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Your house can get messy fast when you don’t have a lot of time to clean. These 10 5-minute tasks will make your home look cleaner immediately.
Messy house, but not a lot of time? Don’t feel helpless. Instead, focus your limited time and energy on a few high-impact tasks that will make your home look clean until you have a chance to clean more thoroughly.
If you’re like me, you don’t like coming home to a messy-looking house after work. It’s stressful, and it can put you in a bad mood.
It’s hard sometimes to find the time to clean. And while I believe 100% in sticking to a cleaning checklist that works for you and your home, sometimes the checklist doesn’t satisfy your need for your house to look cleaner NOW. Or, better yet, 5 minutes ago.
When you’re struggling hard with stress and frustration over a messy house, and find yourself short on time, take 5 minutes to complete one of the tasks on this list. They’re designed to be quick and easy, but will have a significant impact on the way your house looks. As a result, you’ll get a little wave of relief from your home looking better, plus a dopamine boost from completing the task.
10 Ways to Make Your House Look Clean in 5 Minutes or Less
Okay, are you ready? Here are 10 quick ways to make your house look clean fast – each in under 5 minutes.
Unload and re-load the dishwasher/empty the sink of dishes
Nothing says “messy house” like a sink full of dirty dishes. For some reason, unloading the dishwasher feels like a difficult task that takes forever. That couldn’t be further from the truth – it only takes a few minutes!
Unload those clean dishes and get them put away. Then, re-load the dishwasher with any dirty dishes in the sink, on the counter, or elsewhere in your home. If you have a few extra seconds, give your sink a quick scrub after the dishwasher is loaded. An empty, sparkling sink will instantly make your kitchen look cleaner.
Spot-clean floors
Spots and stains on both carpet and hard-surface flooring make your house look dirty. Take 5 minutes and use a damp paper towel to clean spots from hard surface flooring, such as tile, laminate, and wood. You might want to focus on your home’s entryway and kitchen, since those areas tend to accumulate the most spots and stains.
For carpet, use your favorite spot treatment and a rag to remove stains. Or, get a SpotBot and let it clean carpet stains for you (you can read my full review of the SpotBot if you’re interested in NOT scrubbing carpet stains yourself. 😁)
Spot-cleaning floors is one of my favorite 5-minute cleaning tasks. My entry and kitchen floors get messy fast during winter, when shoes are trodding in with mud, ice, and snow on board. A quick spot-clean saves me the time of getting out my mop day after day.
Clear clutter from flat surfaces
Although it’s not necessarily a cleaning issue, cluttered surfaces definitely make your home look messy. Spend 5 minutes putting away clutter on your kitchen or bathroom counter, dining room table, living room tables, etc. Clutter-free surfaces visually open up your home, make it look tidy, and make it easier to clean. Clearing clutter from flat surfaces is a great 5-minute task to do every day to keep your house looking great.
Dust
Dust in your home is a telltale sign that you haven’t cleaned in a while. It looks gross, and can get on your clothes and hands. Take a few minutes and whiz around your house with a good-quality duster (my favorite is the Swiffer 360 duster). A good duster will make the task fast and easy. Start with the most-used rooms in your home, like the entry, kitchen, living room, and bathroom. If you have time, move on to bedrooms, home office, etc.
Clean the bathroom sink and toilet
A dusty, water-stained bathroom sink and counter look terrible. A grungy toilet is even worse! Cleaning them up is an easy way to make your house look clean quickly. I like to scrub the toilet with cleaning solution, then let the solution sit inside the bowl for a bit while I wipe down the sink/counter and the outside of the toilet. You might not be able to clean your entire bathroom in 5 minutes, but you can get the toilet and sink looking good fast.
Get old/expired food out of the refrigerator
Gross smells and accidental science experiments make a kitchen feel dirty. Spend 5 minutes going through your fridge in search of food that is expired, moldy, or no longer fresh. Think half-used jars of sauce, old takeout containers, produce past its prime, etc. As a result, you’ll be able to see what’s in your refrigerator, you and your family will be healthier, and your kitchen won’t smell like an old gym sock.
Make beds
This next 5-minute cleaning task is sort of a phenomenon. And it takes closer to 5 seconds!
There’s something about a made bed that screams “clean.” It looks tidy, signals that you’ve started your morning and moved on with your day, and says that you care about your home. Even in a room that’s cluttered and messy, a made bed makes a difference. Take 5 minutes to make all the beds in your home. Even if the rooms aren’t totally clean, they’ll look way better.
Clean up pet hair
A home covered in pet hair is an embarrassing, tell-tale sign that a pet owner isn’t up on her game. I know first-hand that pet hair can make a house look dirty fast (fellow cat ladies, you know what I’m talking about!).
If your family includes pets, take 5 minutes and seek out tufts of pet hair in corners, on carpets, and on furniture. If your pets like to look out of a favorite window in your home, check the bottoms of the curtains on the window. They might be caked with pet hair that you never noticed! A quality pet hair remover will make this an easy 5-minute cleaning task.
Spot-clean walls and cabinets
Walls and cabinets covered in stains and grime make a house look dirty. Spend a 5-minute session gently removing food stains from cabinets, fingerprints and marks from walls. A soft, damp cloth works great for this. Be sure to test the surface in an inconspicuous area first to ensure that the paint or finish won’t rub off with gentle scrubbing.
Wipe down trash cans
A dusty, dirty trash can splattered with food and whatever else can make even the cleanest home look dirty. Take 5 minutes to wipe down your kitchen trash can, inside and out. Unless it’s ultra dirty, you should be able to wipe it with Clorox Wipes or Lysol and a damp cloth.
If you have time, wipe down the other trash cans in your home too – especially in bathrooms. As a result, your trash cans won’t make your home look messy. They’ll smell better, too.
How to Make Your House Look Clean in 5 Minutes or Less: Conclusion
A messy-looking house can increase stress, zap your energy, and put you in a bad mood. These 10 quick tasks can each be completed in 5 minutes or less, but they’ll have a significant impact on the way your home looks.
To recap, here are 10 tasks that will make your house look clean in 5 minutes or less:
- Unload/reload the dishwasher, empty the sink of dishes
- Spot-clean floors
- Clear clutter from flat surfaces
- Dust
- Clean the bathroom sink and toilet
- Get old/expired food out of the refrigerator
- Make beds
- Clean up pet hair
- Spot-clean walls and cabinets
- Wipe down trash cans
I hope this list has given you some easy ideas for quick cleaning tasks that you can do in 5 minutes or less. You might also want to check out my post on how to make your house feel clean, as well as my speed-cleaning checklists for last-minute guests!