10 Minutes a Day to a Deep Clean Home

Spring has finally arrived! Do you have the spring cleaning bug? Are you feeling a little overwhelmed? Well guess what, I don’t need to spring clean. Yes, you heard it right, I don’t need to spring clean and I’d like to share my little secret or plan of what I do all year long so I never have the need to spring clean. And best of all it only takes 10 minutes a day, five days a week.

My inspiration for this 10 minutes a day came from a book I read many years ago called, Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley. I have always been one who weekly vacuums, dusts and cleans the bathrooms, but when it came to deep cleaning the entire house it was a real CHORE and I didn’t look forward to it. This was a game changer for me.

To begin with let me share my DAILY routine. 

1– Make my bed! I do this every day. Why go to the expense and work of making your bedroom beautiful if you don’t make your bed? I believe that all children are capable and should make their bed too. The little ones may need a little help and it may not be perfect, but it makes them feel accomplished and know they can do and learn difficult things. (If this is challenging in your family, try a reward system.)

2- After I shower, I ALWAYS squeegee! I know that it may seem like a pain, but it saves so much time in the long run. Who likes to scrub off soap scum or hard water spots? Not me, I’ve been there and done that! To squeegee the shower takes less than 1 minute, and is so worth it! If I take a bath, I wipe it down afterwards with a cloth. Once again, no soap scum and it’s so much easier to keep clean. If you are wondering, yes my hubby always uses the squeegee too. He doesn’t enjoy scrubbing off hard water spots or soap scum either.

3- After I do my hair and makeup, I wipe down the countertop, sink and mirror. I do keep a cleaning cloth and polishing cloth for my mirror hanging on a hook in my shower. That way it’s always easy to grab and use. This takes less than 15 seconds to do this and my bathroom always looks clean. All items I use to get ready in the morning are always put away in the cabinet right after I use them.

4- I usually make lunches the night before, so it’s easy to just grab them out of the fridge. I also make sure that all dishes are put in the dishwasher after breakfast and wipe the sink and counters with a cloth.

That is it! Pretty simple, and I follow the same routine after lunch and dinner. I never leave dishes in the sink. It really only takes a couple of minutes to load the dishwasher and wipe down the counters, but if I were to leave dishes in the sink and let them pile up then it is a real chore! I usually try to unload the dishwasher as I am preparing a meal, then it’s ready to load after the meal.

Once a week I dust, vacuum, sweep and clean the bathrooms. This can all be done rather quickly if I am not cleaning up clutter. I have gotten in the habit of putting things away when I am done with it. So cleaning can be rather fast, if time is not spent on clutter removal.

Spring cleaning can be quite a chore, and I would rather spend time outside enjoying the beautiful spring weather and puttering around my garden. I follow this method daily, or almost. If I have a crazy busy or stressful week I may miss a day or two or even a whole week, but I always get right back on my schedule. Lets look at how I do this . . .

When I talk about deep cleaning, I am talking about baseboards, doors, walls, kitchen cabinets etc. The items, that generally get cleaned only in the spring. Now this method of doing deep cleaning 10 minutes a day was a game changer for me. This 10 minutes can be in the morning, afternoon or evening. It really doesn’t matter, what matters is that you do it. 

I have divided up the chores in the house into 5 zones or areas. That corresponds with 5 weeks in a month.

As you look at the calendar, you will notice that I have assigned one zone for each week of the month. The 1st week and the 5th week may not always have a full week, but that doesn’t matter. Zones 1 and 5 will have less items to clean or items that don’t take as long and it all works out.

So this is how it works, I look at my schedule for zone 1, since this is week one and choose something on the list to clean. Next, I grab the cleaning supplies needed, turn on some energizing music, set a timer for 10 minutes and clean. Usually I can clean a couple of items listed in the 10 minute time. I mark them off my list, and the following day I choose another couple of items to clean. Each item to be cleaned should take less than 10 minutes. I break it down into small jobs that can be done quickly.

I keep a HOME binder. I will share more about my home binder on our next organizing post, but I also keep in it the zone cleaning schedule. I have put them in sheet protectors and mark off jobs done with a dry erase marker. Then when completed, simply erase and start again.

As you look at zone 2 which is the kitchen, there are less items on the list. This is because with all the cooking, surfaces get greasy and need to be cleaned more frequently. Therefore, the jobs on the kitchen list will be repeated more often.

I do not generally use chemical cleaners. I use Norwex cloths for all my general cleaning. I’m not promoting them, I don’t work for them or receive any compensation. It is just what I prefer to use. They are a micro fiber cloth with a silver thread woven into them that disinfects them. This makes it super fast to clean without having to get a separate cleaner. For the kitchen cabinets for instance, one day I will wipe down all the outside of the cabinets. On day 2, I may wipe down the inside of the cabinets.

Back in the day using my old method of spring cleaning, I would empty out a cabinet then clean it and put the dishes back in. NOT now, I remove items from one side of the shelf, wipe, slide the items over, wipe, then put the dishes back. This is much less work and is a lot faster.

To clean the plantation shutters, I use my damp Norwex cloth and quickly wipe each shutter. I will usually clean the inside of the window and window sill at the same time, since I will need to slide out the furniture.

Using an upholstery brush attachment on my vacuum, I can clean my draperies and rods. Usually once a year I will toss them in the dryer with a damp bath towel for about 20 minutes. Using this method, the dust attaches to the damp towel and I will not have to have the expense of having them dry cleaned.

Using a wall duster, go around the edge of the ceiling, wiping down cobwebs. I also use this to dust the entire wall. A telescoping dust mop also works great for this. I only use a damp cloth around door knobs, light switches and in the hallway where the kids drag their hands.

Remove the dust under and behind furniture using the attachments on the vacuum and a dusting wand. If you struggle with allergies, you might be surprised at how much dust is hiding behind and under furniture.

Now after you start this deep cleaning method, and you complete every job in a zone, after a couple of months and it’s time to start over you may think it’s clean I don’t need to clean this again, but it you keep it up it takes even less time because your home really never gets really dirty, it’s always clean. Now that feels GOOD!

We hope this has been helpful and inspired you to give this method a try. Please let us know how it is working for you. If you have some areas that you need help with and are struggling to know how to keep it clean and orderly, please comment below. We would love to hear from you! 

For a FREE copy of my cleaning zones and how to implement it, please go to our website for the FREE downloads.