1. Getting started is the hardest part, but you can easily trick your mind into keeping your motivation up by doing an easy chore: throw away the unnecessary things. If you have a little bit of hoarder inside, then you might find yourself frequently surrounded by a lot of useless things that only clutter your space. Get rid of magazines, flyers, old receipts, bills, boxes or packages. Once they are gone, you will be more motivated to continue with the harder chores. Plus, your house will instantly look tidy and more organized. 

2. The second step is dusting room by room. When I was a little girl, I used to think those tiny particles floating around my house were magic fairy dust. But now the magic is gone and so should be the dust. Don’t forget to wipe down the books on the library and your house plants, as their leaves accumulate dust. Luckily, if you have less things on the shelves, you’ll spend less time dusting. See why decluttering first saves you time and effort? 

3. Now that your home is dust free, you can start vacuuming the floors, carpets, sofa. If you want to be more effective, remember to always dust first and vacuum later, not the other way around. When you dust, some particles end up going into the air and then settling all around your house. You don’t want the dust to settle on your freshly vacuumed floors or carpets and start all over again, right? 

4. Clean the floors after vacuuming. If you’re a pet owner, use a pet-safe cleaner, because some chemicals used in many products can represent a danger to your pet if ingested. Keeping a clean floor is important for your pet’s health. They usually sniff around and their fur and paws are in close contact with the floors, so pay attention to this step and avoid using bleach or ammonia. If you’re looking for a gentle pet-safe product that leaves a pleasant scent behind, you can try Angry Orange cleaners. 

5. Move to the kitchen and clean the countertops and other surfaces, disinfecting as necessary.  All sorts of foods and liquids can be found in the kitchen, so spills and grease splashes are inevitable. The first step is to get rid of the grease that makes the surfaces sticky. Use a soft sponge, warm water and dish soap. To clean out the cracks and seams, you can use a soft toothbrush. After making them sparkling clean, you can spray a sanitizing product to make sure all the germs are gone for good. 

6. Final stop: the bathroom. If you want to have a spotless bathroom, you should first remove all the items on the vanity or countertops: shampoo bottles, body lotions, razors, shower gels, so you can easily apply the cleansers and wipe away the dirt. Next, scrub the toilet and the bathtub or the shower cabin. Don’t use harsh cleaners because I use a Magic Eraser to clean soap scum, scrub the grout lines clean, get rid of stubborn sink drains, clean hairspray residue. It is a very effective solution even for the toughest cleaning jobs in the bathroom. 

Some additional tip: One chore that I dislike big time is cleaning the windows because it is quite difficult to get them spotlessly clean. I highly recommend picking a cloudy day to wash the windows. If it’s too sunny, the cleaning solutions will dry too fast and you’ll have streaks.  

What are your cleaning tricks that work like magic?