No matter how hard you work at keeping your house clean, do you ever feel like you never quite get there? Like it’s never all the way clean? One of the reasons for that might be your bad cleaning habits!
And those of your family too of course. Read on to find out if you’re sabotaging your efforts at housecleaning with bad cleaning habits that keep your house messy!Bad Cleaning Habits to Stop Right Now
Here are the bad cleaning habits to stop right now. These are the simple things that will change your life.
1. Cleaning with Dirty Cleaning Tools
If you want to clean your house effectively you need to start with clean tools. If your mop is dirty when you mop your floor you’re just pushing grime and bacteria around. Washing counters or sinks or dishes with a dirty sponge is just spreading germs and grime from one place to another.
And appliances are the same. If you’re washing clothes in a washer that stinks like mildew your clothes are going to stink. If your vacuum is full it isn’t going to pick up dirt effectively.
Make sure to clean your cleaning tools after each use and replace them as needed so that when you make the effort to clean you’re accomplishing your task.
2. Leaving Dirty Dishes in the Sink
Leaving dirty dishes in the sink is one of the worst bad cleaning habits that keep your house messy. First, because it makes the task of cleaning dishes much harder when you finally get to it. And a sink full of dirty dishes is a breeding ground for bacteria.
When dishes are left to sit the food hardens and becomes more difficult to remove. Plus a mountain of dishes in the sink makes the task much harder than it needs to be. It becomes a big chore that takes a big chunk of your time.
If you get in the habit of putting dishes directly in the dishwasher or cleaning as you go your kitchen will be much cleaner overall. And the task of doing dishes much easier at the end of the day.
3. Not Cleaning Out Your Refrigerator
When you leave old food in your refrigerator it can start to grow mold and bacteria, which can then spread to your new groceries as you add them to the shelves.
Change your refrigerator cleaning habits! Every time you go grocery shopping, throw away any old food in your fridge and give the shelves a quick wipe down.
4. Forgetting to Make the Bed
No matter how tidy you keep your bedroom, an unmade bed looks messy! Change your bad cleaning habits in the bedroom by making the bed when you get up each morning.
The neatly made bed will likely inspire you to keep the bedroom cleaner overall as well.
5. Not Straightening Your Shower Curtain
This is one of the easiest bad cleaning habits to change! Start straightening out your shower curtain after using the shower!
The opened curtain will be able to dry fully and will be less likely to grow mildew. This will also help prevent mildew from growing in other areas of your bathroom. And it literally will only take a few seconds of your time.
6. Paper Clutter Accumulation
In even the cleanest of homes, paper clutter tends to pile up. To keep paper piles from taking over your home and making it look messy, designate a specific place for mail, receipts, school forms, and other important papers.
Then make time to sort through and deal with the paper pile at least once every week to keep it from growing out of control.
7. Wearing Shoes in the House
Want to save hours of time spent cleaning and vacuuming your home? Start taking your shoes off when you come in from outside.
Put a shoe bin near the door for collecting outdoor footwear and get some slippers or designated indoor shoes to wear in the house.
Keep the outdoor dirt and germs outside by taking a few seconds to slip off your shoes when you enter the house.
8. Saving Dusting for Last
Saving dusting for last is one of the bad cleaning habits that most of us are guilty of. When you dust before you vacuum or sweep, the dirt and dust you sent flying into the air will then be cleaned up and dealt with.
When dusting happens last, all that dust you swept away is just sitting on your floor where it landed. And it’s keeping your house from truly being clean. Dust first, then vacuum so you can truly get rid of the dirt.
9. Not Reading the Directions When You Clean
When you take the time to clean your home, you want to see some results. So, when you use a new cleaning product and it doesn’t work, what happened? Sometimes the problem is user error!
Some cleaners take time to work correctly or are only meant to be used on certain surfaces. Save yourself time and money by reading the directions on your cleaning products.
You could be wasting valuable time scrubbing a cleaner that needs time to soak. Or even damaging surfaces in your home by using the wrong type of cleaner.
10. Waiting Until Cleaning is Overwhelming
One of the worst bad cleaning habits is waiting to deal with a mess until the task is so huge it seems overwhelming. At that point, it’s hard to even know where to start.
If you and your family can get in the habit of doing a little cleaning each day, and cleaning up messes as you go it will be much easier to keep your house clean overall.
Habits can be hard to change, but like anything else, they take time and patience to improve. This year, challenge yourself to change just one or two of these habits at a time. Your bullet journal can be a great place to track this!
Another fun idea is to create a chore chart, and turn changing cleaning habits into a game. Assign each family member a habit to be in charge of, and encourage them to remind others when the habit is broken! For example, we like to remind each other when there are dishes in the sink that need to be removed.
Once everyone has changed their habits for a week, it is time to reward everyone with fun family activity. After all, it takes time to change and your effort should be rewarded.