Minimalist Cleaning: A Simple and Easy Guide

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Minimalist Cleaning

Have you ever thought about how great it would be to spend less time cleaning and more time actually enjoying your life?

With minimalist cleaning, it’s possible to clean your entire house and spend much less of your time keeping it that way. Committing to a minimalist cleaning schedule will help you take back your free time and still enjoy the many benefits of having a clean and organized home.

Let’s face it, life is often way too busy and over-scheduled, and it barely leaves you any time for relaxing and having fun.

Racing from one obligation to the next and spending what little time you do have left cleaning and maintaining your house is certainly no way to live.

Once you discover minimalism, your entire life changes for the better, and you realize just how much of your precious time you were wasting in the past. By implementing a minimalist cleaning routine, it’s like you’re getting the cherry on top.

Trust me when I say that cleaning doesn’t have to be time-consuming and overwhelming. It can be simple, quick, and easy, and a minimalist cleaning routine can help you get there today.

Minimalist Cleaning Tips

Here are the top 12 minimalist cleaning tips so you can start cleaning like a minimalist today:

1. Allow Fewer Items Into Your Home

The fewer items you own, the less time you spend having to clean, put away, and maintain those items. It doesn’t matter if you’re purchasing new items or being gifted them, the more you allow into your home in the first place, the more responsibility you now have for those items.

So thinking about whether or not you really want something before you bring it into your home, can save you tons of time in the long run. Even something as simple as throwing your junk mail away before you walk back inside will drastically decrease the time you spend stacking and sorting through a larger pile of mail later.

And for whatever reason, children are bombarded by free plastic junk everywhere they go. So not allowing bags of it to enter your home will make cleaning significantly less overwhelming.

2. Declutter Each Room in Your House

Decluttering is the easiest and fastest way to implement minimalist cleaning strategies into your home. Again, the more items you have in your house, the more items you need to clean and maintain. Decluttering can seem like a huge project when you think about your entire house all at once, but decluttering one small closet or room at a time makes it a simple and quick process.

Whenever you see an item that you’re no longer using, set it aside to sell or donate. Make sure it leaves your house within a few days to be rid of it once and for all. And to help your decluttering project go even faster, ask everyone in your household to help find things to add to the declutter pile.

Whoever is old enough to bring items into the household, is also old enough to help them leave the household.

3. Leave Messy Items Out of Your Living Space

A lot of messes can be avoided before they happen. Keeping dirty, wet, or oily items outside or in the garage keeps your living areas cleaner. And you can definitely include your outdoor spaces in your minimalist cleaning routine, as well.

Simple actions like taking your shoes off in the house, leaving oily rags in the garage, or even bringing wet, bathing suits straight to the laundry room save you lots of time and grief. Don’t let a trip outside always end in tracking dirt, sand, and snow all throughout your house.

4. Have a Set Location for Everything

When every item in your home has a set location, it’s much easier for all household members to return the item to its rightful place when they’re done using it. Oftentimes when things pile up, it’s just because there is nowhere for that item to go back to, and it sits there having more and more things placed on top of it causing an even bigger mess.

If there’s no good place for an item to be stored, you may not need it in the first place. It may be time to declutter again and remove it from your home.

5. Clean Up Messes as You Complete Tasks

Most large cleaning jobs happen because we allow things to accumulate over time. Cleaning up as you complete each task should be one of the biggest parts of your minimalist cleaning routine.

Putting ingredients away as you’re cooking, throwing wrapping paper away as soon as your child opens birthday presents, and putting all of your groceries away at once helps to keep your house tidier every day. And the best part is that it saves you from having to clean it all up later.

6. Focus on One Room at a Time

Anyone who sees a really messy house will feel stressed out about the amount of work that needs to be done. Think like a minimalist and focus on just one room at a time.

It will really help you feel less overwhelmed. Plus, you’ll feel a huge sense of accomplishment as you complete each room.

7. Start at the Top and Work Towards the Bottom

Anytime you enter a room that you’re about to clean, look up at the ceiling and move your head down slowly to the floor. Make a mental note about what needs to be done in that room before you begin to clean.

When you work your way from the top down to the bottom, it saves you a lot of time because you’re not having to reclean anything.

Just think about what would happen if you vacuumed and mopped your kitchen floors and then decided to wipe the counters off. No matter how careful you were, you’d still have some crumbs that ended up on the floor, and you’d have to start all over again.

Starting at the top ensures that all dust or dirt that didn’t get trapped on a towel or sponge will settle on the floor. Then you can simply clean it all up with a vacuum or a broom.

8. Don’t Clean or Wash Everything

There is such a thing as cleaning too much. The minimalist approach to cleaning also includes asking yourself what really needs to be taken care of now.

It’s not necessary to wash jeans after every wear or towels after every use. You also don’t need to clean out the entire refrigerator after every meal. Just do what really needs to be done so that your home is tidy and welcoming.

9. Have Realistic Expectations

Having realistic expectations is another big step towards spending less time cleaning. Someone living alone will have a much easier time keeping their house clean than someone with a partner, kids, and pets.

Remember not to be too hard on yourself or the other members of your household. This is your home, and it should be your happy place, not a place that causes you extra stress.

Little kids are constantly making messes, and pets are always leaving fur on everything. And that’s okay.

Houses only look perfect on Instagram and HGTV. Your home is lived in so it should look that way.

10. Get the Entire Family Involved

Cleaning always goes faster when you have help. So get everyone in your house involved.

Remind them that if everyone cleans for 20 minutes, then you’ll all have time for fun afterward.

You can even motivate them with a family movie and popcorn once chores are done. Or sing the cleanup song to little kids, and watch how excited they get to help just like a big kid.

Asking nicely for help goes along way too. And an allowance works even better.

11. Play Music While Cleaning

Any task is more fun when you listen to good music while doing it. Crank up some tunes and your cleaning will be done in no time. Feel free to take some dance breaks in there too.

There’s a reason “time flies when you’re having fun” is such a popular saying.

12. Create Your Own Custom Cleaning Routine

The best part of living a minimalist lifestyle is that there are no set rules. It’s all about making your life simpler and more enjoyable.

Feel free to create your own minimalist cleaning routine that helps you stay focused and organized. Figuring out what works best for you will eliminate any cleaning-related stress that you may be feeling.

Remember, your life’s purpose is not working all day and cleaning all night. Live simply and use some cleaning hacks along the way.

Minimalist Cleaning Supplies

Here are the only minimalist cleaning supplies you’ll truly ever need:

• Lemon essential oil or lemon juice
• Tea tree oil
• Baking soda
• Vinegar
• Dish soap
• All-purpose cleaner
• Laundry soap
• Dishwasher detergent
• Cloths
• Spray bottles
• Toothbrush
• Reusable kitchen scrubber
• Toilet brush
• Broom and dustpan
• Pet hair remover
• Mop
• Vacuum

Trust me, you don’t need a ton of supplies to clean like a true minimalist.

Having basic cleaning tools like sponges, cloths, a toilet brush, spray bottles, a vacuum, and a mop can take care of any mess in your home.

Buying extra gadgets to clean may seem necessary at the time, but remember that those items just become more for you to clean and maintain later. Plus, like everything else in your house, they accumulate. And eventually, you just may find yourself adding them to your donate pile too.

Save yourself the time and only purchase basic cleaning tools.

But if you’re just dying to buy a cleaning tool that you’re sure will make your life so much better, then go for it. Remember, there are no rules in minimalism. You’re allowed (and encouraged) to buy things if you truly want or need them. And that’s the beauty of it.

Like a true minimalist, carefully plan which products you actually need to purchase and leave the rest on the store shelves.

Ask yourself which products can work double duty and clean multiple surfaces. Read labels and make sure you’re not bringing hazardous chemicals into your house that you’ll expose your entire family to.

Believe it or not, you can clean just about anything with the items you already have in your home such as undiluted white vinegar, tea tree oil, lemon juice, and baking soda.

But if making your own cleaning supplies just isn’t your thing, there are plenty of companies making safe cleaning supplies with ingredients that you can both pronounce and be proud of.

As you can see, these minimalist cleaning tips can help you gain your free time back without sacrificing a sparkling clean house. Life is too short to spend your nights and weekends constantly cleaning.

Adopting even just a couple of these ideas into your cleaning routine will save you a ton of time and energy. And using minimalist cleaning supplies will help you clean your entire house without a ton of gadgets or exposing your family to harmful substances.

So create your own minimalist cleaning routine today.

Sources

• Harvard: Vinegar
• HGTV
• Instagram
• Pubmed.gov: The Effectiveness of Three Home Products in Cleaning and Disinfection of Staphylococcus Aureus and Escherichia Coli on Home Environmental Surfaces

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What minimalist cleaning strategies do you love? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.