How to Clean Your House Fast (10 Speed Cleaning Tips)

Top 10 Speed Cleaning Tips & House Cleaning Secrets

If you’re like me and you’re crunched for time, you probably don’t have all day to spend cleaning and organizing your house. That’s why you need to learn how to clean your house fast and efficiently (yes, it’s possible).

All it takes to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat is a good deep clean a couple times a year and an arsenal of speed cleaning tips. That’s why today, we’re sharing our top 10 house cleaning secrets to help you out. Get ready to become a pro house cleaner!

1. Have an Established System and Routine

Do a little cleaning, but do it regularly. The consistency keeps the house from getting too trashed in the first place, so it shaves a lot of time off your cleaning routine.

Also, schedule the time to do it! In the case of your yearly spring cleaning, schedule a good amount of time, deep clean, and then take care of it! Because you spent the time cleaning, you should be able to do quick weekly cleanups and your house should stay in tip-top shape!

Recommended cleaning pattern from the pros:

1. Start each room to the left of the doorway, at the top, and moving clockwise and down.
2. Finish each area before you move on, you don’t want to waste time going back and forth between areas.

2. Move Quickly

…and don’t let yourself get distracted. Stay off your phone or whatever might take your attention away from the task at hand. (My phone can be a huge distraction for me!)

Set a timer for each area and go, go, go! You can probably get your whole house clean in an hour or less if you keep yourself moving. Make every moment count!

3. Get the Machines Running

Load and start the washing machine and the dishwasher first, then clean other areas while they run. Get those dirty dishes out of sight!

I don’t know about you, but I am sure grateful for machines that can do the work for me. As soon as you hear the buzzer go off, change the load and go back to work!

4. Let Cleaning Products Do Work for You

Spray it on and let it sit while you clean the other surfaces in the area. When you come back to it, the mess will be easier and faster to wipe clean. Check out our list of DIY cleaners if you want some cheap and effective cleaners.

Another way to put this idea to work is to pour toilet bowl cleaner into the toilet before you go to bed at night, then just brush and flush in the morning. It works for you, while you sleep!

5. Remove Clutter

This is one of my favorite speed cleaning tips: Grab a laundry basket and start putting any out-of-place items and clutter in there. Then find a nice, tucked-away home for those items.

Keep the surfaces as clear of stuff as you can – tables, desks, kitchen counters, whatever. The emptier the kitchen counter, the better it looks.

6. Focus on the Big Picture

If you do a good job during your spring cleaning going behind the furniture and reaching those hard to get to areas, your cleaning will go by SO much faster for the next few months!

On your weekly cleanings, you can skip cleaning behind the furniture and any other places that people cannot see, along with the little stuff and details. You can then just vacuum the high traffic areas where dirt may be visible.

7. Disposable Cleaning Wipes

Keep containers of disposable cleaning wipes around the house (like under sinks) for quick cleaning jobs. Quickly wiping up a mess soon after it happens is usually easier and faster than trying to clean it up later. It also makes it easy to routinely wipe down the surfaces in that area.

8. Get Smart with Storage

Store all of your usual cleaning products and tools together so they are easy to find. Keep regular cleaning products in a caddy with a handle, so you can just grab and go. You could use a cleaning tote, caddy, bucket, or whatever you want to call it!

By doing this, you aren’t wasting time trying to gather up your stuff. Consider creating one for each level of the house, if that makes it more convenient for you.

9. Simplify

Simplify your cleaning products. Just stick to the most effective, multi-purpose cleaners. You should be able to fit everything you need into your storage caddy, or whatever container you use. 😉 Be sure to check out our favorite DIY cleaner recipes.

This is my favorite Homemade All Purpose Cleaner

10. Use a vacuum for all floor surfaces

Skip the broom! Along with that, it is helpful to get a 50-foot extension cord for your vacuum, so you can just cruise through each space without having to move the plug around to different outlets as much.

That’s How to Clean Your House Fast

I hope you found these speed cleaning tips useful! After implementing them you’ll find that cleaning your house isn’t such a horrible task after all. It just takes some organization and some cleaning hacks to make it easier.

Bonus house cleaning secret: Don’t let kids into your house. 😉 But if you must…get them to do the vacuuming and other simple chores that will be helpful while you work on other cleaning tasks. My young kids think vacuuming is fun and they actually do a pretty good job. They are also easily motivated, so it works out great!

For more great cleaning tips, check out these articles from Better Homes and Gardens and Organized Home.