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Now that the festive season is over and regular life is resuming, we’ve partnered with cleaning and organisation expert, The OCD by Christine, to share cleaning micro-resolutions for your best year yet. After all, a tidy home equals a tidy mind.
As part of our Westinghouse Home Hack Heroes content series and Now You Can foundation, Insta-famous cleaning expert and mum of one, Christine Krach shares her cost-of-living friendly cleaning tips to start today. Read on for Christine’s tips.
1. Put it away, not down
Create a habit of putting things away once you’ve finished using them. (If only we could teach our kids the same.) This means you’re avoiding a stressful sort-out and pack-away of items later by ensuring everything is in its place before you move on to the next chore or activity.
Think of it like: once something is put away, the process is done. In some instances, you may find that laying out every tool in your kitchen is helpful in keeping track of what you need to do, as you pack each away after you’ve completed the task for which it's needed.
2. Choose your appliances wisely
Investing in kitchen appliances with easy-to-clean designs is a must to save you time after cooking. Gone are the days where I tirelessly spend scrubbing my oven and cooktop of any residue burn marks that fizzled over.
My built-in-Australia Westinghouse Freestanding Cooker (WFE946SD) offers fingerprint-resistant stainless steel and an easy-clean glass panel that allows me to clean all surfaces with my under-$10 cleaning combination of water and dishwashing soap. With one wipe, I’m able to remove any leftover stains without needing to deep clean my appliances.
3. Set a chore alarm
Dedicate specific amounts of time doing chores or focus on certain daily non-negotiable tasks to keep up the daily home clean-up. These non-negotiables can be as simple as making your bed or clearing the dishwasher and can assist in organising intervals in your day between or ahead of your busy commitments. Start the morning by setting an alarm for 15 minutes and focus on getting these non-negotiables done, rather than start stopping.
If you work from home, a 15-minute lunchtime chore alarm could let you do a quick vacuum or unload the dishwasher, to save you time later to relax and spend time with the family.
4. Set days for set tasks
Set days to clean certain items to ensure you’re not behind on necessities. I like to wash bath towels on Monday, tea towels on Tuesday, and so-forth until there are only drips and drabs of items to be washed by the end of the week.
Or if you prefer to smash out an entire room clean in a day, organise your week ahead by which room you’ll be cleaning first.
Up-to-date kitchen appliances allow you to manage your time alongside their cycles, so now you can do a deep clean of an entire room in a fraction of the time. For example, the aluminum filters of my Westinghouse Canopy Rangehood (WRC924SC) can be safely added to the dishwasher. So, while these are in the dishwasher, I can clean my cooktop and oven, and return to clean the dishwasher once its cycle is finished.
5. Save with DIY cleaning solutions
Trying new cleaning combinations and processes is great, but don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty! Given the current cost-of-living crisis, you might benefit from trying some of my favourite cleaning combinations for under $10:
- Dish soap and bi-carb soda to clean your sink
- Equal amounts of vinegar and water to clean your surfaces. Tip: you can add in some essential oils, too.
- Dishwashing tablets to clean your rangehood filters (or add it into your dishwasher, if it’s safe to do so)
