You’ve probably been to other people’s homes, friends, children’s friends, family, and wondered how on earth they keep the place so clean all the time. Cleaning up for a party is one thing, but keeping your house clean all the time–especially if you have children–can seem next to impossible, a job for a superwoman or a housekeeper you can’t afford to hire.
What those homeowners have unlocked, though, probably isn’t a secret maid. It’s more likely that they’ve discovered the secret of the speed clean. Read on to see how you can keep your house clean just by dedicating ten minutes a day to picking up.
If you like this post, take a look at my other posts on keeping your home clean!
The concept of the speed clean is actually pretty simple. The first thing you need is a timer. You can use your phone, your oven timer, an egg timer, but make sure you can hear it clearly from anywhere you are in your home. I personally also like to put some music on: I find I get work done much faster if I have a lively tune playing in the background. (Singing and/or dancing is entirely optional, but it does make the affair more fun, as long as you don’t get too distracted!)
Once you’ve chosen the perfect playlist for your speed clean, set your timer for ten minutes. Once it starts, your task is very simple: Turn off your brain, start with the first thing you see, and just start picking up and putting away.
There doesn’t need to be any order or organization to this. It’s almost like a game: See an item in one room, know it goes in another room, go put it there. Once you’re in that room, pick up the next thing you see that’s out of place, and put it away too. You do this until the timer dings, and then look around and marvel at how much of a difference a ten minute speed clean actually makes!
For those who want a little more organization, or maybe want to work on one room at a time, there is another method. The only extra thing you need is a basket or laundry hamper. Start in the room of your choice, pick up all the things that are out of place, and put them in the hamper. Once that room is completely clutter-free, take the hamper through the rest of the house and redistribute the items where they belong.
This speed clean method may run you a little bit over the timer, but once you’re doing it, you’ll probably find it’s pretty easy to just continue until the task is complete. (If not, you can always just leave the hamper, take a short break to do something else, then take another ten minutes a little later on to finish up.
If you find, once you finish this little task, that you’re energized to do more speed cleaning, (as I usually do) you can always set your timer for another ten minutes and keep going, or wait until your playlist ends to finish. If you went with the second method and find the feeling too satisfying to quit, just repeat the process in the last room you ended up in!
If you want a video that talks more about this (and lets you watch the satisfying process at 10x speed,) check out this video by popular vlogger Emily Norris.
(If you go through your rooms and find a lot of your clutter simply doesn’t have a proper home, try some of the suggestions I made in this post to add a little more secret storage space.)
