The kitchen hosts a variety of special and day-to-day tasks in your household. It’s inevitable for spills and other messes to accumulate, and the perpetual cleaning rituals can wear you down and leave your kitchen in a chronic state of dishevelment.
If you’ve exhausted your cleaning tricks, it’s time to consider what upgrades can improve the function of your kitchen and reduce the need for manual labor. Read on for the best hacks to reduce kitchen cleaning time. We’ll discuss effective techniques, cleaning time management, and self-cleaning appliances.
Apply Labels
Label the items in your fridge and pantry to help keep an organized system of where everything goes. Clearly labeling what’s inside jars or baskets that are reserved for specific items also helps other household members place things where they belong on a regular basis. “A place for everything and everything in its place” helps each family member keep the kitchen organized. You can make pretty labels with your Cricut Joy or just handwrite them on any pretty labels from a stationary store.
Clean as You Go
Have family members place dishes directly in the dishwasher after using them, instead of piling them beside the sink. Dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher should be rinsed, and someone designated to wash them on a daily basis (perhaps at the end of every day). It may be helpful to have a magnet or sticker to place on the dishwasher to indicate that it’s clean or dirty, to avoid someone placing dirty dishes with clean dishes.
Irene from 10kids.com says, “As soon as you begin meal prep, fill your sink with hot sudsy water. Wash your tools and dishes as you go. When you put the food onto serving trays, immediately wash your pots and pans. If you can’t, at least soak them in hot water. It will make clean up so much faster.”
Designate Kitchen Hours
The kitchen operates around the clock every day in your home, which means it’s frequently exposed to spills, stains, and clutter. An easy method to reduce cleaning time is to designate specific hours for everyone to use the kitchen to avoid unnecessary mess-making outside of mealtimes or occasions. For example, you’ll help the kids get breakfast between 7 am and 8 am, and they can get lunch between noon and 1 pm.
Invest in Self-Cleaning Appliances
One of the best hacks for reducing kitchen cleaning time is to invest in appliances that self-clean. Self-cleaning ovens and microwaves eliminate the additional process of thoroughly cleaning the inside of these appliances. Consider how much time, energy, and money you’ll save by investing in appliances that clean themselves.
Clean Regularly
Cleaning various kitchen appliances regularly, rather than letting spills and dirty build up, makes the job easier. Try to set a schedule where you wipe out the fridge every month or clean the oven every two months.
Organize Cleaning Products
The “clean as you go” method reduces kitchen cleaning time, but you have to make it easy for yourself. If your cleaning products are scattered about the house or too difficult to access beneath your kitchen sink, you’ll be less inclined to use them.
Reorganize your kitchen cleaning products in an accessible place for you and other household members so you can all spend less time cleaning. Get a pretty porcelain sink organizer or put together a DIY sink organizer that keeps everything where you need it and also looks pretty too!
Use the Right Products
The right cleaning products make a big difference! I love my Norwex kitchen cleaning products for making the job easier and saving me time in the kitchen. Some of my favourite products for the kitchen include:
- textured kitchen cloths, which pick up ALL the spills and crumbs on the counter and are also antibacterial
- natural enzyme-based dish soap and heavy duty degreaser concentrate
- spirinetts for cast-iron and stainless steel pots and SpiriSponge for tough-yet-gentle scrubbing on more delicate cookware
Ask for Help
Cleaning feels like it takes forever when you’re doing it yourself. Ask for help! Your kids or spouse can easily help wipe counters, load dishwashers, or rinse dishes with you. It gives you some on-one-one time together to chat or bop to music and the job will get done so much faster.
What are your favourite hacks to reduce kitchen cleaning time?
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