Making Kitchen Cleaning Easy by Risa Attrell

If there is one thing that we homemakers know it's that the hardest room in the house to keep clean and orderly is the kitchen. That's because the kitchen is where meals are constantly being made, which continuously makes the pots and pans dirty. Likewise it is the place where the family eats and takes snacks, which constantly creates dirty dishes, and crumbs of food. Even when we make the kitchen sparkling clean, it doesn't take long for the work to get undone. What can we do to make this job easier?

Keep It Brainless
You may not believe this, but to a large extent the difficulty in keeping the kitchen clean and orderly is not in the work itself, but in the thinking about it.

"What??" you think. "What is there to think about cleaning the kitchen? It's not rocket science!" Well that's true- it's not rocket science. But I bet you think about it more than you realize. Imagine your kitchen needs cleaning. There are dirty dishes in the sink and on the table, the floor needs sweeping, the counters need clearing and washing. What is the first thing you do when you walk in? Chances are the first thing you do is sigh and think to yourself "Okay, what should I do first? Should I clear the table, or should I wash the dishes?..." And after you do the first task, whatever that is, you look around again and think "Now what should I do next?..."
Does this sound like you? If you don't think so, pay attention next time you clean your kitchen. Pay attention to your thoughts. You may be surprised to discover that you think about it more than you realize. Believe it or not, it is this thinking that makes the job difficult, not the actual cleaning.

Think about it. How hard is it to wash the dishes? You may find the work boring and tedious, but is it really that hard? Well, I guess it is if you left the dirty dishes sitting there for a while without soaking it, which is a dumb thing to do in my opinion. But otherwise washing dishes is not that hard. Neither is clearing a table, or clearing the counter, or any of the other jobs that you do to keep your kitchen looking nice and pleasant. So what's so hard about it? What's hard is that when you start the job, you feel overwhelmed by all the different things you have to do.

The answer to this is to 'Keep It Brainless.' That means you should have an order to which you clean the kitchen, and you stick to that order every day. You can make whatever order works best for you. In a short time you will learn this order by heart and will not need to consult a written list. As soon as you enter the kitchen, instead of thinking about it, you will head straight to job #1. Then when you're finished with that, you will begin job #2, and so forth. No more thinking about it. Your kitchen will be done before you know it. If you keep up with this routine every day, I bet you will find that your kitchen is neater over-all, and that you find it much easier to clean.

So Which Order Is Best?
I'm not sure there's a best order for everyone. You may have to experiment to find what order is best for you. But I can offer a suggestion.

I would recommend that you always put away the groceries first whenever there are groceries to put away.

Then clear the table if it needs to be cleared.

Right after that, wash the dishes. The dishes are very important to put at the top of your list. Sometimes you may be too tired to take care of everything, so at least take care of the groceries and the dishes, so the food doesn't spoil, and you don’t have to start washing the pots just before you make dinner.

Next, sweep the floor, followed by washing the stovetop, and then clear and wash the counters. Lastly is the sink. Then mop if necessary.

That's my suggestion, but you may find that a different order works for you. The important thing is that you get into a routine so that you don't have to think about it.

All this of course doesn't apply to the 'deep cleaning.' Having a routine that you don't have to think about won't make the jobs of scrubbing the oven and the fridge easier. But at least when it comes to overall appearances, working without thinking is the easiest way.




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