*This is a sponsored post brought to you on behalf of Clorox. All opinions are my own.*
I love the holidays.
The food, the gift giving, the décor, the shopping, time with family, the movies, the music –totally my jam and I live for it every single year.
The only thing that I’m always putting at the end of my holiday to-do list is cleaning.
I guess I’m what you would call a nondomestic person. I don’t enjoy cooking, I am a terrible housekeeper, and forget about organization, unless you consider stacking things organized –I excel at stacking things. But keeping my family healthy and happy is still a top priority, and that requires cleaning with a product that can offer serious disinfection like bleach.
The only thing I’m able to manage with any level of effectiveness is the laundry, and that is largely because I have given up on traditional separation of items before washing. I pretty much just wash everything by room –all of Dude 1’s clothes are washed together, all of Dude 2’s are washed together, all of the bed sheets are washed together, and so on and so forth.
Some would say I lack technique. I say that what I lack in technique I make up for in efficiency – I use way less water, I spend way less time on the task, and I am usually back on the couch, eating cookies, and watching Hallmark holiday movies way more quickly than some of my mom counterparts.
That’s why, this holiday season I’ve partnered with Clorox to help get my home clean and guest ready, in the shortest time possible, so that I can get back to the important things in life.
Get Clorox Clean: Holiday Cleaning Tips for People Who Dread Cleaning
Start with a plan.
People often take one look at my busy schedule and say: how do you do it.
I have one answer. Okay, I have two answers, but only one of them makes any real sense: I don’t sleep and my entire life is governed by lists.
I have several lists and they keep me, my children, my spouse, and my dog alive. Without them we would all most certainly perish.
I write one (or five, depending) every day and I try to not go to bed without addressing every single thing on it.
That doesn’t mean I complete all of the things–in fact, I can’t even recall the last time I did such a thing—it just means I address them. I make it a point to start them in some way or, at the very least, come up with a plan to do so in the near future.
Cleaning is the same.
I usually make a list of the things I have to clean in each room and then tick them off one by one. It helps me make sure I don’t leave any parts uncleaned.
It’s the only way I don’t forget to clean the toilet seat (the whole thing, because hello, boys!) in the half bath, or hit the baseboards in the living room that only people who don’t make messes (aka NOT my children) are allowed to be in.
Pro tip: Use Clorox Clean Up Cleaner + Bleach to get those stubborn stains and germs off of the toilet. Wipe the sides and under the lid and get those hard to reach areas sanitized. Just be sure to let it sit for about 30 seconds to kill 99.9% viruses and bacteria before you wipe it off—it needs some time to work its magic.
Break it up.
Into smaller tasks.
Easier to tackle chunks.
So it’s not so overwhelming you have no option but to throw your hands up in despair, grab your Oreos, and cuddle with them on the couch
And then, set a timer.
I distract easily.
I go into the kitchen to clean it and I wind up reading a magazine, scrolling through Instagram, and giving my dog a bath.
I probably need medication and, since I don’t have any, I focus instead on solutions.
Small, timed jobs are pretty much my wheelhouse. The only thing I can really focus on for more than two hours is Netflix. My brain is just always going. I like to say it’s my creative genius, my mom likes to say it’s my lazy butt.
I feel like we’re both right.
I’ve found that the solution that makes me more effective, efficient, and accurate in all areas of life is setting timers for tasks.
I set them for reading, I set them for cooking, I set them for work, I even set them for relaxing! So, it makes sense to set them for cleaning too.
I keep them short and I always make time to reward my successful completions–five minutes to clean the counter, finish and then I can look at Instagram for five. Ten minutes to put the dishes in the dishwasher, finish and then I can look at a magazine.
I may not get huge chunks of cleaning done all at once, but I am pretty good at getting things in order and sparkly over the course of a day.
Have the right tools.
They really do make any job easier.
Clorox bleach is a product many people only turn to when things get exceptionally dirty and germy, but I have been an all-the-time bleach user since I was a kid. My mom swears by Clorox for everything from killing the plague to getting spaghetti sauce off of the wall, and so do I.
It is the best thing for clean, bright whites, it helps kill the germs from handles and other places my kids are always touching, it’s the perfect cleaner for the bathroom my son’s use (although their bathroom would 100% fall into the “exceptionally dirty and germy” category), and I even use it in my kitchen on a daily basis. I find that it kills germs and odors and even cuts grease better than most other products I have tried.
Clorox makes a host of bleach-based products to help make all of your household cleaning jobs easier. Sprays, wipes, pens, and numerous other items are available to make it easy for you to get all of your surfaces, no matter how big or filthy, clean.
Pro tip: Clorox® Regular Bleach2 with CLOROMAX® Technology invisibly adheres to hard surfaces, forming a protective shield that repels stains to make cleaning quicker and easier when used as directed.
Get your family on board.
I’ve found that more than the actual dirt in my house, it’s the messes that make me twitchy -the shoes at the bottom of the stairs, the cups left on the counter and by the couch, the clothes they just shed all the way from the front door to their bedrooms upstairs.
That stuff messes with me and running behind them sucks up all of my time and energy too leaving me entirely uncommitted to deep cleaning. Baseboards, windows, ceiling fans, mini blinds, those are the types of things that just get kicked to the curb when I have to PICK. UP. THOSE SHOES. FOR THE TENTH. TIME. TODAY!
I took a week towards the end of summer to get a ton of things organized -I made sure everything they use has its own place and that they know where it is.
And then, when school started, I decided to give daily chore lists a try. I write them out each morning on our magnetic notepad and I attach them to the fridge so everyone can be on the same page. They have until bedtime to get their assigned job/s finished.
SPOILER ALERT: It’s going fabulously. Obviously these list loving, deadline obsessed children are mine.
A few small, intentional tweaks can have your home guest ready, germ free, and happy for the holidays. With proper planning, products, and a little help from the home team, you may not even break a full sweat to get it done and you might even enjoy it!