I don’t know about you, but I hate cleaning and I begrudge every minute I spend having to keep my house in order. Luckily for my family, the one thing I hate more than cleaning is having to live in a messy house.

Admittedly, I have a cleaner to do the majority of the work. But I had many, many years of scrubbing practice before I could afford to consider a cleaner and, even now, I still have to keep the house reasonable in between her fortnightly visits. I have therefore perfected the art of cleaning in the most efficient manner possible.

Here are my top ten tips for those of you who, like me, have no desire to linger when it comes to keeping a clean and tidy home. Do remember that I’m not an expert – I’m just a housewife with decades of experience.

My top 10 tops for a tidy home – FAST!

1. Have easy access to the right tools for the job – don’t skimp on a good mop and don’t bury your kit too deeply in the cupboard under the stairs.
2. Don’t mess about with running taps – fill the sink with hot, soapy water before you start cleaning. Not only will this save you time turning taps on and off to rinse a cloth out, it will also save water.
3. Use gloves – even if you currently have no issue with your hands, cleaning products are filled with chemicals that will damage your skin over time. Besides – with gloves you can handle hotter water and dirt dissolves more quickly with hotter water.
4. Don’t be afraid to get surfaces wet – it’s much quicker to go over a surface once to make it really wet, let the grime dissolve, then go over it again to sop up the water.
5. Move furniture – it takes longer to work your way around a chair than it does to lift it (stick it upside-down on top of the table if you can) and mop a clear floor.
6. Use a vacuum cleaner wherever possible – beware of wet surfaces, but otherwise go for it. It’s usually quicker to suck it up than to wipe it up. This applies as much to table tops, sides and soft furnishings as much as the floor.
7. Invest in a long-handled, bendy feather duster – perfect for quick and easy cobweb removal from ceilings and corners as well as dust from bookshelves and door tops etc.
8. Use a dirty towel to polish your bathroom tiles, bath and sink before putting it in the wash basket – a trick I picked up as a hotel chambermaid.
9. Don’t let your family wear shoes in the house – less dirt dragged in in the first place means less cleaning.
10. Share the cleaning out around family members – a problem shared is a problem halved!

Help from others:

Further advise on this topic can be found on the internet. Some links I can recommend are:

• 30 Thirty-Second Chores
• Cleaning Shortcuts for Common Chores
• Cleaning Gadgets
• Fake a Clean House
• Quick Kitchen Cleaning Tips
• Quick Bathroom Cleaning Tips