How I lazily keep my house clean?
1. Clorox Wipes. I feel a little bit wasteful and un-green even buying the refills and bulk packs, but on the other hand, I do really use each wipe all up before starting another and I don't use them for dumb things like simple dusting. I could be using an aerosol or waaay more paper towels, or just throw away dirty things, though, so in a roundabout way they're greenish.
2. Allowing myself to be messy-clean... what I mean by this is that instead of throwing something onto a pile, and moving that pile around, or stepping over it, or whatever, I have purchased shelves and organizers for every space that might include small items, papers, or stored bulk items. This allows me to deposit those things into their corellating pile-within-a-container and still be a little bit messy within that organized partition. Magazines go in holders on shelves by magazine and color-coded by type, but in no particular order. When I run out of room, I thumb through the oldest few and if there is nothing I want, out it goes! Obviously I haven't used it in a year! Or for bills, they get thrown (neatly) into a Pendaflex for that bill, the tab at the top of which is a small cropped portion of that bill and a labelmaker-made label explaining the bill purpose; each new year I put the old year's in an oxford folder inside of that Pendaflex, and throw away the year-before-last's oxford. If I want a specific month, again, I'm going to have to thumb through quickly... but it makes more sense to do that on the off chance I need to refer to an old bill (or set of old bills) than to spend the time meticulously organizing now. Clean-messy.
3. Roomba. It forces me to do the 10-15 minutes of picking up that I'd have to do before a *GOOD* vacuuming anyway (instead of making me debate doing it and settling for a quick vacuuming), and after that, I am able to start on the dishes or put on my headphones and listen to my podcasts or start cooking dinner, instead of another 20-25 minutes of vacuuming. And I can run it every day, and it ends up being 95-98% clean every day, instead of 99% the first day, and 80% in a few days, and then 60% in two weeks... etc. Plus they're entertaining to watch.
4. Closets I edit with two different methods. One, the reverse-hanger method. I go through my closet and switch it with the seasons (in Nebraska, it's hot summers and cooold winters), and at that time reverse the hangers on everything (put them the wrong way on the rod)... then upon wearing and replacing the item in the closet, it's the right way. What hasn't been worn by the end of that active weather season gets rolled up and put in a tote. The other method gives us boundaries to being packrats for clothes that don't fit or we don't often wear. My partner and I just get one tote each of "maybe someday, can't part with, sentimental value, etc" clothes, and what doesn't fit, gets donated or thrown away.
5. Velcro strips are most awesome and more easily reusable than those plastic tightener things for cable management in our A/V area, the backs of our computers, appliances on kitchen counters, and any electrical items in our quaint bathroom, and they also improve on aesthetics.
6. Invite friends over for a movie night, or your family to visit, or something like that (with a few days to spare). Nothing works as good at pushing me to get cleaning up to speed after a time of slacking. I'll put in extra hours and undertake long-procrastinated just to make things perfect for their visit, giving me the extra boost needed to keep things up to par year-round.
