Tips for Fall Cleaning

Everyone talks about Spring Cleaning as if it’s the only season to thoroughly tidy up your home, but I’m more partial to Fall Cleaning. And now that fall is officially here, I’m ready to get my house in shape for cozy days and longer nights as the sun goes down earlier and earlier.

So how can you turn this into a task that seems manageable? Hopefully you’ve been keeping up with your maintenance cleanings every week so you’re not tackling an extremely messy house. If you’re short on time, pick one or two things to take care of per week with an eye toward having your house in perfect shape by the time company arrives for the holidays.

Here are a few other tips to make your life easier as you complete your Fall Cleaning:

1. Make every move count. Be efficient! Work your way around a room once, carrying all your tools and supplies with you in a cleaning apron. Stop wasting energy by darting all around a room, and start cleaning around the room in one direction.
2. Use the right tools. This is where the apron comes in handy, making it easy to carry your supplies and tools. Stuff garbage or wet sponges into the apron’s pockets to save time.
3. Work from top to bottom. You can’t fight gravity, so work with it! Clean ceilings and high shelves of dust and bits of grime that will fall to the floor where you can vacuum them up. Start at the top and work your way down.
4. Don’t overclean things that aren’t dirty. Spot clean areas with your bottle of Red Juice to wipe away fingerprints and move on to the next surface.
5. Clean surfaces before you rinse or wipe them. Don’t rinse or wipe a surface before it’s really clean.
6. Know when to give up on a tool. Recognize if the tool you’re using isn’t working instead of using more elbow grease and tiring yourself out unnecessarily.
7. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Your moves get smoother by practicing them over and over. Put your cleaning tools back in the same spot in your apron each time you use them. When pull out your Red Juice, your hand will know exactly where it is in the apron.
8. Pay attention. Don’t zone out but focus on the task at hand. You may even find that you’re enjoying what you’re doing!
9. Use both your hands. Don’t leave any scrubbing or wiping capacity idle. Spray with one hand while you reach for the cloth in your apron with the other to wipe up behind it.
10. Track your time. Note what time you started and stopped and marvel at how much you accomplished.