It’s the busiest time of the year and very often, the most stressful! With so much cleaning to do in preparation for the holiday season, a lot can slip your mind and leave you feeling more overwhelmed than ever. Particularly in 2020 when everyone is preparing for the festive season a little differently due to COVID-19, it definitely helps to know what you need to do at home, and when you should be doing it.

So, if you’re wondering how to clean your home for the holidays in 2020, here are five key tips to keep in mind.

1. Make a Priority List

Note down your Christmas cleaning list and prioritise tasks according to their importance. For example, if you know you’d like to clean your ceilings and walls before you decorate, make that one of your top priorities so you can get it done earlier than later. In fact, most big or time-consuming cleaning tasks should be prioritised to ensure that they are not overlooked or pushed aside. 

2. Start Early

While some people wait till the last minute to begin their Christmas cleaning, others are forced to because of busy work/personal schedules. With that said, there is always a way around this if you just plan and start early! Give yourself at least three weeks to clean and prepare your house properly before Christmas. This means sparing some time in your day (every day) to tackle cleaning tasks, big and small. Don’t worry if you can’t finish a single, big task in one day; you can always complete it the next day. The goal is to not stress yourself out more than you already are.

3. Declutter a Little Every Day

Every house falls prey to clutter at some point! Worst of all, the accumulation of clutter happens so gradually that you don’t realise it until the room is one big mess! As part of your Christmas cleaning (and otherwise), decluttering your home is a must. The good news, however, is that it’s not as hard as many people think. Most of the clutter in your house is actually just things left out of place while other forms of clutter may consist of rubbish that needs to be trashed and/or items which are no longer of use and therefore, can be donated. Tackle various forms of clutter every day and before you know it, you’ll have a clutter-free home for Christmas!

4. Deep Clean Your Refrigerator

A messy, disorganised fridge is not at all ideal around the holidays when more dishes are being cooked, and leftovers need to be stored. Of course, deep cleaning your refrigerator should be done every other month for sanitary reasons but if you haven’t done it in a while, now is not the time to neglect cleaning your fridge! It will also give you a chance to organise the contents so you won’t have to struggle for space every night after dinner.

5. Keep Your Bathrooms Clean

Cleaning the bathrooms is a must but maintaining it is what will save you a lot of time and effort while ensuring that your home is always ready for surprise visitors or guests. So, how do you keep your bathroom clean? Here are a few tips that will help you achieve that:

1. After you shower, wash the floor with plain water and make sure you squeegee the water properly so that the floor dries up faster. This will help prevent floor stains.
2. Wipe down the sink daily using a sponge/scrubber and all-purpose cleaner. This will take less than a minute of your time.
3. Pour some toilet cleaner around the interiors of the bowl and leave it overnight; scrub with a damp toilet brush the next morning and pull the flush. It’s the quickest and easiest way to keep your toilet bowl clean!
4. Use a mop to spot clean stains on your bathroom floor, and a scrub brush for spot cleaning other bathroom components.

Remember, Christmas cleaning doesn’t have to be this huge, overwhelming burden on your shoulders anymore. All you need to do is stay on top of things with the tips above and you and your home will be well prepared for the holidays in 2020!

Lack of time is perhaps the most common reason for neglecting house cleaning and chores. Unfortunately, many homeowners also use this as an ‘excuse’ to avoid doing some basic cleaning tasks that help to keep the place relatively clean. The good news is that this can be a thing of the past with our awesome tips to clean your house fast and efficiently!

All it takes is sparing a small amount of time each day that you can devote to cleaning and, in no time, you will get the hang of keeping your house neat and clean! Read on for all the information you need to clean your house quickly.

1. Tidy Up with a Tote Bag

If you’re wondering what a tote bag has to do with tidying up, it’s the thing that will hold all the items that don’t belong in the room you are tidying up. To explain this in more detail, check out our two-step approach to tidy up a room quickly:

1. Go around the room and round-up items that need to be put away in another room. These items can go in the bag and be carried out all at once as opposed to wasting time by going in and out of a room multiple times. 
2. Now, the rest of the room can be tidied up without miscellaneous stuff getting in the way and slowing you down. 

2. Clean Floors with a Broom

It may seem like a vacuum cleaner is the quicker option because it sucks up all the dirt from the floor but it’s actually more time-consuming to have to plug it in and lug it around everywhere. A broom, on the other hand, is easier to manoeuvre, push into narrow spaces, and lighter on the arms too! What’s more, there are plenty of new, innovative brooms on the market that are more effective than traditional types of brooms. These modern-day brooms certainly speed up sweeping floors, and provide satisfactory cleaning results.

3. Make a Floor Cleaning Solution in a Bottle

The old-fashioned way to mop a floor would be to carry around a bucket of floor cleaner and, of course, your mop! Again, this is a time-consuming and inconvenient task which, fortunately, can be solved with the help of a bottle (preferably a squeezee or flexible one). All you need to do is make a floor cleaning solution and pour it into the bottle; then dampen the mop with water, sprinkle the cleaner over the floor, and mop! It’s easier and quicker while the cleaning solution can be stored in the bottle for weeks!

NOTE: This approach is advised for daily or regular mopping of your floor, as well as spot cleaning. For heavily soiled floors, the use of a bucket is better suited for the job.

4. Dust with Microfibre Dust Gloves

Do away with rags and dust cloths because they are not nearly as effective as microfibre dust gloves. Even better, dust gloves are extremely convenient to use and very much quicker when it comes to picking up dust. 

Here’s a quick look at why microfibre dust gloves are advised over other types of dusting tools:

1. Dust clings to the material allowing users to clean a surface with one, quick swipe
2. Knickknacks/objects are easier and faster to clean when held and wiped with the gloves
3. Since they are sold as a pair, you can use both hands to dust 

5. Allow Cleaners to Act Before Cleaning the Bathroom

More often than not, we spend more time scrubbing surfaces to remove stains because the cleaner hasn’t had enough time to break down dirt and grime. This is especially true when it comes to cleaning a bathroom and certain components in the room. For example, the toilet bowl is a lot easier and quicker to scrub down and clean when you’ve poured in the cleaning solution and allowed it a good 30 minutes to sit. Therefore, our advice is to wet the bathroom and apply the respective cleaners to the toilet bowl, tub, sink, and shower area before you go in to scrub each component.

WARNING: Be extra cautious of slipping on a soapy floor or area in your bathroom when using this approach.

Now that you know how to clean your house fast, don’t let any reasons or excuses get in the way of maintaining a neat and clean home every day!