14 Household Cleaning Tasks You Should Perform Every Day

Maintaining a clean and beautiful home starts with good habits. You can buy all the right appliances, plant the best flowers, and sleep in the softest sheets, but it’s cleaning and maintenance that keep your home in its original splendid condition. You can create good habits with routines. One of the best routines you can have is to perform certain cleaning tasks every day.
Some chores you should do every day to keep your home clean and beautiful include making your bed, washing the dishes, and cleaning your kitchen counters. Wipe your kitchen sink and appliances daily, especially after using them. Change used towels for new ones, and wash dirty laundry as needed. You should sweep your floors, tidy up your belongings, and empty your kitchen trash every night.
The idea of daily chores might sound annoying. After all, adding more items to your already packed to-do list isn’t ideal. Still, by performing the simple tasks below, you can effectively help keep your home looking great. In the long run, establishing these daily routines will make your goal of maintaining a clean home much easier.
14 Household Chores You Should Do Every Day
1. Wash Dishes
Regardless of how much you cook, there’s a good chance you will end your day with some dishes in the sink. One of the best habits you can establish in the pursuit of a clean and sanitized home is to wash dishes daily.
When you leave dirty dishes in your sink, you invite pests, bacteria, and bad smells into your home. Whether you use a dishwasher or hand wash your dirty dishes, ensure this task is performed each evening before you go to bed.
2. Wipe Kitchen Countertops And Appliances
Another daily sanitizing ritual everyone should practice in the home is wiping down kitchen countertops and appliances. Use a clean rag with sanitizing solution to wipe the counters and appliances.
All kitchen tools and surfaces you use should be wiped. Many countertops are multi-colored, making it difficult to spot crumbs and filth. Carefully wipe every inch of your countertops each night to prevent dirt from building up.
3. Sweep The Floors
Outside dirt finds its way into your home every day, especially if you walk around your house wearing shoes. Items can also fall on the floor when you cook and perform other household tasks. This is why sweeping every day is important.
By sweeping once a day, you keep dirt, dust, and other filth off your floors. Sweeping regularly also makes your weekly mopping and vacuuming much easier.
4. Clean Up Your Dining Table
Most households have a specific table or two designated for eating meals. These areas are likely to have food spills on the tables, chairs, and floors. To help keep pests away and prevent stains, you should wipe these tables and clean the surrounding area.
This task is best performed after dinner, once you have cleaned the dishes. This ensures the table is clean and sanitized before you go to bed.
5. Make Your Bed
One of the best ways to start your day, other than brewing a cup of coffee, is to make your bed. Making your bed after you wake up is a great way to keep your bedroom looking organized. It’s also much better to come home to a made bed rather than one that looks like a tornado just came through.
Making your bed is a great way to give yourself a sense of accomplishment first thing in the morning, and it has also been linked to improved sleep.
6. Change Out Towels As Needed
Towels should be changed out regularly. While you can reuse a towel more than once, you shouldn’t use it for more than three days. This means you should have a semi-daily routine of swapping out wash cloths, hand towels, and shower towels.
Keeping your towels circulating is crucial for good hygiene. It also reduces the risk of mildew and bacterial growth.
7. Disinfect Your Sinks
Your sinks are one of the first places where bacteria grow. Sink drains are also places where many insects like to breed and live. Cleaning your sinks nightly with disinfecting solution is a fantastic way to keep your home clean and reduce the risk of insect infestation.
Take a few moments before bed to use a clean rag to wipe down your sinks and clean your drains. This will help keep one of the most vulnerable areas in your home clean and free of grime.
8. Empty Trash Bins
If you cook every night, then you should take your trash out every evening. Any raw meat, dairy, or vegetable scraps can start rotting very quickly. This will attract pests and make your home smell horrible.
You should always empty your trash before it becomes too full or starts smelling. This reduces the risk of insects and maggots, and also helps prevent trash bag leakage.Â
9. Inspect And Tidy Your Fridge
If you do a lot of grocery shopping, then your refrigerator can start looking like a game of Tetris gone wrong. Many items in your fridge have a short shelf life, including leftovers, dairy, and produce.Â
The more items you have in the fridge, the easier it is to lose track of things. It can make it easier to have items hiding and rotting away. To prevent food from festering in your fridge, you should take time after dinner to go through it to remove anything that has expired. You can also take some time to organize and wipe down anything that needs cleaning.
10. Remove Clutter And Toss JunkÂ
Life can sometimes feel like a constant battle against clutter and junk. Whether it’s Amazon boxes, junk mail, or food packaging, it’s easy to collect a lot of clutter and junk in the home every day.
Don’t let this junk build up. Instead, you should make an active effort to toss the junk in the trash or recycling bin. This prevents any buildup of mess and keeps your home in order.
11. Tidy Up The Bathroom
The bathroom is another room that requires a bit of attention daily. Ensure the trash bins are emptied regularly, and take time to wipe the toilet and countertops. This keeps the bathroom sanitized and smelling fresh.
12. Run Or Empty The Dishwasher
If you have a dishwasher, it’s important you don’t get in the habit of leaving dirty dishes festering inside the machine. If you only use a few dishes, you should, at the very least, thoroughly rinse them before adding them to the dishwasher.
Run the dishwasher as soon as the load is large enough, to prevent bacteria from building up and smells from developing. You should also make it a habit of putting dishes away each morning after the dishes are clean and dry.
13. Clean And Prepare Your Coffee Maker
If you’re one of the millions of adults who start the day with coffee at home, then you must ensure your coffee-making device is always clean and ready. Regardless of whether you use a coffee machine, espresso maker, French press, or pour-over, it’s always good to have it clean and ready for the morning.Â
Keeping your machine clean makes waking up easier and will decrease the amount of time you spend cleaning in the morning when you are trying to start your day.
14. Put Dirty Clothes And Linens In The Washer Or Laundry Bin
It’s important to stay on top of laundry. The last thing you want is a huge pile of dirty clothes and towels, and nothing clean to wear. To keep on top of things, you should immediately put dirty clothes and linens in the hamper and then run a load of laundry as soon as there is enough to justify it. For some people, this might take days, but for those with families, this should be a daily ritual.
Final Notes On Cleaning Tasks You Should Perform Daily
Maintaining a clean and tidy home can feel overwhelming, especially when there are so many other tasks that demand your attention. One way to make home cleanliness an achievable reality is to perform several chores every day.Â
Some important daily cleaning tasks include making your bed, doing the dishes, wiping down countertops, and sanitizing your sinks. You should tidy up clutter, swap out dirty towels for clean ones, and empty your trash each evening. Clean your dining table and sweep your floors nightly to make weekly vacuuming and mopping easier.
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Tom Gaffey is an expert writer who currently resides in Washington D.C. Tom has a passion for real estate and home improvement writing, as well as travel and lifestyle writing. He lived the last twelve years in Hawaii where he worked closely with luxury resorts and event planners, mastering his knowledge of aesthetics and luxury products. This is where he found his passion for home improvement and a keen interest in DIY projects. Currently, Tom resides in Washington D.C, and also working on his debut fiction novel.
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