How to clean your home in just 15 minutes a day using the FlyLady method

Hate cleaning your home? Find out how to stay on top of your cleaning in just 15 minutes a day using the FlyLady method.

Do you find cleaning boring, never-ending and a dreaded chore? If so, trust us, you’re not alone! But cleaning doesn’t have to be a drudgery.

As Nick Acaster is Managing Director of Stair Rods Direct explains, by using the FlyLady cleaning method you can make cleaning easy and manageable – and stay on top of it in as little as 15 minutes a day.

Don’t overlook neglected high traffic areas

While you might devote a lot of time to keeping your main living spaces – like your lounge, kitchen, and bedroom – tidy, it’s easy to neglect high-traffic areas like your staircase and hallways. But they can quickly become dumping grounds, making your home feel cluttered. So, it can certainly pay to give them some special attention.

A lot of people swear by the FlyLady method to keep their homes neat and tidy. And, this technique can work very well for your staircase and hallways. Here, I’m going to share what the FlyLady cleaning method is and explain how it can help you to keep on top of things in your home.

How does the FlyLady cleaning method work?

The whole point of the FlyLady method is to make cleaning your home a lot more manageable, so you don’t find it stressful. And the main way it does this is by breaking the cleaning process down into smaller steps.

It encourages you to choose a task and then set a timer for 15 minutes. You might get one thing done, or you might be able to tidy a whole area – every little helps. 

A big element of this technique is to break your house down into zones, and then you can concentrate on one of these each week. For example, you might devote one week to your living room, another to your kitchen, and a third to your hallways and staircase.

Another reason that the FlyLady method is so popular is that it promotes working your cleaning into your everyday habits. So, you might move clutter from a step each time you go upstairs to your bedroom.

Saving certain jobs for later can also help to prevent you from getting overwhelmed. Today you could clear away the mess on your stairs. The next day, you might hoover your carpet, and then you could wipe down your banisters the day after that.

If you’re tired of doing one big tidy, only for your house to gradually get messier over the next week, this method could work well, as it will help you to stay on top of things. Here are some tips for using the FlyLady method to keep your staircase and hallways in tip-top shape. 

Start small

With the FlyLady cleaning technique, it’s vital that you’re consistent. So, while you might feel a burst of motivation to declutter your whole house in one go, this isn’t sustainable. This is why it’s so important to stick to the 15 minutes of tidying or cleaning every day. You can then see what else fits into your existing daily routine, but make sure you aren’t trying to do too much at once. 

The official FlyLady site actually has a guide to the beginner baby steps you should take to avoid becoming overwhelmed by everything on your to-do list. This is a great place to start your new cleaning journey.

Tailor your plan to your home

There are so many guides to the FlyLady method out there, and people have even created example routines that you could follow. But remember that every house is completely unique, so you need to design a plan that works for you.

For example, if you have any unusual features, such as stair rods that you like to shine on a regular basis, this will need to be factored in.

The best approach is to make a list of different jobs you need to keep doing to keep your staircase and hallways in good shape. Then you can try to break them down into what you think you can realistically get done in 15 minutes. Each day, you can then work through a set of tasks. 

Be patient

If you’re only devoting around 15 minutes a day to tidying and cleaning your home, you won’t see results straight away. In fact, it might take a week or so before you start to see a difference. But, once you’re in the habit of tackling your jobs each day, you’ll really start to feel the benefits.

One of the main advantages of using the FlyLady method is that it makes it much easier for you stay on top of things. So, while you might have previously let clutter pile up on your stairs and then done a big clean when it got a bit too much, this technique should make things much more manageable. You should never have to spend a whole day cleaning your house again! 

If you want to devote more time to keeping your staircase and hallways in tip-top shape, try using the FlyLady method. It involves spending just 15 minutes of each day cleaning a particular area of your home, so everything is more manageable and you won’t get overwhelmed. Give it a go!

Nick Acaster is Managing Director of Stair Rods Direct.

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM