Clean These Things Daily

Let’s face it. Life is messy. Whether you’re cooking up a storm, snacking on the couch, or spilling coffee in your work area, a need to clean isn’t too far away.

And with an already busy schedule, it’s easy to let cleaning fall on your to-do list, making it seem like there’s a lot more to do than there is. Instead of waiting, the following helpful hints and thoughtful tips can help you maintain a daily routine that takes the stress out of cleaning, while keeping things constantly clean.

1. Make The Bed First Thing In The Morning
- As simple as it sounds, making your bed is one of the easiest ways to keep your room neat and tidy daily. When you start your day by making your bed, you’ll then be encouraged to tackle the next task on your to-do list. And before you know it, your list is complete and you’re ready to get back into bed.
- Expert Tip: To help get your kids in the routine of making their beds in the morning, start by removing the flat sheet from the equation and let them just focus on the comforter.

2. Do The Dishes Each Night
It's easy to put a dish in the sink when you’re done using it and walk away. But throughout the day, your sink will begin to experience dish back-up, which means those stuck-on messes will begin to stack-up. To help you avoid that mess, try this helpful task. Before you go to bed, head to the kitchen instead to load the dishwasher and hand wash any dishes that aren’t dishwasher safe. Running a cycle at night will ensure you have a dishwasher full of clean dishes instead of a sink full of dirty ones. Now isn’t that a great way to start the day?

Expert Tip: Stuck-on messes giving you grief? Scotch-Brite® Stay Fresh Non-Scratch Scrub Sponges are safe for your dishes, cookware, countertops, and more. Created to be odor-resistant, and designed to rinse clean after each use, these scrubbers clean off food instead of trapping it for a clean you can see.

3. Clean Kitchen Messes Right Away
- Your kitchen is the heart of your home. But between the cooking, mingling, and foot traffic, it’s only a matter of time before messes like dirt and grime make their way in. But there’s a simple fix to this potential problem. After using the area –whether you’re cooking on the stove, serving on the counter, or eating at the table– give it a thorough wipe down. By attacking these areas right away, you’re limiting the ability of other messes to form, thus making your daily clean that much easier.
- Expert Tip: Glass cooktops look beautiful but with the wrong cleaning products, you can leave behind unsightly marks and scratches. With Scotch-Brite® Glass Cooktop Pads use a breakthrough, innovative micro-texture scrubbing surface technology that is specifically designed to work with glass cooktops for a scratch-free clean.

4. Make Sweeping Little Messes A Habit
You cook, you eat, and you put your dishes and cookware in the sink. All is done. Or so you think. Without a blink, crumbs, scraps, and other food particles managed to escape to the floor. It’s easy to overlook as they collect in the corners and under the tables of your home. Getting into a daily sweeping routine is an excellent, and easy, way to keep your floors clean. Not only will your home be cleaner, and better looking for when visitors drop by, you’ll also minimize floor accidents while giving yourself a nice aerobic activity.

Expert Tip: Having trouble sweeping into a new routine? Try putting music on. With your favorite tunes blaring around you, you’ll get an urge to get up and move, so why not grab a broom and groove?

5. Do One Load Of Laundry A Day
- Whether it’s the large pile of dirty clothes building up on your floor or not being entirely sure of how to wash the separate colors, laundry day is generally looked at with fear and dread. Don’t worry about doing everything at once. Start simple. Try making a goal of washing, drying, and putting away one load of clothes per day. Prioritize the clothes you want, or know you’ll need, and before you know it that daunting mountain of clothes will soon open up to more space on your floor.
- Expert Tip: An easy way to help you get into a good routine of keeping your laundry clean is to create a simple wash-schedule. Just pick a day of the week when you’ll do each item that needs it–One day is whites. One day colors. One day is towels. One day is sheets. One day is kids. Etc. This will help you build up your routine while helping you keep track of when things were washed and when things are coming up to get washed.

6. Put Things Away After They Are Used
- You pick something up in one room and put it down in another. Your kid brings his favorite toy to the breakfast table, only to leave it there when they run off. Things get moved around your home every day and are easy to overlook until you need them. By making a point of putting things away or picking up items you see don’t belong there, you’ll easily keep your home clean while knowing that items are exactly where they should be.
- Expert Tip: Never leave a room empty-handed. Whether you’re bringing something to the trash or putting an item away in another room, an easy rule of thumb to remember is to make every time you move put to good use. After a few times, this simple step will help you maintain a tidy home without even thinking about it.