How Do You Make Cleaning Fun?
October 8, 2009 by Christine Gooding
Filed under Home & Living
Cleaning the home isn’t always a pleasant task. While we know we do it to keep our homes neat, organized and hygienic, it does get tiring. And aren’t there days when you just want to chill and leave the dust bunnies under the coffee table? Unfortunately, we can’t leave them there for too long.
Image by: Sean Dreilinger
How do you make cleaning less of a chore, and more of a fun activity? Here are some ideas.
Put on some music. Wipe that kitchen counter to the beat of the songs on the radio. Throw in some workout moves by wiping that window up, down, up, down. Let the rhythm energize you!
Divide the chore into small tasks. Do you really need to clean the whole living room today? Why not try this — give yourself 15 minutes per room. Set a timer and clean what you can in the given time. When the 15 minutes are up, rest. Then move on to the next room. It makes cleaning time more manageable, and you may want to get more done given that you only have a small amount of time given.
Share the load. Ask a family member or a friend for help. Have a conversation while cleaning a room together. The task is divided in two, getting it over with in half the time. Plus, you spend quality time with them.
Catch up on your reading. Put those audio books to good use! While you’re dusting the furniture, listen to that romance novel you’ve been wanting to catch up on or that fantasy novel about wizards and warlocks. Who knows? You may be so caught up in listening to the stories you clean the room twice!
Anticipate a reward. When you’ve got something great to look forward to, it makes the task at hand easier to bear. If your reward is a foot spa and a pedicure, envision yourself being pampered at the salon. Imagine soaking your tired feet into that bubbling foot bath. All those clutter will be cleared in no time!
Now grab that broom and have some fun!
In our house I get all the kids together, we set the timer for 15 minutes, turn on music and run around the house like crazy cleaning what we can in 15 minutes. Then I do the deep cleaning. We used to do this daily. Now that house is pretty much in order we only do this every few days. It really works.
We only work on rooms when we have extra time. I hope that helps.
I find that listening to music always makes the time go by faster while I’m cleaning. It makes for a good escape too. I like Jennifer’s idea of doing cleaning for only 15 minutes at a time with children. When they have to clean for long periods of time they would start to get bored.