Laundry (plus ironing, if you have clothes that require that—I try not to), washing up (I think this is called doing the dishes in America), mopping, hoovering (vacuuming), dusting, cleaning bathroom and kitchen surfaces, cleaning toilets, cleaning windows and mirrors. That might cover the obvious ones? Seems like most of them don’t involve much learning but do take a bit of getting round to, if you’re anything like me.
I’d add, not leaving clutter lying around. It both collects dust, and makes cleaning more of an effort. Keep it packed away in boxes and cupboards. (Getting rid of clutter entirely is a whole separate subject.)
It’s really hard to estimate that accurately, because for me something like 90% of cleanliness is developing habits that couple it with the tasks that necessitate it: always and automatically washing dishes after cooking, putting away used clothes and other sources of clutter, etc. Habits don’t take mental effort, but for the same reason it’s almost impossible to quantify the time or physical effort that goes into them, at least if you don’t have someone standing over you with a stopwatch.
For periodic rather than habitual tasks, though, I spend maybe half an hour a week on laundry (this would take longer if I didn’t have a washer and dryer in my house, though, and there are opportunity costs involved), and another half hour to an hour on things like vacuuming, mopping, and cleaning porcelain and such.
My timelog tells me that over the last ~7 weeks I’ve spent an average of 22 mins/day doing things with the tag “chores”. That time period does include a two week holiday during which I spent a lot less time than usual on that stuff, so it’s probably an underestimate. Agree with Nornagest below about the importance of small everyday habits! (Personally I am good at some of these, terrible at others.)
I should add that I live with another person, who does his share of the chores, so this time would probably increase if I wanted the same level of clean/tidy while living alone. I’m not sure how time per person scales with changes in the number of people though… probably not linearly, but it must depend on all sorts of things like how exactly you share out the chores, what the overhead sort of times are like for doing a task once regardless of how much task there is, and how size of living space changes with respect to number of people living in it. Also, if you add actively non-useful people like babies, I expect all hell breaks loose.
Having a particular hamper or even corner of your room where you put dirty laundry, so that it isn’t all over your floor. When this hamper / corner is full, do your laundry. Analogous organized or occasionally-organized places for paperwork or whatever else is being clutter-y. If you have ancient carpet and it’s dirty and stinky, learn how to rent a Rug Doctor-type steam cleaner from a nearby supermarket. If you have a bunch of broken or dirty / stinky stuff in your house, learn how to get the trash people to haul it away, and learn where to buy cheap used furniture / cheap online kitchen supplies / whatever to replace your old junk. Having tools handy to tidy up nails / tighten loose screws etc. when you notice them. Keeping a bush and plunger near your toilet. If your sink has clogged any time in the past 6 months, also consider having chemical unclogger / a long skinny “snake” (that’s what it’s actually called) that you shove down the drain and wiggle around to bust clogs. Figure out where all the places that are hard to clean are. These are the places that will have 50 years of accumulated nasty dirt that will make the whole house smell better when you get rid of it.
Know a good way to get rid of everything you possess when you no longer need it (bookcrossing, electronic waste recycling or just a trash bag). Learn to notice when you have things cluttering up the place that you no longer need.
If you’ve got the money and a simple enough apartment layout, I recommend a vacuum cleaning robot. My crawling saucer collects a ridiculous amount of dust from the floor every day, and this seems to keep other surfaces and the air dustless too. There’s no way I could clean up that much dust myself, and I’d do the cleaning so rarely that the dust would get all over the place.
What chores do I need to learn how to do in order to keep a clean house?
Laundry (plus ironing, if you have clothes that require that—I try not to), washing up (I think this is called doing the dishes in America), mopping, hoovering (vacuuming), dusting, cleaning bathroom and kitchen surfaces, cleaning toilets, cleaning windows and mirrors. That might cover the obvious ones? Seems like most of them don’t involve much learning but do take a bit of getting round to, if you’re anything like me.
I’d add, not leaving clutter lying around. It both collects dust, and makes cleaning more of an effort. Keep it packed away in boxes and cupboards. (Getting rid of clutter entirely is a whole separate subject.)
Thank you, how many hours a week do you spend doing these things?
It’s really hard to estimate that accurately, because for me something like 90% of cleanliness is developing habits that couple it with the tasks that necessitate it: always and automatically washing dishes after cooking, putting away used clothes and other sources of clutter, etc. Habits don’t take mental effort, but for the same reason it’s almost impossible to quantify the time or physical effort that goes into them, at least if you don’t have someone standing over you with a stopwatch.
For periodic rather than habitual tasks, though, I spend maybe half an hour a week on laundry (this would take longer if I didn’t have a washer and dryer in my house, though, and there are opportunity costs involved), and another half hour to an hour on things like vacuuming, mopping, and cleaning porcelain and such.
My timelog tells me that over the last ~7 weeks I’ve spent an average of 22 mins/day doing things with the tag “chores”. That time period does include a two week holiday during which I spent a lot less time than usual on that stuff, so it’s probably an underestimate. Agree with Nornagest below about the importance of small everyday habits! (Personally I am good at some of these, terrible at others.)
I should add that I live with another person, who does his share of the chores, so this time would probably increase if I wanted the same level of clean/tidy while living alone. I’m not sure how time per person scales with changes in the number of people though… probably not linearly, but it must depend on all sorts of things like how exactly you share out the chores, what the overhead sort of times are like for doing a task once regardless of how much task there is, and how size of living space changes with respect to number of people living in it. Also, if you add actively non-useful people like babies, I expect all hell breaks loose.
Adding on to Emily:
Having a particular hamper or even corner of your room where you put dirty laundry, so that it isn’t all over your floor. When this hamper / corner is full, do your laundry.
Analogous organized or occasionally-organized places for paperwork or whatever else is being clutter-y.
If you have ancient carpet and it’s dirty and stinky, learn how to rent a Rug Doctor-type steam cleaner from a nearby supermarket.
If you have a bunch of broken or dirty / stinky stuff in your house, learn how to get the trash people to haul it away, and learn where to buy cheap used furniture / cheap online kitchen supplies / whatever to replace your old junk.
Having tools handy to tidy up nails / tighten loose screws etc. when you notice them.
Keeping a bush and plunger near your toilet.
If your sink has clogged any time in the past 6 months, also consider having chemical unclogger / a long skinny “snake” (that’s what it’s actually called) that you shove down the drain and wiggle around to bust clogs.
Figure out where all the places that are hard to clean are. These are the places that will have 50 years of accumulated nasty dirt that will make the whole house smell better when you get rid of it.
Learn to notice things that need cleaning.
Know a good way to get rid of everything you possess when you no longer need it (bookcrossing, electronic waste recycling or just a trash bag). Learn to notice when you have things cluttering up the place that you no longer need.
If you’ve got the money and a simple enough apartment layout, I recommend a vacuum cleaning robot. My crawling saucer collects a ridiculous amount of dust from the floor every day, and this seems to keep other surfaces and the air dustless too. There’s no way I could clean up that much dust myself, and I’d do the cleaning so rarely that the dust would get all over the place.
Avoid these and you’ll be off to a good start. :)