Quick and Easy Housework for Time Pressed Parents

Like many working parents, I work hard all week and the last thing I often want to do on my precious time off is housework - think of the job of an Iron Maid and you'll understand why!

I try to make the whole process of keeping my home clean and tidy as simple as possible and thought I’d share some tips with you, especially around cleaning and storage.

Hallway

The vast majority of dust and dirt is brought into your home by your footwear, so it makes sense to ask everyone to remove their shoes when coming home or visiting.  Think how much time you will save on vacuuming and cleaning floors.  Having everyone’s slippers ready on a shoe rack in the hall encourages this.

Another tip is to have a really good doormat and ask everyone to use is.  In houses with narrow hallways and a small lobby/entrance area, coir matting is ideal for this.  My tiny entrance lobby of just 3 ft x 2ft is one big coir mat – it looks good and is extremely practical.  It’s also very easy to vacuum.

My mother used to go to extreme lengths here and would pounce on the dog whenever she let him in from a wet garden and wipe his paws with an old towel.  Poor mutt soon got used to it and would wait patiently!  Just spending two minutes doing this saved ages of time removing muddy footprints.

Another tip for tidying as you go along is to invest in a stair basket – anything that needs to go up stairs goes into the basket to be taken up once or twice a day.  An easy habit to develop and it saves lots of running up and down.  Not to mention looking much nicer than an article on every step being ignored by you and the rest of the family because it’s all too much to carry.

If you have pets, invest in a vacuum cleaner that had been designed especially to tackle animal hair and has lots of tools for getting into all those nooks and crannies where the hair seems to gather.

Kitchen

If you have put some time into think about the best way to lay out your kitchen and where to keep things it will reduce the time you spend preparing meals.  Set up three main workspaces: preparation area, cooking area and clean-up area. This is the so called “kitchen triangle” and connects refrigerator, sink and cooker.

Organising your most used kitchen utensils and ingredients around these key zones will help ensure you have everything to hand when it comes to food preparation and cooking.

Keep a bottle of anti-bacterial spray to hand and you can readily clean up as you go along and micro-fibre cloths are super efficient, easy to wash and dry and much kinder to the environment than paper towels.  There are even multi purpose cleaners on the market now that can be used on both kitchen surfaces and floors – saving time and money.  A fresh scent will leave your entire kitchen smelling clean and fresh

Bathroom

The only way to keep on top of your bathroom is with a quick daily wipe round of clutter free surfaces.  Wherever possible, keep things in cupboards, drawers or baskets in the bathroom and only have out the daily essentials.  A friend of mine, colour codes everything for her children i.e.  a tooth brush, flannel and towel etc. for her children and each child is responsible for keeping their own “colour” tidy.  It has certainly worked and everyone puts their own things away and there’s often a competition to see who finished first!  Great idea!

Just like in the kitchen, a single all-purpose cleaner and micro fibre cloths make short work of any mess and spills and you don’t need a whole array of cleaning products taking up space and costing more money

One thing I do buy separately is bleach for the loo and a swish of bleach and a quick scrub keeps the toilet clean too – keeping on top of it every day saves so much time in the long run.

For the tougher cleaning jobs in the house, I have one main ally and it’s a throw back from my grandfather’s days as a painter and decorator –sugar soap.  It really is the best at getting off greasy residue and really tough ground in dirt and even better, it’s now available in a ready made up spray form.  No more messing around measuring and diluting.

Finally, research shows that if your home smells nice, it will “feel” cleaner to everyone who enters it.  Keep your home fresh smelling with scented candles and discreet air fresheners – only you know if you’ve cleaned behind the fridge and chances are if you have a fragrant home everyone will think you’re a regular Queen of Clean!

I’m sure we all have lots of tips and tricks at making things easier at home – why not let me know about them below.

Happy Housework!

Look after your Laptop

I have a new toy at home. A lovely shiny, super-fast, ultra-thin new laptop that has cost me a considerable amount of pennies. I think it’s fair to say that I heart it very much.....

When you think about it, a new laptop is one of the most expensive things that you are likely to buy and looking after it really is important and will even help prolong the life of your machine.

If anything else had cost you hundreds of pounds would you lean over it whilst eating, cradle cups of tea near it or even, as I have seen Tallest Daughter do for a moment (before she was severely reprimanded), balance a cup of water on it? Nope – thought not!

For those of you like me who do eat near your laptop – and who can resist a Hob Nob whilst tweeting or looking at old school friends’ photos on Facebook? Then you’re a better (wo)man than I am! – you may have noticed that crumbs do get lodged in your keyboard. I once had a sticky K key for days that had fallen victim to a teeny, weeny crumb of lemon curd tart. I also know that for those of you working in offices, lunch at your desk is a daily occurrence. It’s even harder to keep work keyboards clean.

IF I am eating near my laptop I do tend to have a napkin to hand and will wipe my hands before going anywhere near the keyboard again and that’s because there is nothing worse known to man than a sticky patch on your mouse pad – that renders work impossible!
I have invested in a spray of specialist laptop cleaner that comes with a small microfibre cloth and that’s perfect for a wipe down of the screen and keyboard area every few days and helps keep things a little cleaner. The same cleaner does a great job on my touchscreen phone too – well, it’s more effective than rubbing it on my jeans which is what I normally do. Or even worse, pulling up the bottom hem of whatever top I’m wearing to clean my mobile. Reminiscent of my grandmother cleaning her glasses but with less huffing!
All this is great for weekly cleaning but we all should really give our laptops a deep clean on a regular basis. 
Here’s the best way to do this:

• Step One – turn your laptop off! 
• Step Two - use a small canister of compressed air to get rid of dust/food particles in the keyboard. These can be bought online, from any good stationers or electrical goods shop
• Step Three - wipe down the screen with a microfibre cloth.
• Step Four - use a cotton wool bud and either a squirt of your PC cleaner or rubbing alcohol to clean between the keys.
• Step Five - with a slightly damp cloth wipe down the keys and mouse pad.
• Step Six - close the lid and wipe it down. You’ll be amazed how many finger prints are here that grabbing your cuff and giving the lid a cursory wipe down with your forearm hasn’t moved!
• Step Seven - all to avoid a dusty bottom, gently turn your laptop over and use the compressed air to clean the fan. Every few months, you should even remove the bottom cover and use the compressed air to blow away any fluff that may be lurking inside on the fan.

The final step can be really useful in stopping your laptop overheating. If you hear your fan working hard and your laptop feels hot underneath, turn it off immediately, let it cool down and then try cleaning the van. This is like emergency first aid for your beloved machine.

So, short of wrapping my lovely new toy in cling film and only using it inside a plastic bubble, I know that the tips above are going to become part of my regular cleaning routine.

Look after your laptop, as life really isn’t the same without it!