and she doesn't like to waste her energy on mundane stuff. She feels it pays to get efficient, so she can get back out into life, living, the garden, the social whirl, the job, the homeschooling, whatever turns her crank! And we agree!

:wink: here are some tips and routines that make my life simpler in the housekeeping department. When I was really hit hard healthwise, there were many days when I could only work for 5 minutes then go lie on the couch for 20 then work for 5 and so forth. At one really bad time, over a 6 month period I began to get arthritis on top of the exhaustion, such that I couldn't even push my vacuum or dig in the garden.

The bright side, is most of that is over with now and out of that I learnt to really really streamline my housekeeping chores. Break into little bites, set priorities, and get it done over a long period of time.

That works for busy mothers, working women, homeschoolers and just about anyone who would rather be doing almost anything else.

I like cleaning but that is because I do it like a game, and I get better and better at it. I didn't used to. Fortunately I learnt my games and routines before my health and energy left me flattened.

First of all Less Really is More Less junk, more space, less knicky knackys that don't matter that much to you, more time rescued from cleaning around the knicky knackys. Don't get rid of the things you truly love, carve away all the stuff around them, that stops people from admiring them, and truly seeing and focusing in on them.

2 exercises to help bring that into view. Apologies in advance to those who've suffered thru either of these scenarios. They are helpful to bring things into focus.

Let's pretend you have orders to move to another country, and you must fit everything you own into a 9x9 room. What do you take? What becomes important as you work thru that thought?

What do you leave behind (in storage or give away)

OK another one, pretend a moment that you were starting your household over from scratch. Everything was lost in the move and you have very limited cash reserves and no insurance. What becomes important enough to replace?

What didn't you bother with?

Make 2 lists

Must have-- the stuff you'd have to find, buy, make in the first month.

Can do without (probably stuff you feel guilty about letting go of, and would feel a secret relief to be rid of, or stuff you aren't sure you will need, but just in case....)

Just thinking this thru is a big start towards letting go of things that get in the way.

I've also used the "if I haven't used it in a year, what makes me think I'm going to need it in the next year?" question.

What do you use to help you "see" what to get rid of?

Anything to make it easier to get to my garden!! Thanks!!

CG, if I haven't used something in 6 months, I know I'm not going to. So it goes out, whether it goes to goodwill, family or garbage. I dislike clutter that bad.

When I get rid of things, I look at who will get the most use out of it and I love that I can give something to someone so they can enjoy what I no longer need or use.

I don't like knick knacks, there are just so time consuming in that they need to be kept clean all the time. I also prefer only having a few collections. I have a few porcelain dolls and a few cups and saucers. I got rid of all the rest so that I could enjoy those few. My cupboards use to be so packed I couldn't see anything and never got to enjoy any one item. Not any more.

Were just doing a decluttering again of books and book shelves. Poor dh, he has been busy all day, cutting and taking apart.

Great thread.

so here we are again, contemplating making it easier, grab a coffee and let's look at simplified routines.

I'll walk thru a basic day:

Waking up, :sleepdepr bed making is easier if you scissor your legs side to side while lying on your back and pulling the covers up straight. (my dh is the first to rise so he is safely out). If I don't feel like making the bed, I don't. It's not my top priority on days I'm feeling exhausted from the get go. Sometimes I just neatly fold the duvet and top sheet down and let the mattress air out by opening the bedroom window and closing the door. That freshens things nicely.

Get up and head into the bathroom. While there, brushing teeth etc, I wipe down the counters with the old hand towel (I change those at least daily, using the "dead" one to wipe counters, sinks, even mop out the floor, and they go thru a hot wash, cold rinse to kill germs)

the fact that the counters are clear of everything except dh's can of shaving cream and his stick down the hair gel and my hand lotion helps.

Giving the sink, counters and taps a spritz of "red juice" first helps liberate any scum. I'll explain red juice later in a further post on cleaning tools.

The back of the toilet only has the spare roll of tp on there so I can lift with one hand, and dust it off with the other, using the red juice dampened cloth, which now hits the floor and I use my toes to swish it around a bit to dust off the floor. Any little splots in front of the toilet, I spray with the red juice.

Speaking of the toilet, I like to spritz the toilet lightly on the outside and rim and FLUSH HANDLE, with red juice and wipe off with TOILET PAPER which then gets flushed. Red juice removes the gunk that germs breed on, so I don't worry that it isn't antibacterial.

I grab the bottle of Windex that I keep under the bathroom sink and give the mirror and chrome a spritz, and wipe with the cleaning cloth (no lint, linen blend I suspect, I got them years ago from The Clean Team) which I keep folded over the windex bottle till it gets dirty enough to throw in the wash.

Every other day or so, I sprinkle a little Comet inside the bowl, and run the toilet brush around, esp under the rim. Leave for a bit with lid down to bleach itself sanitary (comet has bleach) and next time I'm in using it, I'll flush the comet away after wiping the comet splashes on the rim with some more toilet paper.

About every other day I have a shower (skin is too dry for this to be daily) :shower: which is perfect for keeping the tub and surround clean. I spray it lightly with daily shower spray and come back a few hours later and use the hand held shower hose to rinse the walls and tub and chrome.

On my way out the door, I grab a fresh handtowel and hang it up. Done for the day. Time? LESS THAN 5 MINUTES! :mdance:

not including shower time. Edited to add when I have a shower, I clean up to the point of climbing in the shower, go finish the rest of my morning routine, then come back, shower off and get dressed for the day, dumping the damp towels etc down to the laundry which is done last of all.

When I use the bathroom during the day and evening, I use that time to refresh the bathroom, tidy it, and as I wash my hands I usually run my soapy hands around the sink bowl, to clean up family spots and toothpaste dots that others leave, rinse and leave.

That is the bathroom that pretty much stays clean all the time, and I don't worry about it if I have unexpected company ever. Total time is less than 5 minutes in the morning. It gets faster once you get this routine down pat.

Once or twice a week, I pop a disposable lysol floor sheet into my swiffer and mop the floor clean.

Once a month I hit the traffic zone down the middle of all my hard surface floors with a dab of floor wax (future acrylic polish) on a bounty paper towel stuck in the swiffer after I've damp mopped them.

Some further notes:
By using tiny handtowels, I can fit a lot into a washload, and I have the luxury of changing often. Especially if someone has a cold or germ.

For example after my friend who had a cold visited I tossed it right into the wash. (also spritzed with red juice a bit on the taps, flush handle, door knob)

By washing in hot water, I kill off most germs. Line drying in sunlight is another germ killer. Unfortunately dryers and warm water washes don't kill germs. Bleach is another method.

So much for bathrooms. Tomorrow I'll get into kitchens, entry ways, and living rooms as I walk thru the day.

OK I forgot about the other bathroom. We have a dog that drinks out of our upstairs main toilet, so I don't put 2000 flushes chlorine tabs in the main toilet. I just described the cleaning routine for that bathroom. :babydust:

But the one downstairs that dd uses, has a sink and toilet, and dd is supposed to clean it, and doesn't. :yikes:

I bought 2000 flushes with bleach and have asked her to just flush after her first use of the day, and then swish around the bowl and rim with the toilet brush then wipe with toilet paper. We will see how that goes.

She has red juice, windex and lots of hand towels, and a cleaning cloth for mirrors and chrome, but I end up doing it when I use the downstairs toilet.

Oh and I keep a toilet brush and a plumbers friend (plunger) behind each toilet for easy access and use.

So rolling right along here, I trundle out to the kitchen. There I hopefully find that I remembered to turn the dishwasher on last night.

Also hopefully I find my counters cleaned, the garbage taken out, and relative peace and harmony in the universe, along with a hot pot of coffee that dh puts together at bedtime and switches on when he gets up before me.

It doesn't always happen, but we both try for this and MOST of the time, it works like this. Dh helps unload the dw sometimes too. It just makes my day go a lot easier to have this kind of kitchen to get up to.

As I start to fix breakfast, I combine the tasks I'm doing there, with unloading the dishwasher, rolling it back into place (portable) and wiping up after myself as I get breakfast on.

Family puts their coffee and tea cups in the dishwasher, and any plates and bowls.

So by the time breakfast is finished, I do a quick wipe down of counters, sink top (sometimes I'll scour it with Comet if it needs) and fridge handles (white ones, do they ever collect the grime!)

Last but not least I dump the now dead dishcloth on the floor, and use it's damp little rinsed off self to wipe up any coffee spills, toast crumbs, dog hairs that have hit the floor in recent living memory.

I use my toe to do it, not wanting to get right down face to face with the floor.

From there I shake the cloth out the back door if it needs it, and take it down to the laundry, and wipe the entry landing floor (about 7x 4 feet or so) clean of the latest little mud spots that landed outside the mat onto my white vinyl floor.

Dishcloth note: I own lots, knit more at the drop of a hat, and much prefer the sanitary method of changing them often, washing in HOT water with cold rinse, and occaisional rinsing in cold water and microwaving them when they contact meat juices or other contaminated objects.

This keeps it food safe in my kitchen. You can throw a lot into any wash load and still have room for more and changing often stops that horrid sour smell they get when they are really growing bacteria in there.

Kitchen note: this routine takes maybe 5 to 10 minutes longer than just preparing breakfast without all that dovetailing of doing stuff while waiting for kettles to boil, or porridge to come to boil etc.

(I should mention that I empty my laundry hamper over the stairwell, to land at the base of the stairs, the entry to the laundry room so it's down where I want it for the day)

As I go down the stairs, I kick the laundry that lands on the stairs into the laundry room. Looking ever so elegant, still in my nightie and all if I haven't done the shower yet.

Back to the bathroom clean up routine, briefly, forgot to mention this part.

Days when I shower I clean the bathroom all but the shower, and leave my showering to the last so I can wash off the sweat and throw my nightie in the wash, then I do laundry as the last thing AFTER housecleaning in my nightie. Fly lady would be horrified, and I've scared nervous friends answering the door in my housecleaning mode.

I toss shoes either upstairs or down, as there shouldnt' be any there when family has left for the day, but there often are.

Now my entry is tidy, the floor is wiped of the worst spots, and my kitchen is clean more or less.

Entryway took 1 minute max to toss shoes up or down, and swipe the spots off the floor.

I sort the laundry (3 or 4 mintues) while I'm down in the dungeon and I grab tonight's supper item from the freezer following my 2 best rules in reducing daily chaos, and they are:

Decide on dinner by 9 am so it has time to defrost - 1 minute

and

A load a day (of laundry) keeps the dr away, the pschiatrist at bay or however you want to phrase it.

I sort the laundry and start a load of whatever I have enough of if I'm not showering today-- I shower last, and laundry is done after my shower.

If there isn't enough for a load, I skip the load du jour.

Now I'm done the kitchen, the laundry is started on my non shower days.

Total for entry way, and laundry and pulling out frozen food? 6 minutes, plus a minute's "travel time".

I proceed round the living room with my duster in one hand, and scoop garbage, resettle objects where they belong and basically dust, tidy and toss the papers. Takes 5 minutes max because there isn't a lot of clutter to work around.

sale flyers live under the couch cushion.

I am now done the living room, entry, kitchen, bathroom and my shower is the last thing before I'm done. My dinner is thawing on the counter.

Finish off with a shower, and dump the wet towels into the wash, start wash, get dressed and we are DONE for the day.

This routine can be done one bite at a time with rests in between as required. If you have the energy, you can bomb straight thru at high speed and probably beat my times altogether.

A little side note about supper preparations:

If you can face it, peeling and cutting up veggies for dinner (soak potatoes in cooking water or they will go black) and salads is best done either with breakfast or lunch preparations so that come supper hour, you aren't dragging yourself along, and skipping good veggies because you didn't have energy to cope.

I've learnt to do that or decide on something that doesn't need much last minute preparation (broccoli is easy, so is frozen spinach, and bagged organic salad mix is the salad of the century!)

It just means supper is taken care of, and the carrot peelings are in the compost, and the counter is all cleaned up for the day. I found thru bitter experiance that if I don't make SURE I'm eating lots of veggies my energy level drops even further.

MUCH LATER THAT DAY--- if it needs a quick vacuum anywhere I can do that, breaking that task down.

I like to do 2 things to make vacuuming easier

1 is to leave the vacuum out all the time, putting it away if company is coming. Not having to drag it out makes it easy to use for quick pick ups. They make all the difference when flour for example isn't being tracked around.

and 2 I like to vacuum in commercial breaks, playing beat the clock. It's fun to vacuum for the commercials, and run back to the show, rest, enjoy, and repeat.

house gets done, without dragging me down, and I feel like I got to rest and enjoy my show.

Much later I make supper and do clean up as I go.

AFTER SUPPER Family loads their plates etc, and I do a quick wipe down of counters.

AT BEDTIME:
Near bedtime, garbage goes out from under the sink, and I like to stroll thru the house, emptying the other garbages into the kitchen bag on my way out to the garage with it.

dh sets the coffee up and I run the dishwasher.

If I run it right after dinner I have snack messes to face in the morning. I like to start with a clean slate so dishwasher runs when I go to bed.

Hope that is a help.

You probably won't want to follow my exact routine, but it may give you ideas for your house, your situation. You may enjoy doing 5 minutes here and there, till it's done, much as I do and taking rest breaks as needed (or looking after toddlers, telephone calls, what ever interrupts your routines.

I am a morning person and that is what works for me, but I also have grown up children only one of whom is home now, but I developed this routine when both were home, and I was too ill to do much of anything, and could only work 5 minutes at a time with rests in between.

Little things that help the process along--

I simplified my bed making by switching to good down duvets on all beds when dd was 6 (she is 21 now) and I was going back to work as an RN and needed the time savings.

It was one of my better decisions. One good flap and the duvet is remade and fluffy. I do use a top sheet underneath the duvet though and I have recently taken to adding a pretty quilt on top so making the bed isn't quite as easy.

Duvet covers -- some are simpler to use than others. Ones that have little "windows" in the stitching at the top corners, allow you to put the new fresh cover on the duvet much easier.

Snaps or velcro closures at the bottom are faster than buttons or ties. Buttons pop off (and I replaced mine with safety pins for many years on one cover)

Kitchen and other hard surface flooring. I got a dry swiffer when I was recuperating from a total hysterectomy this summer. Thinking it was lighter and easier to handle than my big Shmop.

A bounty paper towel or re useable washable square of flannelette/terry/cotton cleaning cloth of some kind

fits SO NICELY right in the little poke holes on top to hold it all in place.

I like spraying my floors with my own red juice (I explain it further in Laying the Dust to Rest thread) diluted solution to loosen any grease or grime, and mopping it up with the swiffer when it comes time to clean it more than a dishrag pushed around by the toes in the morning.

works well.

Much better than the swiffer wet jet which I"m not happy with at all. I dislike the solution, it dulls the shine on my floors (and I don't like to wax THAT MUCH!) plus it's got a disposable diaper cover on the mop end that I'm not fond of. It sucks the cleaning solution up too fast for it to work. Ends up smearing the dirt around more than cleaning, and if I use enough solution to really clean with, it takes the shine out. Not happy with that.

But back to the cheap little dry swiffer.

I also like that I can use the paper towel in there as a disposable wax applicator bar none.

When the floor is clean, I like to dab a little Future polish around on the wear paths. Not up to the edges, I'm also not that fond of stripping layers of old wax, but in the middle where the wax is wearing off. I find that once it's dry you can't tell where the line is between new and old.

And one last shot with that Swiffer thing. I got a pack of Lysol disposable floor cloths, premoistened with cleaner when I bought the thing, and I"ve like using them once or twice a week on the bathroom floor.

Forgot one more of my little rules that make life easier.

1 is decide on dinner by 9am

2 is a load (of laundry) a day keeps the dr away

and

3 is leave a room better than you found it. That is where my philosophy of cleaing little bits of the bathroom when I go in, straightening the living room as I pass thru and that sort of thing came from.

Tiny habits work for me, and the house gets clean without a lot of stress or thought or effort. :hurray:

I was thinking this morning how I wash my hands. I hold the soap and rinse the little soap keeper (the kind with little plastic nails sticking up to keep it dry) clean. I hate it when that gets dirty. Takes a second because I do this daily and oftener as needed.

Then I put soap on my hands, put the little soap keeper down, rest soap on it and I

Run my hands round the sink bowl to rub off any spatters with my soapy hands, and up around the rim, and over the 2 icky soap holder spots by the taps. Taps too if dirty.

Then I rinse my hands and repeat the action, taking rinse water all round.

Dry off on hand towel

Use hand towel to rub the counter, rim, sink, taps and chrome all dry and shiny. Ditch towel if too damp or it's been around longer than a day. Hit the water spots that landed on the mirror FIRST!

Put fresh towel out, and

put hand lotion on.

Do once a day even and your sink always stays pretty clean.

Same time as washing up pretty much. You don't have to do it every single time. Just as needed. One tiny habit, one big happy result.

another little habit, is I ditch my rinsed "dead" dishcloth onto the kitchen floor (or if it ever hits the floor, I leave it where it lies).

Since I have lots, and I believe in changing often for sanitary purposes (and because I wash in hot rinse in cold with dishrags, towels, sheets and underwear etc)

that now becomes TA DAH

My little floor cleaning helper. I move it around with my toes to pick up fluff, crumbs, dog hair, coffee spots to name the 4 top things that land on my floor.

I do NOT, repeat do NOT do a perfect wall to wall wash of the floor or even bend over except to pick it back up and throw into the laundry, this dead rag is simply a quicker picker uppper for the odds and ends.

But somehow over the day, and week and months and years that little habit has kept my floors looking RELATIVELY, not spotless, but RELATIVELY clean.

It's meant that the gummy drops of orange juice that landed or the sugar spill, or the bBQ sauces spots GOT WIPED UP before they dried on like cement or left stains from sitting there a while.

ONE MORE THING: on it's way downstairs to the laundry, the dead dishrag and I pass the entryway landing where all the dirt, mud and grit that comes in my front door year round, lands. I have an entry mat but this stuff spills over the edges of the mat onto my nice white vinyl floor.

The last thing that dead dishrag does is wipe the entry floor mud spots. (I do rinse it out after doing the kitchen floor quicker picker upper so it's ready to perform this little duty)

I LOVE THAT SWIFFER!

It does floors (if you get tired of paying for new cloths, just pop in a damp terry washcloth to pick up lint, dust and fuzz)

I've heard that you can wash the swiffer dry cloths in the washer and dryer (without a softener sheet) and they will be clean and ready to work the magic of static all over again, thus saving you megabucks.

If you want to wet wipe, just rinse it under the tap without even taking it out of the swiffer head, squeeze slightly and damp mop the floors.

If you need to get something worse up then spray lightly first with a spray bottle filled with a 1 in 10 diluted cleaner (I use a Clean Team product called Red Juice but you could do that with Mr. Clean or whatever you normally do floors with)

the point about dilution is you use the same strenth as you would in a bucket, with a mop

Only you jsut spray, then wipe up with the wet terry facecloth.

Here is my latest idea/invention to go along with the swiffer:

For tougher stuff, buy some of that nylon netting to make stiff petticoats out of. Put a doubled up square into the finger holes.

Spray, then scrub with the nylon net, it wont scratch but it will scrub.

When you need to apply wax to the floor, use a damp Bounty paper towel and dispose after.

For windows, use the nylon net outside with vinegar for hard water spots, with a dishwasher detergent solution (1 TBSP to a bucket of hot water) to scrub flyspecks, dog nose prints, greasy hand prints off glass windows. Rinse with hose and be done.

remember the dishwasher detergents sheeting action that leaves no water spots after rinsing? use it.

Then for walls, that spray bottle and a wet terry facecloth are a whole lot easier than a wall washing session.

there, that in a nutshell is why I LOVE MY SWIFFER

LASTLY that dead dishrag, that I mentioned in my previous post

Well it fits perfectly in the finger holes of the swiffer, so guess what I'm using now besides my toes to push that baby around my floors????

Gotta love that thing. :hurray:

I take my kitchen trash out daily, and when I take it out, in it's half filled kitchen bag, I go thru the rest of the house, a quick tour of wastebaskets and trashcans.

It's my "tour de france" LOL

I empty as many as I can without overfilling the bag on my way out to the trashcans in the garage.

If I spot trash or junk mail lying about it goes too. this is part of my dejunking routine, a daily routine check up as I take out the trash. I also do a big dejunk several times a year but this daily trip keeps things easy.

And that brings me to the second part of this tip.

I have a trashcan with liner in almost every room except the living room/dining room.

This keeps them empty most of the time, and they look and smell pleasant

AND by having them in most rooms, I've trained the family to use them more often than not

ABOUT Dejunking stuff that has a life left in it, but not at your place:

Getting rid of charity stuff (recyclable clothes, kitchenware, towels, toys etc) is easier for all if there is a central dropoff point in the house. I have a box that lives in the guest room right now.

When it gets full I either

1--take it to the charity or

2--view this as time for a quick BIG declutter, and do a big one, and get the charity to do a pick up.

with small children and toys, that central drop off won't work. You need to have that for the stuff they are getting rid of PLUS a hidden box for stuff you are quietly removing without attention drawn to it.

I've used this method over the years, and till recently worried I was removing some silver. I was watching a TV show with a chemist a year or two back and he said NO, you don't remove ANY silver, this simply reverses the oxidization by releasing the sulpher molecules from their bonds with the silver.

So with that worry settled, here is my home made silver dip method.

Take a large glass roasting pan, line the bottom with aluminum foil, and a sprinkling of soda THEN fill with BOILING WATER and put over a couple of burners on LOWEST POSSIBLE HEAT.

RecaP:
Glass pan line with
Aluminum foil, sprinkle with
BAKING SODA, top with
BOILING WATER

and put over a burner or two to keep warm on lowest possible burner setting.

NOW DIP YOUR SILVER ITEMS turning to get all the tarnish off.

Fish out with tongs, dump in a sink of hot soapy water then when you are done, fish out of soapy water, rinse, and dry with clean cloth.

Some items if left for 20 years or more will need some Silver polish like silvo and a paper towel to finish the process but

this is easier and cheaper and much less time than doing it all with Silvo etc.

when you feel exhausted use your timer or do the commercial break cleaning method and do little bites. When the show comes on, flop back on the couch. Commercial? Fly at it and see how much you can get done.

Thinking of tasks as 5 minute bites or less helps you to cope. You can do big things taking it 5 minutes at a time.

My dear sister taught me this and I've used it for years. Never harms the stove and it certainly works to delay the evil day when you actually have to up and scrub the thing down.

I dump a nice clean white snow drift of baking soda on any smoking remains during a baking or roasting session, then when things are done and cooled down, like the next day I vacuum the clinkers out. Or just peel them out on a pancake flipper thingy.

Repeat with more soda or just flip some of the drifts from the base onto the smoker.

This keeps the stove going till the walls and top start to smoke, then I clean.

but when I do go to clean, that soda is transformed by repeated heat into something with way more ooomph and cleaning power than ordinary soda.

It'll lift your fingernails, so I'd wear gloves OK? Wearing those gloves, you grab a hunk of white soda off the bottom of the oven onto a wet cleaning cloth and begin to scrub the sides and walls

OK you bag the racks etc, any loose oven parts in a black plastic bag with a good slosh of ammonia, and tie it off and let it cook in the sun all day out of your way.

Back inside you scrub the inside of the stove.

When done, use vacuum to get up the drier gook, and use vinegar on a wet cloth to wipe up the rest.

The vinegar will bubble the soda away and it will leave a pleasant clean oven WITHOUT the stench and sheer lung searing power of ammonia.

Speaking of which, when it comes time, take the racks etc out of the bag (wear gloves, straight ammonia is NOT FUN STUFF) and use the garden hose to rinse.

If it needs a touch more scrubbing use a bbq brush and some more ammonia to finish. RINSE WITH HOSE.

Pour the remains of the bagged ammonia into a bucket, dilute with lots of water and pour around the base of your rhubarb or other heavy feeder. It's basically a straight nitrogen fertilizer. Follow with a good hosing of water. You don't want to burn the rhubarb plant.

You can dump it on the lawn too, but it's going to leave a bright green patch, just hose it around with lots of water to dilute it and spread it around.

There is nothing finer than an ostrich down feather duster. I've had mine 17 or 18 years now. Bought it years ago from the Clean Team and never looked back since. Fly lady is now selling them too, and praising them. Professional cleaning supply places sell them, janitors love them. WHY????

It sucks up dust without disturbing knick knacks and ornamentation, and does it so fast that modern janitors and cleaning people can dust way way faster.

I can do most of my upstairs in 3 minutes or less, and another 3 to 5 for the downstairs, going clockwise around a room, hitting the main surfaces. (really fussing will take 5 to 15 minutes doing ceiling corners and hanging lamp chains).

You don't have to shift or move anything, just wiggle the down in and around. I stabilize anything like a vase, but other than that it goes SO fast.

Now for anyone who has tried those feather dusters in the past especially the cheapies, they don't do anything other than flip dust into the air to settle right back down when your back is turned.

The ostrich down is technically a feather but it's not. The down holds the dust magnetically and hangs on till you either crack the handle on your ankle by the floor to release the dust for the vacuum to pick up (which is my technique, learnt from the Clean Team years ago)]

or you do flylady's technique and take it outside and shake it when you are done.

It holds INCREDIBLE amounts. Flylady routinely gets testimonials from people who haven't touched their ceiling fan blades or other high stuff for years, and the duster not only grabs and holds it, but as they are using it, they notice the dust is NOT settling back as other feather dusters do.

You may ask what happens to the dust once I crack that duster on my ankle and release it into the carpet for my vacuum to pick up.

Well I usually follow up with my Hepa filter vacuum and it sucks it up without getting blown back around the house to settle right back on the knick knacks and picture frames etc.

I believe in stopping dust before it starts. I have asthma and so do my kids, so it's a matter of health.

For those of us with forced air heat, there are electronic furnace filters, or the kind you can clean once a month. I have the latter, but in some houses I've lived in I just bought big packs of the disposable filters and changed them once a month.

That helps stop dust from getting started.

Using the down duster, the Hepa vacuum, and cleaning my furnace filters once a month has really simplified my cleaning and made it easier.

When you keep a surface polished it does two things, it seals the fine cracks and crannies that make the finish look dull. So it reflects light better and looks clean and shiny.

AND secondly it repels dirt. This makes it easier whether it's the dining room table you are quickly swishing over with the feather duster or if it's the kitchen floor getting a fast swipe with a damp bounty paper towel stuck in the finger holes of the swiffer sweeper.

Those cracks that you seal, if they aren't sealed with polish will elecrostatically attract and hold dust and dirt especially oily dirt in a kitchen.

If you want to make your cleaning faster and easier use a sealent and or polish.

For a better explanation of how to seal a floor so it repels dirt, this thread http://www.homesteadgarden.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1382 has my full method.

I like cleaning now that I know how to do it so it's easy and doesn't have to be done that often anymore due to tricks like these.

I used to dread cleaning because the stuff either didn't stay clean or didn't even look like I'd cleaned. I liked it when I found the sealent trick so my old porous floors would at least look polished and quit their dirt sucking habits.

And that in a nutshell is why cleaning techniques like the ones I've shared in posts above work for me. Because either stuff doesn't get dirty as fast or it takes less effort or it gives me more satisfying results.

bumping up, I'm at my sister's showing her some threads. Thought she might enjoy seeing this one and a few others. Hi to all, I'll be home in another day but it's going to take a bit before I'm up and posting again. She is on dial up, and it's their main phone line so I'm doing this quickly.

Hi Margery! Hope you are having a great time...miss you here!

Thanks, I had a lovely time at my sister's place. Caught a halibut and two rock cod out fishing.

Heres a new idea a friend told me about. I just bought some Jet dry to try making my own daily shower spray that a friend told me about. You put some in the empty spray bottle, fill with water and it helps sheet the water off without forming those little spots.

This year I put a paper towel holder up in the bathroom and kitchen for quick wipe ups. Bathroom use is with a bit of rubbing alcohol, it cleans and sanitizes and then disposes. Kitchen this is handy for meat spills. Both places it's handy for floor cleaning by poking the bounty towels in the swiffer and doing a quick damp wipe down.