Maintaining a clean home can be tricky, especially if you have kids or pets. Keeping up with the laundry, dishes, sweeping and all of your other household chores is tough and often takes a considerable amount of time. And, unfortunately, you can’t add more hours to your day to get things done. That doesn’t mean you have to choose between spending all of your free time cleaning or living in a cluttered, dirty home.
Learning how to tackle multiple jobs at once shaves precious minutes (even hours!) off cleaning and enables you to enjoy a neat and tidy home without spending hours a day cleaning. Multitasking isn’t just for work! It’s also an excellent way to get things done at home faster. Read on to discover a few ways to multitask when cleaning.
1. Make the Most of Your Time When Doing Laundry
Doing laundry is a relatively time-consuming chore, even when you use time-saving laundry detergent sheets instead of traditional detergent. You have to load the washing machine, wait for the cycle to finish, switch everything to the dryer and then wait for it to finish. Depending on your dryer and how much you are trying to dry, you may even need to run it a few times to get the job done. Rather than staring at your phone or bingeing Netflix while waiting for your laundry to be done, use that time to tackle other projects. You can get back to your favorite show once the laundry is dry.
First, set a timer so you’ll know when the load is ready to go in or come out of the dryer. Keep it close to you to avoid losing track of time. Work on other tasks like tidying up your living room, mopping the floors, organizing your pantry, washing dishes or planning meals. When the timer goes off, switch your laundry. If you have multiple loads, put clean loads in a safe place until you’re completely finished with laundry. Keep cleaning other parts of your home while the washer and dryer do their thing.
When everything is dry, put your favorite show or podcast on and start folding! Folding may be your least favorite part of doing laundry, but watching or listening to something you enjoy while doing it makes it a lot more tolerable. Once everything is folded, put it away. Avoid the temptation to leave clean, folded laundry in the basket.
Pro Tip: You can also save time by using eco-friendly laundry products. Detergent sheets are lightweight and come in a compact container that fits just about anywhere. They don’t require any measuring, so you can just toss them right in the wash. Plus, this type of sustainable laundry detergent is better for the environment than conventional detergents. What’s not to love about saving time and the planet?
2. Combine Multiple Cleaning Tasks
There is no rule stating that you have to declutter, then dust, then clean your floors. Working on these tasks together is more efficient and can make the project seem less overwhelming. As you pick up clutter that needs to be put away, dust or wipe down the surface you removed it from. Instead of rushing to put everything in its place, fill a basket or bin with things that need to be put away and tend to them later. Once a table or an area of the room is free of clutter and dust, sweep, vacuum and/or mop. Multitasking and working in small sections saves time. Plus, you’ll experience a dopamine-boosting sense of satisfaction every time you complete an area. This sometimes gives you the boost you need to keep working.
You can also multitask by handling multiple jobs simultaneously. If you notice a piece of trash on the floor while scrubbing a spilled juice stain out of your carpet, pick it up and throw it away when you’re near a trash can. Remove the dirty dishes from your (or your child’s) bedroom after making the bed. Put away clutter while gathering laundry. Simply put, if you see something that needs to be tidied up while cleaning something else, take care of it. Taking a few moments to deal with it when you see it is usually a lot faster than waiting and dealing with it when you’re not doing something else.
3. Clean While Showering
Do you put off scrubbing your shower until it’s so filthy it makes you feel dirty? Or do you just have a hard time keeping up with mildew and soap scum? Save yourself a lot of time and frustration by keeping a dish wand filled with soap in the shower.
Use your dish wand to clean the walls a few times a week when you’re already in the shower. You can put it on the floor and scrub it with your foot, too. It may seem a bit unconventional, but doing some scrubbing while you relax under the hot water or give your conditioner or facial scrub some time to work its magic can save you from having to spend ages cleaning a shower that’s been neglected.
Conclusion
Multitasking is one of the best ways to get through your household chores as quickly and efficiently as possible. The key is figuring out what works best for you. Experiment with different multitasking strategies, and stick to the ones that make cleaning easier and less time-consuming. It may take some time to get used to, but efficient multitasking can save you a lot of time and frustration.
