If your home is a mess but you don’t really know where to start, it’s time to set up a daily cleaning schedule – but don’t feel the need to do everything at once. It’s well known that working in short bursts can help maintain motivation when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and brushing in 15-minute bursts will do the trick. It can even help you build a cleaning habit in the long run.
In many areas around your home, 15 minutes a day is enough to keep them clean. So start your new routine today and thank yourself for it in a few weeks.
Before I give you a checklist of these easy-to-clean spots, I want to explain why this approach works and how you can use it effectively.
How and why the 15 minute cleansing method works
First, you need to commit to spending 15 minutes cleaning every day. It can be in the morning or evening, but ideally it should always happen at the same time. (More on why this is important Here.)
Choose a new spot to clean every day. I’ll share a few ideas below, but overall you’ll want to tackle a small portion of a larger space to avoid becoming overwhelmed. It can make sense to divide the rooms into groups – so you take care of the bathroom spots for a few days and then move to the kitchen for a few days. You can also direct your energy where it is needed most on a given day.
No matter what area you choose, it’s important to use your 15 minutes in a decisive and actionable way. Select a Cleaning or decluttering method Figure out which one is right for your situation and apply it to each of the regions you focus on. Regardless of which method you choose, you’re essentially clearing the space, making decisions about what stays and what goes, and then reorganizing what you keep.
Use that Principles of time boxing and limit yourself to just 15 minutes a day. When you time box, you dedicate a set amount of time to a specific task and work on it without distractions. However, they stop when the allotted time is up. If necessary, you can resume the task in the next time box. Even if you’re in the middle of cleaning up properly, try to stay within the 15-minute mark each time to avoid burnout and stay on task the entire time. This will help you build a good habit.
A checklist of 15 areas you can clean in 15 minutes
Depending on how you work best, it can be helpful to plan cleaning well in advance – a week or even a month of planning can help keep you on track. I would say that a little pre-planning is helpful if you lack motivation because then you go into that time period already knowing what you need to do. When you get decision paralysis, planning is the solution. Don’t waste your limited time arguing about what to clean.
And if you don’t know what to clean, here are some ideas for areas that should take 15 minutes or less to clean up (or at least can be mostly done in that time, with the occasional need to revisit next time). ). Day). However, don’t limit yourself to my list. Go through your home, pick out small areas, and incorporate whatever makes sense for your situation.
Aside from that, here is a checklist of 15 areas that can be cleaned in 15 minutes:
I’ve already written handy instructions for cleaning and organizing all of these places, so you might as well start there and move on. You’ll also notice that these are all really specific areas. For example, your goal with the 15-minute cleaning isn’t to clean the entire bathroom at once. Rather, it’s about breaking bathroom cleaning into a series of smaller tasks, from the toilet to the medicine cabinet and everything in between, so you don’t burn out and end up having to forego cleaning altogether. It may take a few days to see noticeable results, but that’s better than trying to do everything at once and overextending yourself and doing it poorly (or giving up and not getting it done at all).
Breaking cleaning down into smaller tasks will also help you develop a regular cleaning habit, so that over time you just do it instinctively. The little bit of work each day adds up and you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of each 15-minute battle that will fuel you for the next day’s effort. After a few weeks, you’ll have a noticeably cleaner space without having to devote an entire precious weekend day to tidying up.
