Binge the show, get your house clean because sometimes you just
need a reset. I'm Ronnie and you're listening
to Clean With Me, the podcast where I walk you through
cleaning your house step by step.
Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, I am going
to provide a little bit of cleaning motivation and talk you
through some of the preliminary steps of a daily cleaning
routine. Let's get right into the
episode. It's time to gear up for our pre
cleaning session. Yes, I said pre clean.
This episode's going to be a pre clean.
You might need to listen to another app episode after this,
but oftentimes getting started is half the battle.
So the first thing I want you to do is make sure that you freshen
up and that you feel presentable for your cleaning session.
OK? And that might not make sense to
you if you're not listening to this in the morning or
afternoon. But if you haven't even gotten
ready for the day yet, I encourage you to take a couple
minutes to do whatever it takes to get you feeling presentable.
This could be changing into something you feel good in.
It could be running a brush through your hair, washing your
face. It might even be putting on a
little makeup. Whatever it is that you do that
makes you feel ready for the day, or ready for someone to
come to the door, or ready to run an errand.
Even if you're not going anywhere.
OK, it's important, even if you don't work outside the home or
it's your day off to spend a few minutes fixing yourself up.
Yesterday I was wearing a shirt that's kind of a favorite shirt.
And I was going to be cooking with oil and I didn't want to
get like, you know, the dreaded grease stain on my favorite
shirt. So I changed into a different
T-shirt that I that I didn't feel as good in.
And then I thought, you know what?
I could have just put on an apron and that way I could have
left my favorite shirt on. And while I was cooking, I was
cleaning as as I was going, you know, I was doing dishes and
things and I was thinking to myself, I used to put on an
apron to clean sometimes and I haven't done that in a while.
So I wanted to mention that to you as a possibility.
Sometimes cleaning in an apron makes sense.
When I don't want to wear anything nice is when I am like
scrubbing a shower or bathtub with a product that contains
bleach. Or maybe I'm using, you know,
bleach on the bathroom baseboards or something.
And I don't just mean like a bottle of bleach, I mean
something where bleach is the active ingredient.
For example, I'm often cleaning my bathtub with Comment or Ajax.
I would not wear a favorite shirt with an apron over it in
that situation. In fact, I usually clean the
bathtub or shower as I'm getting into it or out of it, and then
clothing's not an issue. Hopefully you are presentable
for the day. Another thing you might want to
do before we start actually straightening up your house is
open some curtains or blinds and let some natural light in.
The other day I was cleaning my living room and I instinctively
realized that the darkness of the room wasn't doing anything
for me. So I opened the blinds and of
course that led to me cleaning my blinds.
But there's just something energizing about letting some
light into the room, whether this is a day that you're going
to clean your blinds and windowsill or not.
So maybe take a minute to open some curtains and blinds
throughout your house. This is going to be a whole
house pre clean. We're going to just do some
things to kind of get you set up for cleaning and get you moving.
If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that
I like to get my machines running at the beginning of a
cleaning session. That's just one of those things
that I call a springboard task. It builds momentum.
And and you're saying, Ronnie, what do you mean getting your
machines running? I'm talking about your
dishwasher, if you have one. I'm talking about your washing
machine, OK, possibly your dryer.
Get those are the machines I'm referring to when I talk about
getting those machines running. But the idea is to get your
house working for you while you're cleaning.
That way you can make the most of your time.
And then after you've been cleaning for a while, you can do
that laundry switch and, you know, sit down and fold clothes
as your break. OK, so now that you've opened up
some blinds and you're up and moving, I want you to gather up
any dishes from around the house.
I say this all the time, but then sometimes I make the
mistake myself. Yesterday I was doing dishes,
got done with them and realized there was a plate and a fork on
the dining room table that someone didn't clear.
So it's always best to gather things up before you begin.
And if you don't have a dishwasher, that's OK.
Of course, you're still going to gather up dishes from around the
house and get them pre rinsed and get them submerged.
OK, that's a stand in for getting that first machine
running. You might be the machine, I get
it. But you're going to do a, you
know, a pre rinse and soak. Or if you have a dishwasher,
you're going to do an empty reload and run of the
dishwasher. Bonus points if you don't need
to empty a drying rack or dishwasher before you begin, but
at the same time, no judgment if you do.
I like to separate the act of putting away the clean dishes
from washing dishes and loading the dishwasher.
OK. And the way that I do that is
when I first get up in the morning to make my coffee, I try
to remember to empty the drying rack and empty the dishwasher
because that sets the stage for an easy dishwashing session
after breakfast or after lunch. But there are still times where
I do the empty, reload and run. I walk into the kitchen and I
have clean dishes to put away first.
So once you've gathered up dirty dishes from around the house,
I'm talking your bedroom night stands, the edge of your
bathtub. If you have like a a fancy
bathtub, there's probably space to put a drink and you leave the
cup there. Get that to the sink.
Check your coffee table, your end table, a teenager's room,
your kitchen table, your dining room table.
If you also have a second table, get all those dishes over to the
sink area and start putting away any clean dishes, whether that
means emptying your dishwasher, your drying rack, or both.
OK, because some of us use a dishwasher, but we still hand
wash the larger pots and pans or just at certain times of the day
we hand wash. I mean, if your dishwasher is
already running, it doesn't mean you necessarily need to let your
dishes pile up or sit them in the sink.
You can just hand wash those items to stay at dish 0.
So that's just a thought there. My husband prefers hand washing
over doing an empty reload and run of the dishwasher.
I tend to empty and reload the dishwasher and then hand wash
the remaining items that didn't fit in the dishwasher.
And I tend to keep the pots and pans out to hand wash them
because I don't want to waste a lot of valuable real estate in
my dishwasher. I'd rather put a bunch of small
stuff in the dishwasher and then wash a couple large items.
OK, however you do it, it's time to put away your clean dishes
and then pre rinse the new load. OK.
And by pre rinsing the new load, I mean, everybody does things
differently, but for me it means I take a scrub brush and rinse
that stuff under running water. For example, I'll have a plate
in my left hand and I've got a a brush on a handle that I'm, you
know, scraping the plate off with my right hand with that
brush. If you have a real fancy
dishwasher, you might be able to put things in without doing much
of A pre clean. OK.
But for a lot of us, we've got to scrub that debris off before
we put the items into the dishwasher.
OK, but if you're hand washing, you probably still do a pre
clean because obviously if you just put dirty dishes into water
and submerge them, then the water is going to be dirty.
So you want to scrub them first and get them submerged.
OK, this is not a real long episode.
If you're facing a dish shaster and you just want to get caught
up on dishes, no judgement here. Just keep doing dishes for the
remainder of the episode or even switch to a different episode
that's more of a focus on dishes.
But I'm only going to give you a couple more minutes to either
get your dishwasher loaded and maybe leave any remaining items
to soak or if you're strictly hand washing, to pre rinse that
first sink load and get it submerged.
And then a little cheat method that I sometimes do when I have
a lot of hand washing to do, I'll get everything into the
dishwasher. I won't start it yet because I
don't want to compromise my water pressure.
If you know you know. Then I will get the rest of the
items pre rinsed and submerged and the hottest possible water
that comes out of my sink, you know, along with some liquid
dish detergent. But I'll also drop a dishwasher
pod into the dishwater. That way I can go clean
something else and when I come back I'm not going to have to
scrub much at all because that pod did the work on the stuff
that's in the sink. So, you know, might be harder on
your hands. That's the disclaimer there, but
it's also a nice cheat on those rougher days.
And you can always put lotion on your hands right after, you know
they come in contact with some harsh detergent.
Hopefully you're getting those dishes set up.
I realize I'm not giving you enough time to just wash a ton
of dishes, but this episode is about the pre clean.
It's about getting started. And a big part of that is
getting your dishes, your clean dishes put away and starting the
first sink load or starting the dishwasher.
That's what we are doing right now.
Another thing you might need if you're if you're kind of
dragging is a caffeinated drink. It might be time to just take a
deep breath, stop what you're doing, and fix yourself the
caffeinated drink of your choice.
When I first moved into this house, it was a new house, so I
wanted to turn it over a new leaf and keep the new house
clean. Like better than I kept my
previous house. You know how that is when you
get something new, whether it's a car, a house, you have a
higher standard, you just do. And I was a little bit down, I
guess, because I had moved away from my family and I did not yet
know anyone in this town. So I felt a little bit not
depressed and nothing that extreme, but I felt a little
down. I felt a little bored.
And you know, nobody was going to come over.
But yet I still wanted my husband to see that I had turned
over a new leaf with the new house.
And it it was before I even started this podcast.
So what I was doing is driving through Sonic.
Well, it's a drive in, but pulling into Sonic and ordering
a large iced coffee with chocolate.
OK, you're probably going. That's a mocha.
Yeah, but that's how you ordered on the Sonic menu.
It's a nice coffee with chocolate.
So I later found out that that had a lot of calories.
OK, but I digress. It was helping me get motivated
in the mornings. Obviously, I could have made a
different choice. I could have gotten an unsweet
tea or something and it wasn't. And you're thinking, well, you
could have made a cup of coffee at home.
Yeah, lately I'm in frugal mode and I do usually make my coffee
at home. However, there was something
about getting fixed up for the day and leaving the house that
really got me going because I wasn't going to just leave my
house without doing my minimums as far as my grooming.
OK. And also there's that energy
burst when you go outside and you take in some sunshine.
One way to duplicate that, if it's a hassle for you to leave
your house, like maybe you're left without a vehicle during
the day or maybe you don't want to have to put your kid in the
car seat. You know, we're all in different
situations and different seasons of life.
Sometimes just taking out your trash can get you walking
outside and give you that burst of sunlight that you need to
feel energized. And sometimes a homemade coffee
or iced tea can help with that too.
And I know not everybody does caffeine, OK, but just throwing
that out there as a possible way to get motivated.
And another thing is just to smart just to start small and
focus on one room at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
That's what we're doing in this episode.
We're doing a pre clean in each area of your home, but we're
doing it one room at a time, OK, In the kitchen, it was getting
the dishes going. The other thing I want you to do
before we leave the kitchen is just straighten up the
countertops. You know, put away those items
that are out of place, whether it's seasonings and cereal
boxes, for some reason those are the things at my house.
Or something else, you know, fast food containers that need
to get tossed. I don't know what's on your
kitchen counters, but let's get those items put away.
And if there are things that belong in another room, quickly
take them there. But don't get sidetracked when
you leave the room, come right back to the kitchen.
OK? The point is to declutter your
countertops as part of your pre clean.
Because later you're going to be cleaning the surfaces of your
home. When you come back to finish the
dishes, you're going to be wiping down your countertops and
it's going to be so much easier with the obstacles already
removed. And Speaking of motivation,
removing visual clutter is huge. When you feel overwhelmed about
cleaning your house, it's not because of the dust or the
grime. It is likely because of the
visual clutter. It's because of the pre clean.
Once that pre clean is behind you, you can put on some music
and clean the surfaces quickly. I'm here to talk you through the
tedious parts. And I do have episodes where,
you know, we're actually scrubbing surfaces.
I want to get you through clearing the clutter that's
overwhelming you, the visual clutter.
OK, by now you've cleared off your countertops in the kitchen.
Let's move on to your outer areas.
And by outer areas, I mean your entryway, your living room, your
hallway, maybe a family room if you have another living area.
OK, those common areas of your home other than the kitchen,
bathroom, a bedroom used as an office, I'm talking about those
front rooms and entryway. OK, let's straighten up those
areas in order of priority. The first thing I always do is
pick up anything that's out of place on the floor, OK?
Sometimes I walk out and I I walk out of my room in the
morning and there's fuzz in my living room because one of the
dogs has shredded another dog toy.
OK, I'm not into buying these dog stuffed animals, but my
daughter doesn't mind buying little cheap stuffed animals
from like dollar stores and stuff that they end up tearing
up. I'm more into buying them like
shin bones to chew on so that they're not making a mess.
Anyway, I would pick that up first because it would drive me
crazy or just a piece of trash that ended up on the floor.
OK And then next, those are the most egregious things I'd pick
up next. I would put away any shoes that
got left out or maybe a sweater that's draped over the couch at
summertime. So there's not as much as that
of that. Another thing that I do is I
straighten the throw pillows. We've got like a sofa and love
seat and it came with, you know, 4 throw pillows, 2 for each
couch. I straighten those, put those
how they go. Sometimes you have to straighten
the actual couch cushions themselves if they're knocked
out of place. Then I have a blanket that's
draped over one of the couches. I straighten that up.
OK, I basically just get the floor vacuum ready by picking
everything up, and then I turn my attention to the upper
surfaces. Usually there are not any items
on our couches, but oftentimes there are a few things on the
coffee table. Empty plastic water bottles for
example. I clear off the coffee table
next. So once I've done all that, the
room still needs to be dusted and vacuumed, but this is just a
pre clean. OK.
And the next thing I'll do and just obviously adapt this to
your own house and be picking up.
The next thing I'll do is I'll pick up the hallway.
And this step can be pretty quick.
Sometimes it feels like it's going to be a lot of work to
pick up a room, but you've got to just jump in and do it.
Just get started. It's not that hard, you know?
Yeah, you're going to be bending.
Or if you're feeling really lazy, you might be picking up
items with your foot. OK, if you don't want to bend
over, but the point is just to be moving and picking up and
just think how nice it's going to be to go through and wipe
down all of your surfaces and then vacuum or sweep and mop if
you have hard floors throughout or maybe you use a vacuum on the
hard floors. For those of you who are
parents, have you ever noticed if you tell a kid to like pick
up a room, they're like, oh man. But then if you tell him like,
hey, can you wipe down this table or whatever, It's like the
table's already clear and you're asking him to wipe down
surfaces. They're like, sure, OK.
I think as adults we're the same way.
We don't like the pre cleaning. But once we get that over with,
I mean, the cleaning happens so quickly and in a lot of these
episodes be cleaning your outer areas, you know, while I talk
pre cleaning, tidying up, if you will.
But in a lot of these episodes I have you do all of the steps to
cleaning your room. I have you do the pre clean,
then I have you wipe surfaces. But sometimes it's nice to do
the whole house at once. All all of the pre cleaning and
then all of the deep surface cleaning.
And I like to mix it up for you. OK, so in this episode, we're
not dusting your living area surfaces.
We're just getting them ready for that.
Hopefully you've had enough time to pick up your living areas.
Let's move on to your bathrooms. OK, this should be super fast.
I just want you to pick up the bathroom floor.
If there's a towel on the floor or somebody's clothing or a
mascara that got dropped on the floor, pick up the bathroom
floors in both bathrooms. If you have a couple bathrooms,
make sure there is toilet paper on the roll.
Make sure there's a clean hand towel and just straighten up the
bathroom, you know, maybe put a curling iron away or confine
your makeup items into a drawer or a tray, you know, just to
kind of corral the clutter. You know, just think about how
what you would do in a bathroom if you had like a 2 minute
warning that your friend was going to stop by and use the
bathroom and just do that minimum.
This is not a deep clean and do it in both bathrooms.
I'm going to give you a couple minutes to do that, and then of
course, I'll have you head to a bedroom that you're responsible
for while you're finishing up in the bathroom.
I just wanted to talk a little bit about containers, partly due
to a request I received from a listener who's a financial
supporter. But in your bathroom, if you are
struggling to keep things put away or it's taking you too much
time to prep the bathroom for a deep cleaning, you may need some
containers, OK? Whether it's a little dish for
jewelry and things like that, or a plastic box or basket, maybe
for your curling irons and brushes.
And whether that container is going in the cupboard under the
sink or on the countertop itself or on the back of the toilet
tank or, you know, wherever it's going, you may need a container
and you might not even need to buy something.
You could have something somewhere in your house.
Maybe you have a plastic box that was originally intended for
use in your kitchen pantry, but there's nothing in it.
And you know, that could go in the bathroom or whatever, but
being able to quickly clear a surface by putting things into a
tray, basket or other container can make it much easier to keep
your house clean. It just makes it faster.
And the question I got was about work from home equipment like
your laptop, your cords, printers, things like that.
Sometimes with the laptop and it's charger and maybe your
notepad and a pen, maybe a headset, you want to have some
type of portable container. When I was working a full time
job from home I have this canvas box with handles.
They're kind of like holes in the side of it where you can
pick it. U almost like a purse, but it's
a canvas box and then it has like little pockets on the
outside where you could put pens and things.
I would often put my laptop charger and other other items in
there when I was heading out to the RV to kind of work where
it's quiet because I wasn't always working in the same
place. And a lot of people, I mean not
everybody works in the same place every day.
You know, sometimes your schedule looks a little
different. You're, you're not alone in the
house and you know, you need to move somewhere quiet.
Having something to put all of your work stuff in, you know,
can be helpful. And I mean, it could be a
briefcase or a tote bag with a compartment for a laptop, but it
could also be a box. I used that box more when I was
at home because you can easily with a box, you can easily reach
in and get things out. Whereas with a laptop case,
you're kind of stuffing things in and there's not as much room.
I was more likely to use the case for traveling, but this box
with handles for moving my stuff around the house.
So if you do have, so if someone in your family works from home
and they're, let's say working at the dining room table or
whatever, you might want a convenient place to put that
stuff so that you can maybe move it to another location when
you're serving dinner at the table.
I mean, that's one solution. The other solution is to keep
the workstation confined to just one place setting of the table.
My daughter often does artwork at the dining room table.
And I tell her, just keep your little setup confined to one
place setting because if she just has her stuff in one little
spot at one end of the table, we can still sit around the table
for a meal. So kind of the same thing
applies to workstations. The more containers you have,
the better. It just kind of goes back to
that whole thing where when you have fewer obstacles, it's
easier to spray and wipe down a surface.
So having a box or a tray for things and then moving it out of
the way to clean can streamline your cleaning routine.
By now you've probably straightened up your bathrooms.
It's time to go to a bedroom that you're responsible for.
Unless there's somebody sleeping in the bed.
Quickly make the bed and pick up the floor and get it vacuum
ready. You probably already went into
the room when you were gathering up dishes.
So the main thing you need to do is just clear the floor, pick up
those shoes, clothes, whatever other random items are lurking
in your room. Quickly get it picked up.
And maybe there are some items that you don't really want to
make a decision about you. You know, they're they're kind
of slowing you down. Like, wait, what do I do with
this? If that's the case, place the
item on your freshly made bed because the important thing here
is getting your floor picked up, getting the room vacuum or sweep
ready. Then afterward you can decide
what to do with those items on your bed.
Put them away before you you go to bed, that type of thing.
But I want you to quickly pick up the floor if you did not get
your machine running. I, I think I at least alluded to
that at the beginning of the episode about getting your
washing machine running or dryer running.
I don't think I specifically asked you to do it.
I know I alluded to it, but maybe you need to start a load
of laundry. Maybe instead of making your
bed, you need to strip the bedding and get that washing.
Or maybe while you're picking up your bedroom you are gathering
up some dirty laundry and it might be a good idea to get that
into the washing machine. OK, so it might be time to start
a load of laundry. If not, just keep picking up
your bedroom floor. I your bedroom might be a, a
huge mess. Sometimes there's a tendency to
just kind of stash things in your bedroom and keep the front
areas of your house presentable. And maybe you've been doing that
so you feel a little bit overwhelmed, like your bedroom
needs a lot more time than just a couple minutes.
But you would be surprised how much you can pick up when you're
just kind of dividing things into categories.
You're throwing away trash. You know those empty plastic
water bottles. You're putting dirty clothes
into a hamper. Whether it's a hamper in your
room or a laundry basket in your room or a hamper in the laundry
room, you're dealing with that dirty laundry.
You're hanging up a couple items that somehow ended up on your
floor when you were in a hurry and couldn't figure out what to
wear, and they're still clean. You're hanging those up.
You know, picking up your bedroom floor can be done either
systematically by starting in one corner and then just kind
of, you know, working your way around the room.
Let's face it, a lot of bedrooms, the floor space is
kind of a horseshoe shape around the bed.
Start at one corner, work your way around.
That's one way to do it. The other way is to kind of pick
it up in layers, Like let's deal with all the trash, let's deal
with all the laundry, let's deal with the shoes.
Maybe there's a category for pet toys or just kids toys.
Other things that end up in your room, miscellaneous things,
things that you're storing on the floor that don't need to be
there, but you're not sure what to do with them.
And you're putting them on the bed for now.
But I want you to get that bedroom vacuum or sweep ready
because after this episode, you're going to head back to
your kitchen, finish any dishes that you left to soak.
You're going to go through your house wiping down surfaces, you
know, wiping down your countertops, cleaning out your
sink, dusting your furniture, giving your toilet seat a swipe
with maybe a disinfectant wipe and with another wipe, cleaning
the countertop and sink, you know, or paper towels and a
cleaning spray, whatever. Maybe touching up your bathroom
mirror with a glass cleaner and a microfiber cloth, You know,
basically going through your house, wiping down the upper
surfaces, table, vanity, countertop, and then you're
going to vacuum and or sweep and mop.
So finish picking up your room so that you can move on to
cleaning the surfaces. And maybe if you're like me,
like to blare some music on a Bluetooth speaker while you're
just kind of doing a sweep of your entire house as far as you
know, surfaces are concerned. By the way, special special
thanks to my financial reporters who support the show either on
Patreon, Spotify, Apple, or some other way.
Not only are you unlocking bonus episodes that get you on the
full program of keeping your house clean, but you're also
helping me out, and I appreciate that more than you know.
I hope your bedroom's looking good.
I hope your whole house is picked up.
I hope you're going to continue and do the finishing touches
after this. And I encourage you if if you
still have the time and energy, listen to another episode, binge
the show, get your house clean because sometimes you just need
a reset and then it's going to be easier to keep your house
clean. But even if this is all you got
done today, your house is looking tidy.
But just remember when you dust and vacuum, it makes your house
look clean and then you kind of get credit for all that tidying
you did. So if possible, put on those
finishing touches by cleaning your upper and lower surfaces.
Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate each and everyone
of you. And as always, happy cleaning.
I'll talk to you in the next episode.