How to spend less time cleaning your kitchen
Do you feel like you’re cleaning your kitchen all day long? Or do you feel like it takes you an hour or more to clean the kitchen every night? Personally, I don’t want to clean my kitchen all day long or have multiple cleaning sessions a day. I can tolerate a sink with dirty dishes and forgo spotless countertops for the sake of spending less time and energy cleaning.
As with all things household related, this may not ring true for you. What works for me, might not work for you. Some helpful questions to ponder include:
What is my tolerance for having a “not immaculate” kitchen for all or most of the day
How much time are you willing to spend to reset your kitchen at the end of the day?
Would you rather do micro resets at the end of each meal, or a larger reset at the end of each day?
What you’re really trying to do is right-size your kitchen tidy and kitchen cleaning circles and figure out how many revolutions you want to make in a day. (This is the R in my RESET model, learn more about right-sizing here).
For me, I’m trying to strike the right balance between my tolerance for a “not immaculate” kitchen with the time and energy I’m willing to spend on this task. The process I’ve landed on balances these out well for me personally. Here’s the easiest way for me to clean my kitchen. Maybe it will give you some ideas for your own process? Maybe it will get you thinking about what would work for you and your household.
Keeping your kitchen “cleanish” throughout the day
For our family this means cleaning up after yourself. Putting trash in the garbage, food back in the pantry/fridge/freezer, and putting your dishes in the sink. For me, having everyone put their dishes in the sink is HUGE! It is one of the first “chores” I require my kids to do for themselves, and they usually can start helping with this from a very young age. My sons started helping with this when they were 2 or 3. Expect that younger children will need a reminder to put their dishes in the sink. To me it is a VERY worthwhile habit to help your children cultivate. You might not think that having all of the dishes in the sink is helpful at all, but it makes loading the dishwasher (the main part of my nightly kitchen reset) SO much easier.
Resetting your kitchen each night
At the end of each day I spend 15 or 20 minutes resetting the kitchen. This looks like: loading and starting the dishwasher, wiping down counters and scrubbing the sink bowl. Weirdly, I find this more satisfying and sort of like a ritual when I do it in a methodical way. I have a very set way that I load the dishes and I always scrub the sink last. I think doing it in the very same way most nights takes out the thought and lets my mind wander instead and reflect on the day or think about what is coming ahead tomorrow.
Clean all of the other stuff when you notice it needs to be cleaned
I personally don’t have a set schedule for cleaning bigger appliances like the microwave, fridge or oven. However, a set schedule could work really well for some (i.e. I clean the microwave each Thursday, I wipe down the fridge shelves every Saturday, I deep clean the fridge twice a year and I deep clean the oven once a year). How does this work in practice? If I notice my microwave is looking or smelling dirty, I’ll boil some water and vinegar in a bowl or cup for a few minutes, let it steam up the microwave and then wipe it down with a clean microfiber cloth. It takes less than 2 minutes of hands of time (and less than 5 minutes in total). If I notice the fridge shelves need to be wiped I’ll wipe them down really quickly with some warm water and a clean microfiber cloth. This also takes me less than 5 minutes typically. These cleaning activities can be done at any time or I sometimes pair them with my nightly reset. The BEST time to wipe down fridge shelves is the day before grocery shopping, when your fridge is at its emptiest.
Do you want to spend less time cleaning your kitchen everyday but need more ideas? Check out my workbook that walks you through how you can spend less time cleaning. Or, come to a workshop or book a call for more support!
