Do you not have enough time to clean your home? Don’t worry, this post will show some ways to “clean” while you’re busy doing something else, and “accidentally” end up with a cleaner home than you started with. Check them out now!
Disinfect the kitchen sink
I periodically disinfect my kitchen sink, one of the dirtiest spots in most homes, by filling the sink with water and adding some bleach. Let it soak while you’re doing other things. Then drain and let air dry.
….and disinfect other random objects, too
While you’ve got that sink full of bleach water going, you can toss other items in for a quick de-germing bath. Grab things like plastic cutting boards, water-safe toys (including bath toys), your toothbrush cup, plastic hair brushes and combs, travel mugs, the water basin from your coffee maker, or whatever else will fit.
Set up a baking soda paste for your oven
When tackling particularly grubby surfaces, it’s often best to let your cleaning solution soak into the dirt before you scrub manually. You can put this into practice by letting a baking soda paste soak into your oven’s baked-on mess, then coming back hours later to scrub—or even just wipe—it away.
Run a load in the dishwasher
If you’re lucky enough to have a dishwasher, put all your dishwasher safe items in the dishwasher and run it. You can even include a few surprising extras like the microwave turntable and your dish drying rack. It seems obvious, but even the sound of it running in the background will make you feel accomplished.
Soak your oven grates with dryer sheets
Draw a bath for your metal or enamel oven grates (or do it in the sink if they’re small enough, or your sink is big enough). Place your grates in the tub and fill it with enough warm water to cover over them (if you have exceptionally dirty items, lay a shower curtain liner down first). Then throw a few fresh dryer sheets in the water with them. When you come back a few hours later—or even the next day—use the sheets to gently scrub down the grates and they should look as good as new.
Attack soap scum all around the bathroom
Your bathroom is another spot where you can turn time into cleaning leverage. Set up some solutions all around the room to penetrate your scummiest bathroom spots: Try letting a bleach-and-baking-soda solution penetrate mildewed grout in your showers, allowing a soap scum cleaner to sit on your shower doors and fixtures, and letting faucets soak in a vinegar bag to loosen gunk.
Wash and dry loads of laundry
This requires a few minutes of prep work to gather and sort your laundry, but once you have all your dirty loads in a queue, washing and drying them can be done in incremental, short breaks while you’re doing something else. If you do your laundry away from home, maybe you can take your home activities, like hobbies or bill-paying, to the laundromat.
Run self-cleaning cycles
Some of your appliances may have self-cleaning cycles. Your oven may have one that runs on a super high temperature to help burn off stuck food. The washing machine and dishwasher may also have self-cleaning cycles.
