9 Time-Saving Cleaning Hacks Every Busy Person Needs

You will save so much time.

Between work, caretaking, running errands, working out, and trying to get a good night’s sleep , maintaining a functional living space can feel like an impossible task. When it’s 9 p.m. and you’re ready to hit the sack, the last thing you want to face is a sink full of dishes or a hamper full of laundry .

KC Davis, author of How to Keep House While Drowning , is familiar with this struggle. Her work offers a compassionate way of thinking about housework , as well as approachable advice for maintaining a functional space as life’s other responsibilities inevitably pile up. “When we stop thinking of housework as an external measurement of our worthiness and instead realize that [chores] are intended to be functional tasks that help us care for ourselves, we realize that these care tasks don't need to be perfect or aesthetically pleasing,” Davis says. “Suddenly, the list shrinks and becomes less overwhelming. We feel more empowered to find systems and hacks that work for us so our lives are easier.”

Read on for expert-backed tips for keeping a functional home, even when it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

• KC Davis is a licensed professional counselor and the author of How to Keep House While Drowning

Distinguish Between Tidying, Cleaning, and Organizing

These three tasks are different, and you cannot do them all at once. When setting out to reset a space , tidy first: put away items that have a home, throw away trash, make a pile of things that need to be sorted. Then clean: dust, mop, vacuum, sanitize. Finally, organize: put items back where they belong and classify unsorted items. Focusing on three distinct steps helps the tasks become more manageable and easier to fit into an otherwise busy schedule.

Use the “Five Things” Tidying Method

Davis asserts that there are only five types of items in a cluttered space: trash, dishes, laundry, things that have a place, and things that don’t have a place. Address these items in the order they are listed. In the middle of a hectic week, taking two minutes to dispose of any stray water bottles or food wrappers can make all the difference in your living space . If you have more time, work your way down the list.

Give Dirty Dishes a Home

“Dishes are like the Mount Everest of care tasks,” says Davis in an Instagram reel . She recommends using a dish drying rack as a dirty dish station. Throughout the day, place used dishes in the dish rack, not in the sink; not only does this hack keep your kitchen sink empty and functional, but it’s also less visually overwhelming. When you do have time, simply transfer the dishes to the dishwasher.

Who Says Laundry Has to Be Folded?

For Davis, folding laundry did not meaningfully increase the functionality of her home for her and her family—so she stopped. “I cut out any rules that didn't make sense for us,” she explains. “We don't fold clothes but rather hang shirts and then toss everything else into organized baskets.” Identifying the tasks that aren’t actually helpful for you allows you to cross them off your to-do list entirely, and come up with alternative organizational systems that save time.

Implement Closing Duties

At the end of the day, dedicate a set amount of time—whatever time you have—to only the most critical tasks for preparing your space for the next day. Davis has three to five tasks that she does in the same order, every night. “They are simple things that are based on what is most functional,” she explains. “For example, taking out the trash, clearing the kitchen island, packing kids’ lunches, and loading the dishwasher ... The house doesn't have to look perfect, but it does need to function, and those few things are the must-haves for every day,” she says.

You can customize this to your needs: maybe you only have five minutes to clean your coffee mug for the morning and wipe the counters . By making sure the most important activities are completed nightly, you can sleep a little easier knowing your home is ready for the next day.

Leave Your Vacuum Out of the Cleaning Closet

This goes for any cleaning tools that you use often. While it might look more aesthetically pleasing to have all of your cleaning supplies neatly tucked away in a closet, leaving them out means you can easily access them when you have the time or motivation to reset your space. Davis lives by the following sentiment: your space should serve you, and however that looks is just fine.

Try a Room Reset Board

When our mental energy is spread thin, it can be difficult to even identify what needs to be done in order to return a space to its functional state. Davis came up with the room reset board as a strategy to “outsource your executive function” in these moments. Tasks begin in the “to-do” column, and are moved to the “done” column once they are completed. When you notice that a task needs to be done again, move it back to the “to-do” column, and forget it until you have the time. Organizing tasks in this way lowers the barrier to beginning them and minimizes time spent stressing about what needs to get done.

Use a Timer

Davis says that we often overestimate how long a particular task will take to complete. Setting a timer —a visual timer, ideally—can reveal that a task we expected to take forever may only take a few minutes. Or, if you are up to your ears in commitments and only have 15 minutes a day for housework, try setting a timer and seeing how much you can get done in that time. When the time is up, stop. Simply noticing how much time you have can work wonders to help you save it during a busy week.

Figure Out a Schedule That Works for You

One of Davis’s biggest time-saving “hacks” is to simply create a routine that works for you, instead of forcing yourself to stick to a routine that isn’t working. If cleaning as you go during the week isn’t a realistic option, create a weekend routine to reset your home to be functional for the week ahead. If you need that weekend time to rest and recover, try making a list of "closing duties" that works with the time you do have during the week.

“We have to start by challenging the presuppositions and underlying assumptions we have about why we think we must be doing care tasks a certain way,” Davis says. “Once we have thrown those assumptions out the window, we can begin by asking ‘Between the options of cleaning for shorter amounts of time more often during the week and cleaning for a longer period of time once a week, which is more functional for you? Which do you prefer and why?’” Ultimately, approaching housework with this kind of compassion and self-awareness is the most effective strategy for making the most of your time and energy when there is already too much on your plate.

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