The hardest part of the house to keep clean is often the kitchen, due to grease, food residue, and frequent use, especially appliances like the oven and range hood, followed closely by the bathroom with its showers, toilets, and sinks, while specific problem areas across the house include floors (especially old ones with cracks), baseboards, and nooks where dust and pet hair accumulate, and specialized items like blinds, keyboards, and refrigerator coils.
Kitchen. The kitchen will usually take the longest to clean since there's not only food residue, but also grease. Appliances will go through regular use too, and they'll need some elbow grease.
Behind & Under Large Appliances (Refrigerator, Oven, Washer/Dryer) The areas behind and beneath large appliances are some of the dirtiest spots in any home. These hidden spaces collect layers of dust, food crumbs, grease, pet hair, and even mold if neglected for too long.
If the 5x5 method is as new to you as it was to me, allow me to explain. Coined by Steph of The Secret Slob, this technique requires nothing but a timer and twenty-five free minutes. Pick five rooms or zones and dedicate five minutes per area. In twenty-five minutes, Steph promises a cleaner, less cluttered home.
The most important part of your home to always keep clean is your kitchen and living room area. Because you need it nice and tidy for any surprise visits. And very simple to keep up with tidying up your home is by always starting the day with making your bed.
The biggest things that devalue a house are location issues (bad crime, poor schools, noise), major structural/maintenance problems (roof, foundation), outdated kitchens/bathrooms, extreme personalization (bold colors, quirky decor), poor presentation/clutter, and legal issues (unpermitted work, zoning problems). These factors signal future costs and headaches, making buyers hesitant or drastically lowering their offers.
The idea behind the 10-10 decluttering method is refreshingly simple—which ups the chances that you'll be able to stick to it! Over the course of 10 days, you'll declutter 10 items a day from 10 different areas or rooms of your home. Not hardcore enough? Try limiting each day's decluttering session to only 10 minutes.
The 50% rule for clutter is a decluttering method that challenges you to remove half the items from any given space (closets, drawers, rooms) to create instant space, reduce overwhelm, and achieve a more organized, functional environment by keeping only what truly adds value. It's a powerful technique for making significant progress quickly, forcing intentional decisions about what to keep versus what to let go of, making finding and using items easier.
The Core 4 Method was created by professional organiser Kayleen Kelly. It's designed to keep things simple and strip decluttering right back to the basics. The four steps — Clear Out, Categorise, Cut Out and Contain — give you a structured plan that says exactly what it does on the tin.
Sometimes, however, significant clutter problems can be linked to underlying mental health conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, hoarding disorder, major depressive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and anxiety disorders.
Professional cleaners follow a strategic plan.
Professional cleaners often do the following to maximise time: They declutter the space before cleaning. They dust surfaces first before mopping. They clean from top to bottom and left to right to avoid backtracking or cleaning in circles.
Recommended Order for Cleaning a House
The 20-minute cleaning rule is a simple, effective method to keep your home tidy by setting a timer for 20 minutes of focused cleaning, often followed by a short break (the 20/10 method), preventing messes from overwhelming you by tackling small, consistent tasks daily instead of big, daunting clean-ups. It's about progress, not perfection, breaking down chores into manageable sprints to reduce stress and maintain order.
Clean House Checklist Tip #1: Start With The Furthest Room From the Front Door. To clean like a professional maid, start your cleaning process upstairs or in the room that is furthest away from your front door. This ensures that you're not having to redo your hard work as you move back and forth between rooms.
The 333 method philosophy revolves around one simple rule: you choose 33 items to wear for 3 months. This includes clothing, accessories, outerwear and shoes, but excludes essentials like underwear, sleepwear or workout gear.
5 Decluttering Mistakes That Make Your Home Feel Colder, Not...
The 12-12-12 decluttering method, created by Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist, is a simple, manageable system where you find 12 items to throw away, 12 items to donate, and 12 items to return to their proper place in a room, totaling 36 items, which helps to quickly reduce clutter without overwhelm and build momentum. It's a quick, repeatable process for any area, focusing on immediate results by tackling trash, donations, and misplaced items in small, achievable steps.
Complex trauma disrupts a person's sense of safety, self-worth, and ability to form healthy relationships. These disruptions often manifest in behaviors like hoarding, which serve as coping mechanisms for unresolved pain.
Of course, the time it takes to declutter can vary for so many different reasons. It's hard to say there's a rule of thumb, but one view is that it can take 1 to 1.5 days per room (or 8 to 12 hours per room). Obviously, closets and bathrooms might require only a few hours, whereas a garage could take 2 to 3 days.
The "333 rule" in clothing refers to two popular, related concepts: the 3-3-3 Styling Method, choosing 3 tops, 3 bottoms, and 3 pairs of shoes to create 27 outfits (3x3x3) for easy styling and travel; and the Project 333, a minimalism challenge to wear only 33 items (including clothes, shoes, and accessories) for 3 months to reduce consumption. Both methods promote versatility, getting creative with existing items, and building a functional capsule wardrobe.
What is the Sunday Butterfly method? Simply put, instead of following an order of events, you move through your home and put away, declutter, organize or clean the items you notice.
What is the rule of three for cleaning closets? This is one of the quickest ways to determine if an item is worth keeping. Evaluate each article of clothing and see if you can come up with three different occasions to wear it, or three distinct outfits to create with it.