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'm going to talk you through 15 straight
minutes of picking up your house.
Let's get right into the episode.
If you need to freshen up for the day or start some laundry or
start some dishes, please pause the episode because this
cleaning session is only about picking up and I want you to do
it for the entire 15 minutes. Start at your front door and
start picking up in that immediate entrance area.
You may not have anything on the floor of your entryway, but you
may have a piece of furniture in the entryway with some clutter
on it. For me, that piece of furniture
is a piano. For you, it could be a shelf
unit or something else, and maybe your entryway is kind of a
dedicated for your area or maybe it's part of your living room.
Whatever that front room is, that's where I want you to
start. Now.
If you have a two-story, you might want to place some items
at the bottom of the stairs so that you aren't going up and
down the stairs during this pickup session.
But for those of you with A1 Story Home, you might want to
just grab up two or three items, take them to the room where they
belong, and come right back. I have some lists here of items
that might be in each room. I didn't make the list.
I don't necessarily have all these items, but I like to use
some outside materials at times so that I mentioned things that
might not necessarily apply to me.
Maybe you have an issue with coats and jackets.
I know it's summertime, but for all I know you could have a coat
hook with way too many coats on it.
Time flies sometimes and things carry over from one season to
the next. So if you have an issue with
coats or jackets that need to be put away, now is the time.
You might also have a similar issue with shoes by the front
door. What is your system for shoes by
the front door? I get the fact that some people
like to take off their shoes when they first come in, but if
you do keep shoes by the front door, you may want to consider
making that more visually appealing, and that starts with
keeping fewer shoes right there. OK?
Over time you might have several pairs of shoes by your front
door, when really you just need one or two pairs ready, if if
that's even a thing. I keep my shoes in my closet,
and if they're not in my closet, they're usually in the bedroom
floor, but I don't keep them by the front door.
No judgement here if you do, I'm just saying you might have some
excess shoes to put away. The system I like for people who
do want to keep shoes at the front door is to have some type
of a bench where the shoes can go underneath that bench out of
sight. And then if you've been
listening to the show for a while, you know that I used to
have a shoe basket when my kids were little, but there was a
little alcove that couldn't be seen from the front door, even
though it was near the front door.
And I had a shoe basket there and a little coat hook there.
It allowed me to get the kids sweaters and shoes ready so that
we could get out the door in a hurry when I had little ones.
But I still wanted my entryway to look visually appealing.
Be picking up while I talk. Even though some of these items
are not necessarily going to apply to you, you can just give
yourself a pat on the back if you don't have one of the issues
I mentioned. If you do, you take care of it.
If not, just declutter something else.
Book bags, purses. Some of you, your kids have
already gone back to school. I was surprised to find out that
some schools even start in July. So maybe you need a system for
book bags or backpacks. I know some families have little
cubbies and cubbies don't necessarily have to look like
what you would see in a school or preschool.
It's OK if they do. That's the image that sometimes
comes to mind. But I've seen people with nice
looking wooden cubicles painted white, and that's where their
kids put their backpacks to get them ready to head out the door
for school. So that's something to consider
while you're straightening things up.
Athletic gear is another thing that might fit into a cubby,
depending on what it is. Umbrellas.
If you live in an area where it rains a lot, you might need a
place for umbrellas by your front door.
I've seen containers where people get umbrellas.
Some people like to keep a Louisville Slugger in that
container just for security reasons, self-defense reasons
and you want that contained be picking up your entryway and or
front room while I talk. Another important thing is your
keys. Do you have a key rack?
Some of you need a key rack hanging on the wall to make sure
that your keys are out of reach of toddlers so that they don't
get misplaced. But maybe you have a tall piece
of furniture where you can just put a little bowl or tray of
some kind and then just get in the habit of placing your keys
there. Maybe you keep your keys in your
purse. If that's the case, put your
purse somewhere and you may be thinking, oh, I, I take my purse
all over the house because I keep my makeup in there and this
and that. I encourage you over time to
have another place to do your makeup and another set of
makeup. It's a personal preference, of
course. I like to have some makeup in my
bathroom drawer and then also in my purse for getting ready on
the go when someone else is driving, of course, and then the
third place is at my desk. And these don't have to be two
or three complete sets of makeup.
Maybe you put on fewer products when you're in the car versus
when you're at your vanity or desk versus when you're in the
bathroom. But having different makeup that
you use at home versus what you keep in your purse allows you to
keep your purse in the same spot.
If you do want to move your purse all over the house
throughout the day, I recommend carrying a larger one.
I have found that whenever I downsize to a tiny purse, it
gets misplaced. So just a thought there.
Basically the piano bench is my launchpad.
If I have a package I'm going to mail, it's on the back of the
piano and I'm I'm mentioning my piano.
I realize not everybody has a piano right by their front door,
but you've got a launchpad of sorts, I would assume.
So for me, when I'm getting ready, I like to put things
there. I do it before I'm completely
ready because my thinking on getting out the door faster is
the most important thing is that I have my purse, my keys, and
whatever else I need to bring with me, whether that's a lunch,
a tote bag, a package I'm going to be mailing.
So I get those items ready and then I go back to primping or
whatever. When I was a teenager I hated
that word when my parents would be like stop pramping.
I'd be like, I'm not pramping but I probably was pramping by
now. Your immediate front entrance is
clear and possibly your living room, but you may still need to
pick up the living room floor and straighten those couch
cushions. You'd be surprised how quickly
this can go if you just keep moving.
Don't forget to clear the items off of your side tables and
coffee table. And I realize you might need to
do some decluttering in the drawers that you have in your
living room, but if you're overwhelmed with surface
clutter, today might not be the day.
For example, I have a pop up coffee table that is just great.
It allows us to eat at the couch and still have a table for our
food. And I, I like it for having
company and it's, it's just a really nice piece of furniture
to have and it has storage inside.
But of course, when I'm popping that up when company's over, I
don't want a lot of clutter inside of it.
So I do clear the inside of that coffee table from time to time.
And when I do, I also clear out the drawer of an end table and
the drawer of the drawers, plural of my TV stand.
But this might be just a surface pick up for you.
And I want us to get to the whole house, so I'm only going
to give you about another minute.
In your living room or front room, maybe you have a throw
blanket that needs to be either folded up or laid over the back
of the couch. Maybe you have coasters that
need to be stacked a certain way.
Maybe you have shoes to put away or a sweater to put away.
I don't know if you're listening to this in the summer, just
because I'm recording it in the summer.
So I'm still mentioning things like jackets and sweaters.
What about chargers? Something that I liked that I
noticed that my sister does is she has phone chargers in
different rooms of the house rather than just moving the same
charger from room to room. This seems so convenient to me.
You're visiting her and there's just an iPhone charger for your
convenience right where you're sitting on the couch.
Maybe when people have a lot of chargers, they don't wear out as
quickly and it seems like no charger lasts very long except
the one that comes with your phone.
Those are always better. But maybe you have some chargers
that don't be long in your living areas and you need to put
those away. Some of you have a pizza box on
the coffee table and you need to walk outside and throw that away
because it's too bulky to go in your kitchen trash.
Let's continue on to the next room.
Of course, pause the episode if you need more time, but this is
a quick pickup and hopefully you're just quickly moving
through your house. It's going to be so nice to have
it all picked up so that you can clean some surfaces.
After this episode, you might want to continue to a hallway.
I don't know the floor plan of your house, but you might have a
hallway that connects your two living areas.
Or if you're like me, you just have one living area plus a
hallway that heads back toward the bedroom.
You probably don't have a lot to pick up in the hallway.
The thing that I constantly have to do in my hallway is
straighten a little rug. And the purpose of this
particular rug is to cover a cord to keep people from
tripping over a cord. It's I guess an Ethernet thing
to improve my son's gaming experience in the first bedroom.
Some of you may have a runner in the hallway that needs to be
straightened or shaken out. Maybe you vacuum over it.
I do need to replace. Speaking of little rugs, while
you're picking up your, your common areas, your outer areas,
I do need to replace some of my little accent rugs that I use
for various purposes because once they get loose strings,
then I worry about those getting caught in the vacuum overtime.
Those have to be replaced. Another reason I use little rugs
is where the carpet meets the floor.
Sometimes it starts to wear out and I put a little rug there to
kind of protect that edge. Something I learned from my mom,
if there's a tear in your carpet, you get a little accent
rug and you use that to cover that bad spot.
By now you've picked up your front entrance, your main living
area or front room, a hallway, possibly a family room if you
have two living areas. Of course.
Straighten the couch cushions, clear the floor, clear the end
table, clear the coffee table, all the things.
But a lot of you are ready to go into the kitchen.
Make sure there's no clutter on your kitchen floor.
And as part of the pickup, I want you to move any dirty
dishes over to the sink area. Either place them in the sink or
next to the sink. I like to put my glasses next to
the sink and put the other items in the sink.
OK, maybe you're clearing off a kitchen table or dining room
table. Maybe you need to quickly gather
dishes from around the house and get them to the sink area.
Or maybe all of your work is in the kitchen and you just need to
kind of consolidate the mess and get those dishes over to the
sink so that your kitchen looks generally tidy even before you
start to wash your dishes. After this episode.
It just does something positive psychologically when you
consolidate the mess and you make a room look less visually
overwhelming. I mean, it takes very little
effort to clear some clutter off of your kitchen countertops, put
the seasonings away, throw away some trash, and get the dishes
into the sink. It it doesn't seem like a big
deal, but you're going to feel less overwhelmed when you go
into the kitchen later to clean it.
This next one's only going to take a couple minutes.
I want you to go into a bathroom that you're responsible for
whichever bathroom needs it. You know, you could be
responsible for all of your bathrooms, but go into a
bathroom, pick up the floor, pick up towels and dirty laundry
that ended up on the floor. Bend down, look for makeup that
maybe fell on the floor rolled. Make sure that floor is clear
and take out the wastebasket if it's getting full or worse,
overflowing. If it only takes a second to
pick up your bathroom floor or there's nothing on your bathroom
floor, turn your attention to the bathroom countertop.
I call this straightening a bathroom.
I will often tell my kids go straighten up the bathroom, even
when it's not a day that we're deep cleaning the bathroom.
We want it straightened and sometimes items are getting
piled on the vanity area and they need to be dealt with.
This does not take long at all. You're probably already done.
Let's move to a bedroom that you're responsible for.
It's probably your own bedroom, but if your bedroom is generally
tidy and maybe a kid bedroom is a mess, work in there.
Obviously kids should be taught to clean their own rooms, but
when they're little, we're doing a lot of the work for them.
Whichever room you're working in, quickly make the bed and
start picking up the floor while you're doing that.
I'll just say I have a lot of episodes for cleaning a bedroom
that go into the clutter that's accumulating around the edges of
your room or the the clothes that are starting to overflow
out of your drawers or closet. I realize there might be some
problems in your room that call for a longer cleaning session,
but right now I want you to just generally tidy it up.
Think getting it vacuum ready or sweep ready.
You make the bed, you put the shoes in the closet, you put The
Dirty clothes into the hamper. Maybe there's something clean
that you do drape over a chair for now, but you want to get the
floor cleared again. You can do a complete overhaul
in a future cleaning session. For example, I recently had to
reach under my bed with a broom and pull stuff out that one of
our dogs drags under the bed. That particular dog doesn't even
hang out in our room, but at some point she sneaks in here
and takes paper plates and water bottles, empty water bottles,
and drags them under the bed to like the middle where I can't
reach them and I have to pull those out with a broomstick.
That's something for a deeper cleaning session.
I did do an overhaul in my room couple days ago, but you're just
getting the floor picked up and it doesn't take as long as you
think to get a bedroom vacuum ready.
When you don't get sidetracked by maybe a laundry pile in the
corner or clutter on a dresser or something like that.
You always start with the floor first and then move up to those
upper surfaces. Anyway, I'm out of time.
I have a teacher training to go to today.
For those of you who are new to the show.
I work at a school a couple days a week.
I have a training today. I'm excited to get ready and go
to that. So I'm going to go ahead and
wrap this up, but I hope that this helped you get your house
picked up and get that pre clean done so that you can do your
dishes and deep clean a bathroom or whatever it is you need to do
today. Special thanks to my financial
supporters who support the show either on Patreon, Apple
Podcasts, or some other place. I appreciate each and everyone
of you and as always, happy cleaning.
I'll talk to you in the next episode.