Properly cleaning a home (at least anything bigger than a studio apartment) can take several hours to do thoroughly. However, every now and then, you might need to speed clean your home in an hour or so.
But how do you do this? Well, the short answer is that you need to be very efficient with your time and processes for cleaners Islington. It is possible, though, and here’s how.
How to Speed Clean Your House in Under an Hour
1. Streamline Your Products
First and foremost, streamline the amount of cleaning products you use. You can clean most of your house with white vinegar and an all-purpose cleaning spray. In theory, you don’t even need a dusting spray – just use a cloth.
Keeping your products to a minimum means you don’t have to carry loads around and don’t have to sort through things looking for the niche cleaner you need for that specific job.
2. Focus on What is Most Noticeable
If you’re in speed cleaning mode, the main goal is to focus on jobs that create the most impact. For example, you might want to dust, but will it be more noticeable than debris all over the carpet? Probably not.
So, figure out what areas are most noticeable and clean these. It could be as simple as hoovering, tidying up cushions, and decluttering surfaces. Doing this will make your home look tidier than it is.
3. Divide the Time by the Number of Rooms in Your Home
If you’re determined to clean your whole home in an hour, divide the 60 minutes by the number of rooms you have. This is the average amount of time you can spend cleaning each room.
Of course, you might be able to adjust things slightly. For example, your bedroom might be done in a minute or two if you’re just making the bed, whereas busier rooms will take a bit longer.
4. Leave Products to Sit
A lot of cleaning products, such as toilet cleaner or antibac spray, need a few minutes to sit before you clean them. So, spray these on any surfaces that need cleaning and then go do another job while they soak.
For example, spray down your bathroom and go make some beds while you wait. Similarly, spray your kitchen surfaces and declutter the living room while the products sit. Figuring out cleaning jobs like this will drastically improve your efficiency.
5. Have a Junk Box
An hour obviously isn’t enough time to fully tidy and sort everything in your home. However, if you’re going to focus on it looking tidy rather than being tidy, you’ll need a junk box where you can hide things until you have more time to work through them.
Make sure you have a large box or plastic tub to hand and just throw random stuff in it for now. Use a box that’s small enough to be hidden somewhere (such as a coat cupboard) so that things will look a bit tidier. Just don’t forget to sort it out when you can!
6. Work Top to Bottom
When cleaning, it’s always sensible to work top to bottom, both within a room and within the house itself. Your end point will usually be your kitchen, so start in the room that’s farthest away on the first floor and work down.
Similarly, where possible, do the same job in multiple rooms. For example, run a duster around in all the bedrooms and then hoover them all before moving downstairs.
7. Accept that You’ll Cut Corners
Speed cleaning typically means it won’t be as thorough as usual. So, work with this mentality and you should be happy with the results. The aim is to make things look cleaner than they might actually be.
Another approach (assuming you have guests coming round) is to just clean the areas they’ll visit. This’ll usually be the kitchen, living room, dining room, etc. Spend the hour speed cleaning these rooms and ignore the upstairs. You’ll then have guest-ready rooms that’ll be cleaner than if you tried to do the entire house in an hour.
Final Thoughts
Cleaning your home in under an hour will take a bit of practice, but it’s possible to get a good routine down. Remember, you’re focusing on speed over quality, so deal with the obvious and dirtiest bits and your home should look pretty clean. An hour might not seem like a lot of time, but you’d be amazed how much cleaning you can get done!
