WB097: Levelling Up My Housekeeping Game
30% of your life is spent in the confines of your home, assuming on average everyday you get six hours of sleep, and spend one hour before and one hour after work at home.
Given the amount of time spent at home, it makes a whole lot of sense that this sanctuary is clean and tidy. After a long day out, it would be incredibly unsettling to be greeted by a messy environment. Worse still, what if you had a surprise visitor?
Although housework is laborious and time-consuming, I like doing it. You name it: vacuuming and mopping the floor, cleaning the dishes and scrubbing the bathroom and toilet.
I think my affinity for these tasks has to do with having control over the state of the home I come back to. And wanting to avoid the embarrassment of a surprise guest having to use a grimy toilet.
That being said, every now and then housekeeping becomes a frustrating experience when I misplace cleaning tools while transitioning between tasks. For example, after dusting a shelf, I will put the duster on a nearby table and move on to spraying and wiping the area with a cloth. I then forget to bring my duster with me when moving on to the next area.
Repeatedly misplacing items during a cleaning session results in wasted time and energy. This problem is further amplified the larger the space you live in, which is thankfully not the case for me.
To resolve this pain point, I recently decided to buy a utility waist pouch that contains various compartments for storing cleaning tools. The idea came to mind after regularly seeing such pouches being used by professional tradespeople in Japan, such as cleaners, carpenters and gardeners.
As comical as this sounds given I am not a professional tradesperson, this utility pouch has been quite the game changer for my housekeeping needs. I currently use the pouch to hold:
- Two cleaning cloths - one for the floor and one for the countertop
- One bottle of all-purpose cleaner
- One bottle of fabric freshener
- One feather duster
- One cleaning toothbrush
From the photos, you can see that the utility pouch has elastic slots on the side that can hold tools with slim handles, such as a duster or toothbrush. Another plus point is the pouch and cleaning tools can be packed away neatly as one unit after completing your housework.
Sometimes, having the right tools makes all the difference in making a tedious task more enjoyable.
And what if you do not like housekeeping? Well at the very least, I recommend you adopt a habit of making your bed everyday, which takes less than five minutes, and regularly cleaning your bedsheets.
After all, if you get at least six hours of sleep a day, 25% of your life is spent in bed!
--Ends
