A Crazy Easy Way to Clean Your House - a Guide for Lazy People

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This post was sponsored by P & G as part of an influencer Activation for Influence Central. I received complimentary products to facilitate my review.

Cleaning my house is such a pain, and I don’t know how it gets so dirty anyway. The only mess I honestly make is in the kitchen when I cook. Other than that, I know it’s a children thing.

They are messy. Really, really messy. It seems no matter how much they clean up behind themselves, the house just stays dirty.

From school projects to toddler activities to just living, it all adds up to one thing – more cleaning. It’s practically a 4-letter word with double the letters….and I don’t appreciate how its running my life!

Rant over now.

I’ll just have to learn to live with it. I like to say, “If you can’t make it, make it your own.” So I’m going to do just that to cleaning. I’ll make it lazy.

Normally, that means I just pay my 10-year-old to do it for me, but since he’s the cause of most of this problem and still not very good at cleaning, I’ll just have to get off my butt and do (most of it) myself.

I am realistic, though. I know I won’t spend more than an hour on any one task (I possibly have ADD) so I have to be efficient or it just won’t get completed.

It may not be a spring cleaning but it will be sanitary and bright. You could also call my method the way to make your guests think you cleaned a ton when you really didn’t. 🙂 This is a good one to pull off if you have guests coming over and you need to pretend you always keep your home photo ready.

Here’s how it goes: LAZY CLEANING 101

Step 1 – Gather all the supplies

I can’t stand getting on a roll and making good time, then having to stop to get more stuff. I like to place all my items on the countertop in the most center room so I don’t have to go too far to get what I need.

Part of being lazy is using stuff from around the house to clean with. I don’t want to make an extra trip to the store! We had just made our bi-weekly trip to Costco and I just happened to have one bajillion Bounty Advanced paper towels on hand. (not an exaggeration!) We always grab Bounty Advanced and Charmin Ultra Soft on our Costco runs so we’re never in danger of running out.

Here’s me and my nephew buying all the Bounty Advanced in sight! 🙂

When I get home with my load of Bounty Advanced, this guy loves to play with them before putting them away (which is his job, of course!)

I like P&G products because I trust their quality. I like the Bounty Advanced paper towels because they’re so absorbent, I find I don’t have to use as many to get the job done and they hold up well against all the scrubbing I do. After I’m finished, I can just toss them in the composter for the garden. All sorts of winning right there.

I can clean most of my house with 5 ingredients in addition to paper towels: water, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, white vinegar and dish soap. Most people have these ingredients on hand. Gather them all up and bring them to a central location.

Time investment: 5 minutes max.

Step 2 – Prep the supplies

Next, get some hot water and split it among 3 bowls. Add white vinegar and dish soap to one bowl then baking soda to the other. The last bowl should be clean water. You can use the peroxide out of the bottle so you don’t have to clean another bowl.

Time investment: 5 minutes

Step 3 – Designate areas and start cleaning right away (no time to waste!)

I like to send one kid to the living room and the other to the bedrooms. While the kids are picking up toys and taking out the trash, I give any piled up clutter a designated home. This is a quick clean so it doesn’t have to be in it’s final place now, but at least get it gathered and stashed in boxes or cabinets/drawers. Later on when you get the cleaning bug again, you can let fixing the issues you just created be your focus.

For maximum impact, your focus should be on decluttering your visual field and tackling kitchen counters and bathroom surfaces.

Use the peroxide in the bathroom for the toilet, shower and sinks.
The vinegar mixture is good for all over kitchen, shelves and hard floors.
Sprinkle the baking soda on the carpet and let it sit for a while, then vacuum it up last.

Lazy person tip! Soak the Bounty Advanced paper towels in the cleaning solution and wrap it or lay it on areas that need a harder cleaning and let them sit while you get other spots done. No need to scrub when a little bit of hot water cleaning solution and time will loosen it all up for you!

Case in point (obviously, make sure the stove is turned off for this one!):

This works like a charm. It really helps make clean-up go a lot faster and easier overall. When most of the job is finished, go back to those spots wrapped in Bounty Advanced paper towels and finish them.

Time investment: 30-45 minutes for “deep” cleaning (depends on how fast you clean and how many kids you have!)

The Last IMPORTANT Step!

When I am done with the overall cleaning and vacuuming, I like to give the house a good once-over with a spray of Febreze Air Effects (also a P&G product I grabbed at Costco!) for added “looks and smells like you did a deep cleaning” freshness. It only takes a minute or two and makes the biggest difference. According to the P&G website, Febreze Air Effects contain these little molecules that straight up eliminate stink rather than simply masking it.

I don’t know about all that, but I do know that my mother-in-law complimented me the last time she came over after I had give our home the “one-hour once-over” and finished up with some Febreze Air Effects! It’s the little details that matter! And what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her! :=)

Total time investment: gathering supplies + prepping supplies + cleaning + spraying Febreze = less than one hour!

It’s a simple plan, and it totally works for me. If you give it a try, let me know in the comments below!

Cecilia Williams

Is a hard working mother of 2 that enjoys taking naps, solving puzzles and helping make this world a better place, one article at a time.
Come check me out over at my blog www.lazygeniusmom.com

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