The New York Times has published a guide that collects tips and tricks for cleaning and keeping your home tidy for its “Smarter Living” section, dedicated to various types of practical advice. There are discounted but little applied advice, mental techniques to convince yourself not to postpone the most boring operations such as washing the dishes or making the bed, and some tricks to work less when cleaning the various environments. There are also suggestions on how regularly to clean, which obviously depends a lot on how much you like to live in a clean place and how long you have to deal with it.
The first tip on how to keep the kitchen clean is actually quite obvious: washing the dishes from time to time, without letting them accumulate in the sink. The New York Times offers a trick: to get the urge you can try to time how long it takes to wash the dishes in one day. It probably turns out – but it depends on how many you are – that it takes a few minutes, and knowing it the next time can help you find the motivation to do it and not put it off until the next day. A practical tip for the encrusted pans: put some baking soda in it, and then pour boiling water into it. When it becomes lukewarm, pass a sponge on the encrusted parts, which should come off easily. If you have a dishwasher, the contribution of the New York Times to the eternal debate on how best to fill it is: starting from the bottom.
the bathroom is the place in the house where frequent and regular cleaning – once a week, for example – allows you to avoid making it clean a long and unpleasant operation. The main advice is to use special products, and to let them do the dirty work. and follow them: waiting for them to take effect before passing a sponge or cloth over them can greatly facilitate the operations.
Hair and hair problem: act on dry things. Begin by wiping the vacuum cleaner or broom, and a cloth or sponge around the toilet and bidet. Only then do you pass the wet rag. If you do the opposite, a mess comes out, as you can imagine.
A trick proposed by the New York Times concerns the plastic surfaces of the shower: buy some dryer sheets (they are thin cloths that you put in the electric dryers to perfume the clothes) and wet them. Then pass them in a circular motion on the shower doors.