Want to get your house clean and company-ready but feeling overwhelmed by piles and dirty dishes and laundry? Well, help is here!
In this post, I’ll give you a simple step-by-step plan to get your house clean so you can host guests this weekend or just enjoy a family Christmas in a cleaner home!
I put together a two-hour step-by-step plan to help you get all the major cleaning done so that your home looks presentable for your guests (and I’ve got a FREE printable checklist for you that you can print and hang on your fridge to keep you on track!):
Get your house clean in 2 hours: The plan!
1. Gather the laundry from the hampers and start a load of laundry (3 minutes).
2. Set the timer for 15 minutes and take a laundry basket and a trash bag and go through each room in your home. Quickly straighten, pick up, and put away everything that's out of place. Put all trash in the trash bag and put everything that doesn't go in that room in the laundry basket (15 minutes).
3. Put away all contents in the laundry basket and throw out the trash (5 minutes).
4. Head to the kitchen and load the dishwasher or hand wash the dishes (15 minutes).
5. Switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer and start another load in the washer (2 minutes).
6. Sweep or vacuum your kitchen floor and wipe down your countertops (10 minutes).
7. Take some toilet cleaner and go squirt it in all your toilets (2 minutes).
8. Take some window cleaner and spot clean the main glass windows/doors/mirrors (3 minutes).
9. Take a dust rag and quickly dust in the main rooms of your home (10 minutes).
10. Vacuum all the major traffic areas in your home (20 minutes).
11. Head back to the bathrooms wipe down the toilet, sinks, floor, and bathtub/shower. Change the towels (20 minutes).
12. Switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer and fold the clean laundry (15 minutes).
13. Light a candle or simmer some potpourri on the stove and enjoy your freshly-cleaned home!
Get Your House Clean: Free Downloadable Checklist
Like to cross off lists? Download the free 2-Hour House-Cleaning Checklist to keep you on track and remind you of what you're supposed to be doing next. Now you have no excuse for getting distracted.
(We made two different styles so you can choose which you like best and print that one. You could even laminate it and hang it on your fridge if you think you might regularly use it!)
3 Tips for House-Cleaning Success
1. Set the Timer
A timer works wonders in helping me stay focused and work quickly. Plus, it makes it seem more like a game to see if I can finish my project before the timer goes off!
2. Turn on Some Music
It's much more fun to work when you're accompanied by cheerful, upbeat music. There are lots of great Christmas channels available that you can stream on Pandora or Spotify. (Here’s one I’ve been listening to recently.)
3. Stay Focused
Don't worry about the next thing on the list or your overwhelming to-do list. Just focus on the project at hand until the timer goes off. Then, move on to the next project.
If your house is a complete disaster, it might need more than two hours. However, remember not to get too hung up on making it perfect.
Just work quickly and efficiently and do the best you can do in the time you have. Even if your house isn't pristine after two hours of work, I'm sure it will at least look quite a bit better than it did when you started. 😉
Are you hosting guests for Christmas or traveling for Christmas? I’d love to hear! We’re traveling to Kansas this year (like usual) to be with both of our families. (We’re blessed that our parents live about 5 minutes away from each other!)
An Important Note:
My team is signing off today until Tuesday so we can all enjoy some unplugged time with our families. I’ll still be around on Instagram sharing little peeks into our family Christmas celebrations, if you don’t already follow me there. And I’ll be sharing my usual Peek Into Our Week post on Sunday.
But otherwise, it will be quiet here. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and that you’re able to get some unplugged time, too.
I’ll be back starting next Tuesday sharing my list of my Top 10 Books Read in 2017, my Word of the Year for 2018, my 2017 Goal Update, my Goals for 2018, and some big changes coming to the blog in 2018 (If you like my real-life, practical, inspirational, and/or intentional types of posts, then think you’ll really like them!) See you then! 🙂
