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Keeping your home clean is the gift that keeps on giving. As soon as you’ve got one thing taken care of, another mess rears its ugly head. Here are my top five quick cleaning tips to keep your home shipshape – even if it is a never ending project.

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1. Try my 20 Minutes to Clean routine. I clean for 20 minutes every day. I set the timer, turn on the tunes, and race to do as much as I can in 20 minutes. During that time, I try my hardest not to get distracted by anything but cleaning – no sending text messages and no answering the phone. You can’t clean your whole house in 20 minutes, but you can accomplish more than you think you can. And it’s only 20 minutes out of your day – that makes it feel less overwhelming.

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2. Keep a bucket of cleaning supplies at each sink. Then when you need a wipe or a sponge or some glass cleaner the supplies are only as far away as the closest bathroom. When you see gunk splattered on a mirror, you are far less likely to clean it if you have to go across the house to retrieve a rag and some glass cleaner.

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3. Clean while your kids are in the bath. I read this tip in Real Simple magazine ages ago (at least I think that’s where I heard it). If you have kids, you likely spend 20 minutes or so in the bathroom at least a few times a week while they play in the tub. This is a great time to tidy the bathroom – wipe out the sink, scrub the toilet, wipe off the baseboards, clean the mirror. Just remember to keep one eye on the little ones!

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4. There are certain cleaning activities in each room that make a major impact with minimal effort. In your bedrooms, make the beds. In the kitchen, wipe off the counter and stovetop. In the living room, fluff the sofa pillows and cushions. In the bathroom, shine the sink faucet. None of these activities take more than 5 minutes but make a huge difference in the feeling of that space.

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5. Don’t have so much stuff. You read that right. DON”T HAVE SO MUCH STUFF. When you don’t have so many things, you don’t have as much to keep tidy. Clean out your kid’s toy pile, recycle that junk mail before it hits the kitchen counter, clear your closets of ill fitting clothes, and throw away anything that doesn’t work properly. It seems like common sense, but take a look around your home. You might be surprised at the clutter you’re holding on to.

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If you like the timer pictured above, you can purchase it here.

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