Speed-Cleaning Tips and Procedures: Clean Your House Quickly

De-Clutter!! Fly through your house and take down all clutter. I've put the rooms in bold so you can do a quick glance and get tips for specific areas of the house. Hide living room and family room clutter in your ottoman if possible, if not stash items inside your entertainment center and close the doors. Hide clutter from the bedrooms in your drawers, under the bed, and in the closet. Kitchen clutter and dirty dishes can be tossed into the dishwasher, under the sink or even hidden in the stove, yes, the stove! Just hide it! They'll be there in twenty minutes!!!!

The laundry, well, it often can be a problem to find room to hide it all. My advice, stuff as much laundry as you possibly can in your washer and dryer (clean or dirty it doesn't matter...company will be here in twenty minutes!) If you have more laundry put some in laundry baskets, but only what would be considered a "reasonable amount"...don't pile them high or they'll think, ok, they'll know, you never do laundry. If you have even more laundry the last resort is to hide it in your luggage, that's right, put your laundry in the luggage, put the luggage back on the shelf and move quickly to the next room! Office clutter can be easily hidden in desk drawers and filing cabinets, just put it all away! You can sort through the bills later!

The second zone - bathrooms!

Clean the bathroom! At least clean the guest bath and close the door to any other bathrooms. To do a quick clean of the bathroom shove all of the clutter from the vanity under the sink, straighten the towels, throw used towels & washclothes under the sink as well. Light a candle...ok, light a few candles, spray the shower curtain with some body splash for a fresh scent and wipe down the toilet with a wet paper towel, then flush it.

Finally, zone 3 - the floors!

Floors! Quickly vacuum the floors or use a shark or swiffer if you have them readily available, no, there is no time! Company will be here in twenty minutes!! Instead...remember that you can use anything to clean...including throw pillows, decorative stuffed animals, blankets, etc. Just grab any of the above and mop up the dust on the floor with it. Then hide the pillow or whatever it was behind the couch so no one uses a dust-filled pillow.

Once all three zones are done it's over! Twenty minutes is up and your company will be pulling in soon. Make yourself a beverage and if it's nice out go outside to the front porch and sit on the steps. When the company pull up seconds later they'll think you've just been casually waiting on them!