Technology
Daily Home Reset Routine
In this episode of 'Clean With Me,' Ronnie guides listeners through an efficient daily home reset routine designed to make cleaning manageable and less overwhelming. With practical tips on l...
Daily Home Reset Routine
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Would you believe that for almost a quarter of Americans keeping their home clean is more difficult than their full-time job?
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This statistic comes from a recent survey by Bissle. They looked at the cleaning habits and challenges of 2,000 Americans
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and found that 24% thought keeping their house clean was harder than their full-time job.
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I'm Ronnie and you're listening to Clean With Me, the podcast where I walk you through cleaning your house step by step.
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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.
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Thanks for joining me and today's episode, I'm going to talk you through a daily reset. This is going to be kind of fast paced.
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But don't let that scare you off because I am going to allow for some flexibility so that you can adapt it to your current situation.
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Basically, I'm going to have you do four to six things to get your house center control in just a few minutes.
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Contrary to popular belief keeping a clean house doesn't have to mean spending hours a day scrubbing or folding.
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Often it's the little things done consistently that make the biggest difference in your home.
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No, there's not a magic bullet for keeping your house clean. You're going to have to do the work.
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You are going to have to scrub surfaces at times. But keeping your house tidy with these daily routines can help you avoid feeling overwhelmed when you do your deeper cleaning session
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where you spend an hour or two and you do scrub those surfaces.
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And let's face it, you want your house to look good in between cleaning sessions. That's what a daily home reset can do for you.
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It's time to do whatever you need to do to gear up for a quick speed cleaning session.
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I will say that I'm going to have you do one load of laundry in this episode.
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So now's the time to maybe switch the clothes from the washer to the dryer or if you're washing machines empty start a new load.
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Whether it's kind of a survival load of underwear and towels and maybe someone's uniform or you're going to strip a bed and start washing sheets.
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Now's the time to start that load of laundry and one load a day doesn't necessarily mean seven days a week.
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But what it means is on most days you're doing a load of laundry from start to finish.
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I feel like I really only need to do laundry every other day. But if I shoot for every day and then it doesn't happen on some days, that works.
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That's that's kind of what I'm doing lately. And if you've been listening to my show for a while, I don't always do the same things.
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My routine is always evolving. But lately I feel like shooting for one load a day is ideal.
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And then on that one day where you're gone all day or whatever, you don't do it that day. And maybe you end up getting five loads down during the week.
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That having been said having just a weekly laundry day works for a lot of people.
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So one of the four to six things I'm going to have you do is start a load of laundry.
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And you might need to also set a timer to remind you later to switch the clothes from the washing machine into the dryer.
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Okay, the cycle is probably one hour or less. So maybe set a timer for an hour from now.
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And if after you start that load, you open up your dryer and there are dry clothes in the dryer or dry blankets towels, whatever, dry laundry, go ahead and quickly fold and put away those items.
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That way later when you do your laundry switch, your dryer will be empty.
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And then I encourage you to set another timer when you put your laundry into the dryer later so that you'll be reminded to take it out, fold it and put it away.
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Okay, that having been said, you could count the load that's in the dryer right now that you're about to fold and put away or that you've already started folding and putting away.
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As part of your one load, if you're the type of person who doesn't mind letting the clothes sit in the dryer, some types of laundry are more prone to wrinkling than others.
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So sometimes, you know, there's some there's definitely something to be said for setting a timer, pulling things out of the dryer as soon as they dry, folding them while they're still warm to prevent them from getting too wrinkled.
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But at the same time, if it's it's a load of towels and underwear or maybe just T-shirts, that's not really going to apply.
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But I do want to challenge you to do a load of laundry from start to finish.
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But at the same time, I give you permission to leave something in the dryer if that's kind of your system because it is a valid system to just have the rule that
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when you take things out of the dryer to free it up so you can put stuff into it that you fold and put away the load at that time.
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Again, wrinkles could be a concern or not depending on what kind of laundry you're washing.
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And maybe you're using fabrics off in our dryer sheets and things like that to prevent wrinkles.
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But the bottom line is that you not only put your clothes into the washing machine each day, but that you also follow through and dry them and then you also fold and put away a load, whether it's the same load or previous load.
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The key is avoiding that residual clean laundry pile. That's why we want to fold things when we take them out of the dryer, whether it's immediately after they're dried or just the next time we open the dryer.
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So hopefully that makes sense. Hopefully you've started a load and you've set a timer and maybe even folded and put away a load.
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Isn't it amazing how quickly you can fold and put away one load of laundry?
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And some of you are like, well, duh, you know, I do that every day or whatever.
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But if you tend to have a clean laundry pile that you're adding to, you might be having these folding marathons where you're folding and putting away more than one load and it feels overwhelming, but it really only takes a couple of minutes to fold and put away just one load.
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That's a big part of having a daily cleaning routine. Even if it's just on weekdays or just on certain days, you're breaking your housework down into smaller pieces.
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And yes, there's still going to be a deeper cleaning session at some time during the week, but it's going to be a lot less overwhelming if it doesn't involve mountains of laundry or a sink full additions or a house covered in clutter.
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Okay, we're going to do those maintenance tasks today. And yeah, I can't say enough about this because life is so much easier when folding and putting things away becomes a short task instead of a long one.
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And it keeps your wardrobe and linen supply and rotation. So you always have what you need and you're not wearing the same things or picking up a dirty towel off the floor to dry off.
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And your bedding smells nice because some days you're just looking for something to wash and that causes you to wash your bedding more often.
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Okay, let's move on to the next step. This next part is where the flexibility comes in because for some of you, I'm going to have you make the beds.
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But if you don't really care that much about making your bed and you're facing a dish aster right now, your kitchen is more important.
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Gather up dishes from around the house, start pre-rinsing and washing those dishes, whether it's, you know, empty reload and run of the dishwasher or your hand washing.
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I want you to go straight to the dishes if you have a huge pile up.
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But for a lot of you, you have just a reasonable amount of dishes, maybe the dirty dishes from one meal or maybe an amount of items that will fit into one dishwasher load or that can be washed in one or two small sink loads.
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You know whether you're facing a dish aster or just the usual dishes to do.
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If your dirty dishes are not totally out of control, it's time to make the bed.
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Okay, this is such a quick and simple task. A lot of people skip it. I used to be one of them, but it significantly improves the look of your bedroom and just helps set a productive tone for the day.
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And if one of your household goals is keeping your bedroom cleaner, it definitely starts with making your bed daily and early in the day.
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Don't get into the habit of making your bed just right before your spouse comes home or something.
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Okay, it's a springboard task and if you want it, if you want to experience the full effect of that springboard that springs you into action, you've got to do it early in the day.
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Now, I'm not going to say make the bed as soon as you get out of it because I realize you might be the first one up in your family.
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You might have a spouse or toddler in the bed when you first get up. I'm just saying make it early in the day.
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It's not as important as keeping up on dishes, but arguably it could be the springboard task that gets you motivated to clean the rest of your house, including doing dishes.
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So just something to think about. If this is not a day that you're changing your bedding, it's only going to take you about 60 seconds to make the bed.
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That's why it's so surprising that people skip that step.
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It's just one of those things that you don't feel like doing for some reason. I guess because it feels optional, but it's so simple, so easy.
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But the reason I had some people head straight to the kitchen is this is a really short episode.
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And I wanted to make sure that you make an impact on your home.
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Those of you who are doing dishes can always go back and make the bed while the day is still young.
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I'm just worried that the kitchen segment is not long enough in this episode for those of you who have an entire day's worth of dishes to do or even a couple days worth.
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But making your bed makes the entire room instantly feel more put together.
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And it's also a small act that gives you a sense of control that could carry through to the rest of your day.
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If changing your sheets is a priority right now, then by all means change your sheets completely.
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Hopefully you have an alternate set so that you can completely change out your bedding.
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If not, just strip your bedding.
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But for those who just quickly made the bed, you're probably ready to gather up any dirty dishes from around the house, maybe a cup on a nightstand or a forgotten plate on the coffee table or dining room table.
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Let's get all those dishes to the sink area and then quickly walk around your kitchen, tidying up.
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Maybe you need to put some seasonings away or some empty packages in the trash.
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Just remove clutter. There might be items that don't even belong in the kitchen.
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There might be appliances that need to be put away because you don't use them all the time and you have too many different items out.
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Just do a quick straighten so that you'll be ready to wipe your surfaces down after spending a few minutes on dishes.
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Don't worry about spraying or scrubbing the countertops just yet. You're getting them ready.
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And then of course the next thing I want you to do is quickly do the dishes.
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I'm going to give you about five minutes. I know it's not a lot, but remember I said I wasn't going to give you a lot of time.
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This is just a quick daily reset.
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And ideally you should be washing dishes either after every meal or at least twice a day if you're eating a lot of meals at home.
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If you're eating all three meals at home twice a day might be okay.
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But I would love to see you get into the habit of not letting the dishes sit because doing them after every meal keeps build up from taking over your kitchen.
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And it's always tempting to leave the dishes for later especially after a big meal or maybe it was all you could do to make dinner after a long day.
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And you want to just collapse after dinner and obviously be working on your current dish pile while I talk.
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Maybe you need to pre-rints your silverware glasses bowls and plates and fill up the sink and start that for sink load or maybe you're doing a quick empty reload and run of the dishwasher or maybe you're getting some difficult items soaking hand washing the rest or putting the rest in the dishwasher.
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I know there are all different situations and everybody does things differently.
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And whether or not you have a dishwasher can make a huge difference in your routine.
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I get it but be working on dishes right now whatever that means for you.
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With some things in life you can procrastinate and the job is the same if you do it later.
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But doing dishes is not the same when you let the food dry on and harden.
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It gets way harder.
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Not that it's that difficult but it becomes more time consuming.
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And whenever you do dishes after a meal you want to take just a couple of minutes to throw away trash, put a few items away and then wipe down the kitchen counters, stove top and table if you're eating at the table.
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Maybe it's your coffee table that needs to be wiped down after a meal.
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But don't beat yourself up if you have not been consistently doing your dishes after meals.
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I get it. Life happens and different people struggle with different things but I think dishes are a struggle for a lot of people.
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Which is why I talk you through it so many times on this show.
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Keep plugging away on those dishes.
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You may be getting close to the finish line if you're just cleaning up after one meal.
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However, if you feel like there's no end in sight and you're just not getting down to dish zero even every day, something needs to change.
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Maybe you need to purchase some paper plates, paper bowls, disposable silverware for a while.
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Just as a temporary fix so you can get caught up.
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When I was raising younger children, my youngest kids are teenagers or Esther adults now.
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But when I had little kids and was overwhelmed with housework, on days where I was experiencing a pile up of dishes, I would often order pizzas that night and just serve them on paper plates or on paper towels so that we did not add to the mess.
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And that doesn't happen often now.
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But that used to be kind of my wild card that I would play in an emergency.
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And that was ordering pizzas and not dirtying a single plate.
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Cups and glasses were never really a challenge for me.
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Because most of the time I've had a dishwasher.
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There was a house where I did not have a dishwasher.
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But I had the right idea during that era.
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And in some ways I think not having a dishwasher has its benefits.
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Because at that house where there just was not a dishwasher, I was consistently washing dishes throughout the day.
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Because I kind of lived in fear of a pile up.
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I didn't want some overwhelming pile of dried on stuff.
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And it's not that I'm just some kind of housekeeping guru.
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It's because I was raised with a dishwasher.
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And first thing I thought when I moved in and realized I didn't have one was I'm going to have to keep up on these dishes.
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Granted, I had a smaller workload.
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I only had two kids at that time and one was an infant.
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So we weren't dirtying up as many dishes as, say, during times when we've been a family of five or six or seven.
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Wipe down the kitchen counters, stove top and table.
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By the way, if you're enjoying this content and you're getting a lot done, please take a moment to give this podcast a five star review and positive rating on whichever app you're listening on.
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It would be greatly appreciated and special thanks to those who have already done so.
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Okay, hopefully you've had enough time to do the dishes.
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You can always pause the episode or rewind it.
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That's kind of an old term rewind.
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Do people even say that anymore?
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Anyway, the next thing I want you to do is a five minute pickup.
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We're going to spend the next five minutes picking up.
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This is probably going to be in your outer areas, like your living room or family room or maybe you have two living areas.
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You're going to return items like books, blankets, gaming controllers, TV remotes to their proper places.
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You're going to straighten couch cushions and throw pillows.
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You're going to clear whatever off of the floor, whether it's shoes or some other clutter, toys.
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And of course, you're also going to be clearing your furniture.
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Okay, there might be items on the couch that don't belong, you know, a sweater that was haphazardly tossed onto the couch or maybe a throw blanket that's crumpled up and needs to either be draped over the back of the couch.
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Or folded neatly into a square.
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And if you don't have a lot to pick up because some of us try to keep these living rooms, you know, perpetually tidy, you can always start dusting the furniture.
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But tailor this episode to fit your current situation.
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You might be just removing clutter off of the floor and furniture.
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And then maybe a wipe surfaces after the episode or tomorrow.
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Just be working in your outer areas, getting them picked up and vacuum or sweep ready. We'll call it.
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In a messy room, if you tell yourself you're going to sweep or vacuum afterward, that's going to help you resist the temptation to leave a few things out.
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You're going to do it right because you're getting it vacuum ready or sweep ready or room by ready if you have one of those robot vacuums.
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I don't, but some people do so I'm just throwing that out there.
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And the times in these episodes are approximate because I do go back and edit them, you know, for a better listener experience.
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So sometimes I might say, you know, we're going to be doing this for five minutes and it ends up being four minutes or six minutes.
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I apologize for that, but I want you just to be up and moving while I talk.
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And you're going to get a lot done. I promise.
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Maybe this is your cleaning session where you're working alone. You know, if you have kids, maybe you're cleaning while they're at school or during their nap or while they're playing outside or after they go to bed or before they get up in the morning.
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However, some of you can delegate to your kids and when you're picking up a room and you find things that belong to other people, you can always call them in and say, hey, come, come get this and put it, put it away.
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You don't want to always be returning things to someone's room.
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And I'm talking about school aged kids who are old enough to pick up after themselves or even older teenagers and adults.
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You want to mention, hey, can you come get your shoes because you want them to be mindful of the fact that they left it out and not just think that the house cleaning fairy is going to come behind them and pick up after them.
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That said, you don't always want to leave other people's stuff. If they're not around, you're going to go ahead and just pick it up because the goal is to get your house presentable right now.
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I'm just talking about when they are there, get them involved and putting their own items away.
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Now today we're talking about your living areas, but as far as your daily reset routine, you might not need to reset your living room every day.
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You might not have kids spreading toys out. You might not be in that season of life.
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But I challenge you to choose one space each day and just spend five minutes putting things back where they belong.
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And that space might not be a living room, family room, hallway.
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It could be an office, a guest room, a bathroom, a bedroom.
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But small resets like this keep the mess from multiplying and making you feel overwhelmed.
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Maybe it's going to be a few days before you spend a lot of time deep cleaning, but you want your space to feel tidy throughout the week.
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And it's possible you might not even have the time or energy for a big clean this week. Maybe you go two weeks in between deeper cleans.
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Everyone's workload is different. Everyone's lifestyle is different. Everyone's priorities are different.
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But everyone and I mean everyone can benefit from doing small things each day that allow you to keep up on housework and that keep your house looking presentable in between deeper cleaning sessions.
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Okay, this last segment is another flexible segment. I want you to either reset your bathroom sinks and counters and floors basically a bathroom straight and I'm not talking about the deep cleaning that you do in your bathroom where you scrub with chemicals and you clean the mirrors.
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I'm talking about clearing clutter off of the vanity area, making sure you've got plenty of toilet paper and stock, a fresh hand towel, and then picking up items off of the floor and taking out the trash.
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It's what I call a bathroom straight and you can either do that or if the floor is more of a problem in your main living areas and kitchen,
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then you're going to do a quick floor sweep or vacuum or both. Okay, so again for these last few minutes, you're either going to straighten one or two bathrooms and I talked a little bit about what that involves or you're going to do a quick floor sweep where you vacuum your main living areas and kitchen or alternatively your bedroom floor.
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So this is what we call a bathroom. We have to vacuum our bedroom floor often because we have a sliding glass door in the bedroom and sometimes the dogs track in stickers that we don't want to step on.
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So vacuuming that bedroom floor is just as much of a priority is vacuuming the living room in hallway, which are more visible areas.
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And of course the kitchen is probably the most important floor of all to keep clean because you don't want to track pests. You've got to get those crumbs up and you've got to sweep or vacuum before you can spot mop those sticky areas if someone's spilling in your floor if you know you know.
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So maybe you're working on floors right now or maybe you're doing a quick bathroom reset and if you did not have a lot of clutter on your bathroom vanity or floor and it didn't take you long to take out the trash or maybe your waste basket wasn't even full.
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Of course you can do a quick wipe down. It's definitely ideal to do a wipe down in your bathroom once a day to prevent grime from building up.
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I don't talk about this as often but just like it's harder to wash dishes that have been sitting it's harder to scrub any surface that's not getting cleaned off and enough.
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A lot of people just have the habit of after using their bathroom sink wiping down the vanity area. I'm talking about when a little water gets splashed around because you washed your hands your face, brush your teeth.
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That moisture that's getting splattered onto the sink and vanity kind of allows for an opportunity to clean because you can grab a hand towel or a paper towel and wipe that up.
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Obviously you're going to be cleaning with a disinfectant during a deeper cleaning session but I'm talking about these little touch ups.
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If it's possible for you to keep cleaning products in the bathroom you could spray your mirror even and wipe it with a microfiber cloth just as part of your routine after you get ready in the morning.
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You can use something natural if you don't like spraying chemicals. It could be a mixture of vinegar and water maybe with some essential oil in it to make it smell good.
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You can always research things like that online. I'm not so much about the products and the ratios as I am just getting you through the actual tasks of cleaning.
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Some people keep disinfecting wipes in the bathroom to wash the flesher handle and the exterior parts of the toilet. A lot of young moms will wipe down the bathroom surfaces while supervising a child in the bathtub.
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That would be a situation where you would not want to use heavy chemicals obviously but you can still wipe things down using natural products or just water as a way of touching up your bathroom in between deeper cleanings.
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I hope you got at least four things done during this episode. If you chose to work in the bathrooms instead of the floors or do the floors instead of the bathrooms because I really didn't give you time to do both, maybe put on some music and keep working after this.
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Or listen to another episode that focuses on an area that you need to work in. Like maybe your bedroom needs an overhaul. Maybe you made the bed but the rest of your room is a problem.
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If you've made it this far in the episode you would probably benefit from cleaning along with longer episodes. Special thanks to those who are already supporting the show financially.
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And have unlocked those episodes either through an Apple Podcast subscription, Spotify subscription or by joining my Patreon page.
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Okay, for those of you who don't know this, you can unlock longer episodes for a small monthly fee. I don't expect anyone to do it but I sure appreciate it when someone does.
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And I feel like your house will thank you. Your spouse might thank you. But mainly just do it for yourself.
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I appreciate each and every one of you and as always, happy cleaning. I'll talk to you in the next episode.