memes

My best life hack to reduce cleaning time is "no shoes in the house". This is the easiest thing to do and yet, it seems impossible to tell that to my friends and family when they visit.

Also, do less laundry: your clothes don't need to be washed each time you wear it.

Get one of those car window cleaners, The kind they use at the gas station with the wiper blade on one side and the scrubby sponge on the back. Use it in your shower every time after you shower. Scrubby side first wiper side second. It literally takes 30 seconds to scrub down everything and while it's never completely clean it never gets groady.

Treat your grout with bleach. Spray the wall wipe the bleach off the tile itself The grout will absorb it a little bit and it'll keep mold from forming.

If you have a glass shower door you can treat it with rainx the same way you would do your windshield. It's not get any appreciable muck on it for weeks. It is unfortunately a fair amount of work to apply the Windex properly.

Get stainless steel cleaner to clean stainless steel. It really makes a difference.

The oxalic acid in Bar Keeper's Friend will remove tarnish from copper with zero effort. It can also remove burned on food to an extent.

If your range hood is covered in grease and dust, pour olive oil all over a paper towel and use that to wipe off you hood first. Then use a soapy rag to clean off the oil.

Slightly damp magic erasers will remove almost anything from painted drywall. You can do the same spot about four or five times usually before it needs to be repainted.

Don't use a steam mop on luxury vinyl plank. Only use a spray mop and neutral pH cleaners specifically designed for flooring. Definitely not fabuloso.

Remove the baskets from your dishwasher once in a while and scrub the insides down with the magic eraser.

Clean your dishwasher filter every time you run it, or be prepared to replace the pump every other year.

Take your shower heads off and soak them in CLR if they start spraying water in strange directions.

When I cook I follow the restaurant kitchen principle of cleaning as you go, meaning constantly clear your workspace and clean your essential tools so they're immediately ready. When you get an inspiration to cook, nothing deflates it like finding you have 20 minutes of work to do first, or that the special utensil or machine you only have one of needs soaking to get the crusty dried crud off it.

The absolute best life hack I have is the 5 minute rule.

If I see something that needs doing I ask one question, “can I do this in less than 5 minutes?” If the answer is yes, I do it.

Over time I’ve realized how many things I used to put off and let pile up because I didn’t have the time and how many of those things take less than 5 minutes, less than 2 minutes.

It’s amazing how many things you can do in basically no time. I used to put off so much, I won’t empty the dishwasher because it “takes too long” takes about 2 minutes. I won’t load the dishwasher because it “takes too long” takes about 2 minutes. The counter is messy but it would take forever to clean it, nope, 3 minutes.

I think it’s a good hack though because it works in 3 different dimensions

• First, and most obvious, you do whatever thing you’ve identified will take less than 5 minutes.
• Second, and less obvious, once you start doing this you find the number of times you need to stop and clean all afternoon going down greatly. It just changes the relationship you have with cleaning (or at least I had with cleaning). Cleaning time used to be this block I would set aside and dread, but now even when I need to stop and do the things that take more than 5 minutes there aren’t 100 5 minus tasks also piled up in the way.
• Third, and maybe least obvious, it helps you really gauge how much work stuff is. I don’t know why I thought unloading the dishwasher was some big ordeal, it takes 2 minutes tops. The longer I use the 5 minute rule the more things I’ve thought to try to see if I can do in 5 minutes. And it’s not like I’m speed running these chores. A lot of the things I put off and let pile up just aren’t that much work if you do them when they need doing.

So that’s my cleaning life hack. It has completely changed the way I think about cleaning. It’s not something I stop and do and dread Saturday because I’ve got to do a big clean of the kitchen. My kitchen is always pretty clean now and on Sunday I spend 30-60 minutes mopping and spraying everything down for a nice squeaky clean.

Living in a nice clean place also rules.

There are mopping robots, I have a Braava by irobot

Be warned: that specific model (M6) cannot clean the inside of corners! I'm sure there are newer (and nicer ones) that can do that, since irobot has been super behind the curve for a long time

On the other hand there are now combo vacuum/mop robots but idk if those mop corners very well since I don't have one

Does wiping down the shower every time I use it help

That help tremendously. You should take the habit of clearing and wipe every place you use as you finish using them. You build the habit one place at the time and you never have to scrub more than one time a year max. The key is to clean as it is not dirty, this way it is super easy (just a wipe) and it never have the chance to be dirty.

For me it's just cleaning something somewhat every day that makes the "bigger" cleaning sessions so much easier. Not sure if that's what you mean but bouts of depression made me ignore things for longer times and it took so much more energy to get it back into shape afterwards.

Like, I'd vacuum the living room while waiting for the water for coffee to boil. As for the shower, once weekly is fine to not have to scrub, but I also don't have hard water.

A big drying rack for things that don't go in the dishwasher. Drying with a towel sucks and is unhygienic.

Robot vacuumes!

Buy a cheapish roborock, even used. The S5 is great

fuck dishwashers, I have a triple drying rack.

if you ever get a robot vacuum, don't skimp and try finding a quality one.

i tried a cheap one and its useless.