laundry basket.

10) Communicate with the people you live with. Is everyone pulling their weight? Are there some chores that you or they absolutely hate that the other can do? Will one of you need extra help tomorrow because your day is packed full of meetings? Talk to each other to make sure that everyone is clear on what their household roles are, and that way the chores will be taken care of and you’ll undergo a lot less stress.

Share your simple household tips in the comments section below!