You can either wipe things down while you're cooking or have to
scrub them later. I'm Ronnie and you're listening
to Clean With Me, the podcast where I walk you through
cleaning your house step by step.
When you clean along with this show, you'll get more done in
less time so you can spend the rest of your day doing what
matters most to you. Thanks for joining me in today's
episode. I'm going to help you get your
house under control quickly. For this one, I'm going to
assume that you're already dressed and ready to clean.
Let's get right into the episode.
The first thing you're going to want to do is take your kitchen
trash out and reline it. You want to have a place to
throw away trash while you're rushing through your house
getting it cleaned up. And once you're done doing that,
you're going to want to either open your curtains and blinds
and a few windows to let some sunlight in and let some fresh
air circulate. Or alternatively, if you don't
want to open the windows for whatever reason, possibly
whether you can light a scented candle, start a wax warmer, or
start an essential oil diffuser. The point is to make sure you
have a place to throw away trash and that your house smells fresh
from the get go. And since this is a speed clean,
we're not going to deep clean the bathrooms during this
episode. But of course, if you subscribe
to bonus content, you'll unlock several hour long episodes that
have you work in every room of the house, including bathrooms.
And even with these free episodes, you can Scroll down
and find a bathroom episode or a whole house episode.
But there are a lot more of those longer episodes that you
can unlock when you subscribe to bonus content.
Many of the bonus episodes, many of the bonus episodes are an
hour or longer, and there's information on that in the
episode notes. Or you can go to
cleanwithmepodcast.com to learn more about the three options for
supporting the show financially and unlocking those whole house
episodes. But in this episode, we are
going to tidy up your house by doing a whole house pick up.
We're going to quickly wash some dishes and wipe your kitchen
surfaces down. You're going to quickly make
your bed and then you're going to either vacuum most of your
house or quickly sweep and mop the kitchen at the end of the
episode. And depending on the size of
your home, you may need to go longer than the 25 minutes and
continue on with the vacuuming or sweeping and mopping.
But I'm definitely going to get you started on the road to an
under control house. OK, let's do that quick 5 minute
whole house pickup. You're going to just rush around
picking up anything that's out of place and putting it where it
goes, and this includes gathering up any dirty dishes
and taking them to the sink. Don't get sidetracked and start
washing them just yet. You're going to just take them
to the sink because you're picking up anything that's out
of place in your home. You can start at the front
entrance if you're worried about that first impression area or if
you know that your bedroom's the messiest room right now and
you're more concerned with that, then you can start by picking up
back there. Definitely customize this to
your current situation. You know, dirty clothes in the
hamper, shoes in the closets, straighten couch cushions.
Grab those dirty dishes off of your night stand or your
teenagers night stand if you know if that applies.
At our house, picking up and vacuuming is an everyday thing.
Doing dishes and wiping down surfaces in the kitchen is an
everyday thing. Making the bed is an everyday
thing. These are often non negotiable
tasks and I realized some of you might be in a season of life
where you don't have to vacuum or sweep and mop as often.
I get that, but a lot of us are in the trenches due to kids and
pets and we need to do that. Or maybe we're just married to a
spouse whose mom vacuumed every day and that's considered the
norm. But whether you started at the
front entrance or in a bedroom, or maybe you have a two-story
and you're focusing on just the upstairs or just the downstairs,
be rushing around quickly putting things away where they
go. I like to start by picking up
any clutter from the floor, and then I move up to the upper
surfaces and clear items off of the couch or the end tables or
the bedroom night stands. The goal of this session is to
get your house looking better quickly, and then afterward
you'll feel more relaxed. And then you might choose to
start a load of laundry or deep clean a bathroom.
But for now, we're getting your house under control and looking
presentable. Maybe you're listening to this
episode early in the day and you want to get the house under
control before you leave the house.
Or maybe your spouse is coming home and you'd like the house to
look nice when they walk in. Or maybe you're having company
on short notice. Or lastly, maybe you just don't
feel like doing an hour's worth of housework and you'd want to
just knock out some daily minimums so that you can relax
or move on to another activity. You should be almost done
picking up your entire house right now.
No judgment here if if you're not, but just do your best to
get that done in the next minute.
Lately I've been keeping a running To Do List in the
notepad app of my phone. No, I don't have a specific list
of household chores because I I just kind of do the same
routines that I talk about on this show.
This show kind of eliminates a need for a specific To Do List
as far as what you're going to clean when you clean.
But I'm just talking about a running To Do List that I create
the night before that lets me know what I need to do for the
day. And yes, clean the house is one
of the items because I often make myself clean the house
before I do certain lower priority activities.
And yes, there are often things on the list that come before
cleaning the house because they need to happen first or they're
more important on that particular day.
But most of my To Do List items are listed after cleaning the
house because there's just something about a clean house
that gives you Peace of Mind and helps you feel ready for
anything. It's it's like getting dressed
for the day soon after you want to clean up your house at least
by doing the minimums like we're doing in this episode.
OK, since you gathered up a few dirty dishes during the that
step, or even if you didn't, it's time to head to the kitchen
and wash any dirty dishes that you have.
If you're caught up on dishes, then work in the kitchen anyway.
Of course, you can just wipe down your surfaces working from
the top down and you'll have more time to do a thorough sweep
and mop at the end if you don't have dishes to do.
But a lot of you have dishes to do, so I want you to do either a
quick empty reload and run of the dishwasher or if you're hand
washing quickly, pre rinse some stuff and get started on that
first sink load. When I'm hand washing, I will
pre rinse some items like glasses and silverware and
coffee mugs, maybe some bowls or plates depending on how much
stuff I need to hand wash. And I'll get those soaking in
hot dishwater, you know, hot water with a little dish soap
and I'll make that water even hotter than I can stand.
That way those items can soak for a couple minutes while I
wipe down surfaces in my kitchen.
Then I come back when the water is comfortable enough for me to
stick my hands in it and continue to wash.
So that's one way of going about it.
But since I have a dishwasher, what I usually do is pre rinse
any pots or pans that need to soak, get those soaking
immediately and then do an empty reload and run of the
dishwasher. Another thing you can do while
letting things soak for a minute in super hot water is to empty
your drying rack. But my goal for you is that in
the next 7 minutes, you will wash all of your dishes or most
of them. So you've definitely got to work
quickly during this segment because we need to have time to
wipe down your kitchen surfaces, whether you're doing that in
between steps when washing dishes or you're doing it after
your dishes are completely washed.
Like if you're doing an empty reload and run of the
dishwasher, you're going to want to wipe down those key kitchen
surfaces after doing dishes. So you've got to work quickly on
the dishes. If you've been listening to the
show for a while, you know that I'm really big on using the
Notepad app in my phone. But lately I've been trying to
use it every day and I feel like it's such a game changer to have
just a running To Do List. And you might prefer like the
paper and pen method. My mom keeps a small notepad in
her pocket while she's doing housework and then crosses
things off of the list. And there is a certain
satisfaction when you're crossing things off of the list,
but when you use something on your phone, it kind of prevents
you from losing the list, which I tend to be guilty of.
I use an app for grocery lists, but sometimes if I don't feel
like going into that app, I'll just use a simple note in my
notepad app and put a few things there.
Or another way I do grocery shopping.
If my husband and I are going together, I'll text him either
before we leave or while I'm riding as a passenger in the
truck, the things that I want to get in the grocery store, and
that way the text is a record of my grocery list.
But when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I have a day off
where I need to get a lot of things done, which typically I'm
running a lot of errands and making phone calls on Mondays.
Creating that To Do List the night before gives me Peace of
Mind knowing that I won't forget to complete those tasks the next
day. And I just delete items when
I've completed them. It's not the same as crossing
them off. If you want to kind of have that
mental boost of seeing what you've completed, of course, you
can use some other type of app or you're actually crossing
things off or putting a check mark by things.
But I'm fine with just deleting what I've already done.
Like one of them was take kids to school and I just deleted
that. Right now, the top of my list is
recording this podcast. But the next thing is clean the
house. And then there are 123-4567
other tasks to complete after cleaning the house.
So I'm definitely going to be doing just a quick speed clean,
just doing my daily minimums like I'm talking about in this
episode. Many of you are still working on
dishes because in the speed clean episodes, there's just no
getting around the fact that it does take a few minutes to get
the dishes done at least. But if you've been caught up on
dishes or you're super fast, just to kind of let you know
what comes next, I would start by wiping down the upper
cabinets and then move down to wipe the countertops, stove top,
clean out the sink and spray and wipe down those large appliance
fronts like the outside of the refrigerator, the outside of the
microwave, the oven and the dishwasher.
I either use a glass cleaner or multi surface spray because I
just don't want to spend a lot of money on stainless steel
cleaner. And also there is a window on
the oven and there's a window on the microwave.
So yeah, either a glass cleaner or a glass and surface spray
works great for that step. And then of course, if it's a
day where I need to wipe down the lower cabinets, I'll wipe
those down. Cabinets aren't are not an
everyday thing. So if you're overwhelmed with
dishes, once you get done with the dishes, you're going to be
wiping out your sink, wiping your countertops and stove top
for sure. Those are the non negotiables in
the kitchen. And I usually like to wipe down
those appliance fronts as well. I mean, that's kind of what
makes the kitchen look clean because those appliances tend to
have a lot of smudges on them. I'm not being like nitpicky
about fingerprints. I'm talking like they look dirty
if I don't spray and wipe them down very regularly.
But when I'm in survival mode, kind of the bare minimum is to
wash the dishes and then wipe down the countertops, stove top,
clean out the sink. And yes, in longer episodes we
do things like clean out the microwave and clean out the
refrigerator. And I talk about that kind of
stuff more in the bonus episodes.
And a lot of those bonus episodes are whole house.
Like I mentioned, a lot of the bonus episodes are whole house
episodes, but I recently did one that was just a 36 minute
episode on how to clean your refrigerator.
And in that episode you're cleaning the inside of your
refrigerator, not just spraying and wiping down the exterior.
Wiping down the exteriors of my larger appliances is probably an
every other day task, if not every day.
But if you need to deep clean your refrigerator after this,
definitely listen to my recent bonus episode on how to clean
your refrigerator. It's a real time clean along.
So I was actually cleaning the inside of my refrigerator while
I recorded it. So definitely the time I give
you for each step is going to be accurate and doable.
And if you like hearing me actually cleaning along, I do
that once in a while on those paid bonus episodes.
Not all the time, but there are a few thrown in like that.
OK, I hope you got your dishes done.
But if you want kind of an overall clean look in your
house, you might need to leave a couple items to soak for now.
And you can come back to those after the episode because at
this point you've got to wipe down those kitchen surfaces.
I'm only going to give you like 2 minutes to do it.
So it might mean just dealing with any obvious smudges on
cabinets or large appliances and focusing more on those non
negotiables like the countertop, stovetop, kitchen island.
But I count that as countertop and maybe a kitchen table if if
you've eaten at that table or someone has eaten at that table.
And of course if you have too many obstacles on your kitchen
countertop, put away those items, clear them off.
I mean, maybe you need to quickly put some seasonings away
or put a box of cereal away or put away an appliance that you
used recently that's not one of your everyday appliances.
Like maybe you need to put away a crock pot or a blender if
that's not part of your everyday routine.
I mean, a lot of us have some type of coffee maker or Keurig
and a toaster perpetually out, but a lot of the other
appliances can be put away so that you won't have as many
obstacles when you're cleaning your countertops.
But I definitely want you to work quickly during this step.
You've done the hard work of washing all or most of your
dishes. Now you're just wiping down your
main kitchen surfaces that are non negotiable.
Your countertops. You sink the top of your stove,
maybe the controls on the back of your stove or wherever your
little control panel is. I know different stoves are
different and maybe you need to quickly remove the burners and
clean those burner trays. Or if you're like me, you have a
glass cook top and wiping the stove just kind of goes along
with wiping down the countertops.
Definitely try to clean any spills as they happen in the
future when you're cooking so that cleaning your stove doesn't
become a huge ordeal. It's always easier to clean
things right away. You can either wipe things down
while you're cooking or have to scrub them later.
Now, I want you to run to your bedroom and make your bed.
It's only going to take you about 60 seconds to make your
bed. I mean, unless you want to just
strip your bed and take those sheets to the laundry room or
something. But obviously not every day is a
washer bedding day, especially when you're in survival mode and
you just want to get your house under control so that you can
move on to something else, whether it's relaxing or deep
cleaning an area or leaving the house or cooking or whatever.
For me, it's going to be knocking out the rest of my To
Do List, which consists of errands and phone calls.
Another thing on my To Do List is just finding a certain credit
card and switching that out with a different one that I have in
my purse and just start carrying another one because we recently
paid our credit cards off but I like to make sure that I keep
them all active. I don't know if this could help
someone, but when you have your credit cards paid off, you don't
want the credit card companies to just eventually close your
accounts because it's good for your credit score for the most
part to have these accounts open.
So if you have the self-discipline, you'll want to
make a purchase every so often on your zero balance credit
cards and then just pay it back immediately.
To keep the card active. And the reason I'm not tempted
to leave that balance there or anything like that is because I
have an app on my phone and as soon as I see a balance on one
of the credit cards, I pay it. And I mean, you could do this
just every few months. It's not like you have to do it
all the time. But that's why I'm rotating
which credit card I keep in my wallet.
OK, You've had more than enough time to make your bed.
The last thing I want you to do in this cleaning session is
either vacuum most of Oregon all of your house.
Again, I don't know how big your house is.
Usually when I vacuum it's the living room, hallway and my
bedroom because kids vacuum their own bedrooms and my
husband and son usually sweep and mop in the kitchen so I
don't usually have to vacuum in there.
Or if you don't feel like you need to vacuum, maybe you would
rather use these last couple minutes to just quickly sweep
and mop your kitchen. If you have kids eating in the
kitchen or preparing food in the kitchen, sometimes that needs to
be swept and mopped super regularly and it can be more
important than vacuuming in one house.
And this is when a couple of my kids were still toddler
preschool aged. We had off white carpets and the
kitchen was kind of in the center of the house.
There were two entrances to the kitchen and people could easily
track any food from the kitchen floor onto the white carpeting.
So it was super important to sweep and mop the kitchen that
came first. It was non negotiable.
It was every day because if anything got tracked onto the
carpet, it could potentially stain it or at least require me
to get on my hands and knees and spots clean the mess.
So at that house, sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor was
done more often than the vacuuming was done.
Later we got laminate flooring and that kind of solved that
issue of having the white carpeting.
But now my kids are older and we're cleaning as we go more So
the vacuuming happens a little more than the sweeping and
mopping of the kitchen. And I've said this a lot before,
but the two things that make your house look clean, of
course, after you've tidied up, you've done dishes and removed
clutter from the floors and furniture, is vacuuming and
dusting. But dusting does not need to be
done every every day. It's something you do either
once a week or even once every two weeks, just depending on a
lot of different variables. We live in a really dusty area,
so we probably should be dusting every week, but we're way more
consistent about vacuuming. And sometimes dusting isn't just
dusting. Sometimes people are eating on
your living room furniture or getting food or liquid on a
night stand. And so I use dusting as kind of
a catch all term for wiping down surfaces outside of the bathroom
and kitchen. But if people are eating outside
of the kitchen and they're not adults, I mean, sometimes it's
more than dust that you're cleaning.
Sometimes there are actual smudges and you might have
rustic furniture or metal furniture where you can use
disinfecting wipes to wipe that furniture down.
But I kind of just use dusting as a catch all.
Obviously if you've got nice wood furniture, you're probably
using Pledge and a little dusting cloth.
But we're not dusting today, OK? We're vacuuming because I wanted
you to get a lot of bang for your buck.
And yes, dusting and vacuuming together make your house look
super clean. But when we're talking about
just an everyday, non negotiable cleaning session, it doesn't
always involve the dusting part. I'm going to wrap this episode
up, but if you're on a roll sweeping and mopping the kitchen
or vacuuming your entire house, definitely keep going.
Listen to a couple of your favorite songs and knock that
out. For me, music can really help me
get through the vacuuming. But with sweeping and mopping,
sometimes iPhone a friend because that's something I can
do while talking. Anyway, special thanks to my
financial supporters. But even just listening to these
free episodes helps me. So I appreciate each and
everyone of you. Be sure to click follow or the
plus sign on whichever app you're listening on.
And as always, happy cleaning. I'll talk to you in the next
episode.