One Hour Clean Sweep, Introduction

Over the next few days, I'm doing a series on the One Hour Clean Sweep. This is a technique I use when my house in in complete disarray and I am lacking the motivation to jump in and set it straight. The One Hour Clean Sweep is adapted from Fly Lady's Crisis Cleaning.

The One Hour Clean Sweep

1) Choose four rooms that need the most attention. I often break this down into kitchen, living room, master bedroom, kids bedrooms. Sometimes I lump the bedrooms together and add the bathroom as the fourth room.

2) Set a timer for fifteen minutes and start in the worst room. This is usually my kitchen.

3) Do as much as you can in that room in fifteen minutes. Do the job that will make the most difference first (more to come on this is future posts).

4) When the timer goes off, go on to the next room. For me that's my living room. Do as much as you can in fifteen minutes. Do the job that will make the most difference first. Keep going until you've spent fifteen minutes in each of the four rooms.

5) At the end of one hour, you'll have spent fifteen minutes in four different rooms and your house will look put back together.

Sometimes I need an extra fifteen minutes at the end to finish my kitchen.

The trick to making this work for you is to stay focused and stay in that one room. Do as much as you can in fifteen minutes.