It’s fun to watch an evening cleaning routine on YouTube, but it’s even more fun to get into the habit of doing your own evening cleaning routine. When you end your day off getting things ready for the next day, it feels good. Plus, if you don’t get into the habit of doing an evening cleaning routine, you are more likely to allow stuff to pile up in the home and excuse the mess as a part of being busy or too tired.
5 Benefits Of An Evening Cleaning Routine
1. It Reduces The Amount Of Clean You Have To Do In The Morning
Cleaning is essential if you live in a home. Well, it’s not essential if you want a dirty, cluttered, and smelly home, but if you want a clean home, then you know that there’s always something that could be done in the way of cleaning.
If you want, you can do everything in your evening and not have anything to do in the morning for cleaning. But, if you want to split up your time, then having a good evening cleaning routine can help reduce the workload drastically in the morning.
2. A Clean Home Is A Home Worth Living In
As a teenager, I had a friend whose house was never clean. Her mother, who was a single mother, didn’t have any sort of cleaning routine, so often dishes would get left for a week until one of the kids couldn’t find something to eat off anymore. The bathrooms were gross, and there was stuff all over the place because there was no sense of where things could go. I don’t even remember clothes being folded and put away… there were always just dumps of clothes on the floors in the bedrooms.
They couldn’t live in it. They couldn’t sit down and watch TV without having to move a big mess out of the way. They couldn’t find a spot on the kitchen counter to make a sandwich. They couldn’t sit at the kitchen table or socialize or anything because there was such a mess.
Home should be a place where you can do what you want without a mess getting in your way. Having an evening cleaning routine will help you keep your home tidy and neat and make it a place where you can comfortably do things that you want to do at home.
3. An Evening Routine Plays A Part In Stress Reduction
Reducing stress in your life is important for your mental and physical health, and one way you can do that is to have a good evening cleaning routine that helps you keep a nice, decluttered home.
Research has shown that people who live in a dirty, cluttered home have higher levels of cortisol in their bodies throughout the day. High levels of cortisol can have a profoundly negative effect on your health, and the longer you maintain high levels of cortisol, the more damage it can do to your mental and physical health.
4. Having An Evening Cleaning Routine Keeps Your Home Ready For Visitors
When you get a call in the morning from Sally and she says she’s coming over for a visit later, you don’t need to run around your house like a mad person trying to clean up everything. You’ve already taken care of a lot of your cleaning the night before and your house is ready for a guest.
Again, this reduces stress and helps you save time and energy.
5. It Doesn’t Take Long If You Do It Daily
The more you clean your home, the cleaner it is and the less time you have to clean it.
So, if you want to spend less time cleaning your home, then develop an evening cleaning routine and you are going to find yourself moving through it quickly.
If it’s just one of you doing the cleaning, it will likely take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour – depending on the size of your house and how many people live there – and it will be time well spent.
How To Set Yourself Up For An Easier And Quicker Evening Cleaning Routine
The best way to make your evening cleaning routine easier is to develop the habit of cleaning up after yourself during the day.
This habit is going to serve you well. It’s going to take a lot of stress off you. There won’t be such a mess in the home to worry about and you won’t have as much to do in your evening routine for cleaning.
One thing I learned years ago is that multitasking is a valuable tool when it comes to cleaning. The more ways you look to do double duty for keeping things clean, the more you will find ways to do it.
For instance, as you go downstairs to grab something, bring something that belongs downstairs from the upstairs and put it away. Or as you move from one room to the other, straighten up what’s in your path.
4 Must-Do’s For An Evening Cleaning Routine
There are some things that you must-do for your evening cleaning routine. These things will help you keep your home as clean and organized as possible while getting you ready for the next day without any lingering to-do things from the previous day.
1. Clean Up As You Make Dinner
It may not be totally evening when you cook, but include this as part of your evening cleaning routine anyway. It’s either while you cook or after you eat that you need to tackle these things, so doing it while you are cooking is going to save you time later.
- If you take a spice out of the counter, put it back after you use it.
- If you take a pot out that’s in the way of another pot you want, put it back where it belongs.
- If you have stuff that needs to go in the trash or recycle bin, do that as soon as you know it needs to be done.
- Put all your dishes in the sink as you go along and keep your kitchen as neat as possible so you can easily see what needs to be done after dinner during clean up.
Once you get in the habit of doing this, it will be so easy, and you will understand what a difference it makes for your evening cleaning routine.
2. Clean Up After Dinner
After dinner, clean up the kitchen and the area where you eat.
- Clean the counters.
- Wipe down the high touch areas.
- Clean the floors.
- And, most importantly, do the dishes.
It’s tempting to leave the dishes out for the next day, but you have better things to do tomorrow morning!
If you take a quick 15-30 minutes now, you can clean up everything and use your morning time in whatever way you decide fit when that time comes. In other words, you will not be obligated to do your dishes from today, tomorrow.
Tip: One thing that might help you if you are a messy cook and eater is a robot vacuum. These vacuums will pick up anything that was dropped on the floor and save you time from doing it yourself. There are tons of different robot vacuums to choose from on Amazon, You can even find robot vacuums with a mop feature if you tend to have a floor that needs to be mopped in the evening.
3. Fold And Put Laundry Away
If you have laundry in the dryer, take it out and put it away.
Putting away laundry is one of the most dreaded parts of cleaning, but it needs to be done for a sense of tidiness and organization.
It’s easy to put the laundry in the washer in the morning but not so easy to move it around and put it away by the end of the day. This is why making it a part of your evening routine, with no exceptions, will help you get into the habit of always having laundry put away by the end of the day.
If you make putting laundry away part of your evening routine, then you will never have to face another pile-up of laundry again.
Try combining this with a personal development task. For instance, you can listen to a podcast or watch an informative show. You will find yourself looking forward to putting away the laundry if you do this.
4. Pick Up The Living Room And Front Entrance
Everyone’s house will benefit from this. If you pick up socks, books, toys, coats, shoes, or whatever else has fallen or been put on the floor or counters throughout the day. You can spend the rest of the evening in a clean area while you play games, watch TV, or read.
I like to think of it like this: Everything has a home… so go home everything.
Again, your robot vacuum can help you in the area if you want to pick up anything that’s fallen on the floor but don’t want to do a full vacuum.
Some Things You May Want To Add To Your Evening Routine
The above four things will help you keep your house looking and feeling pretty good. But if you want to do more things in the morning, then you can add on some quick things.
Quick Bathroom Clean
A complete bathroom clean can be done as part of your morning cleaning routine. But you can do a quick bathroom clean in the evening.
This will help make your complete bathroom clean in the morning go quicker, and if you have unexpected early visitors, ensure that your bathroom is fairly clean for them to use. In fact, if you have a bathroom dedicated to visitors, you may want to do a complete clean in the evening so it’s ready and waiting.
Since you know you are going to be hitting the bathroom first thing, this can help you wake up to a bathroom that motivates you and starts your day off by helping you feel organized.
Vacuum The House
Most people don’t have the energy to vacuum in the evening, but if you can add it to your evening cleaning routine, then you don’t have to worry about it in the morning or during the day.
Again, you can use a robot vacuum to help you if you want to outsource that job.
Doing A Quick Dust
If you carry around a duster with you as you go through the rooms cleaning and picking up stuff, you can do a quick dust as a part of your evening routine, and this is going to help reduce the amount of dust in your home. It’s another great way to make sure that your house is ready for unexpected company the next day.
Don’t Have Time Or Desire To Develop An Evening Cleaning Routine?
If you want to keep a clean house, in the easiest way possible, having an evening cleaning routine is very important.
But you can always do everything in the morning. This will add some time to your cleaning routine in the morning, depending on how big a mess there is. Doing a full house clean can take anywhere from an hour to three hours depending on how much mess was left from the day before.
Or you can outsource your housework and hire a maid. I worked for a few different home cleaning companies when I was young, and I can attest that their main focus is making you happy, which means you can get your house cleaned exactly how you want it. You can have them use the products you recommend and clean the things you want to be cleaned in the way you want to be cleaned.
If you don’t like the first company you try, then hire another one. There are many good home cleaning companies out there and you will find someone you like who can take away the need for a morning and evening cleaning routine, which can free up a lot of your time and energy.
Templates You Can Use For Your Evening Cleaning Routine
If you want to download a reminder for this Evening clean chores list, you can find a downloadable file here.
If you want to download a blank evening cleaning routine PDF, then you can find that here.
