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Oh my god CHRISTMAS is in less than week! Everyone is coming over to eat and the kitchen is a mess. We get it, you got behind and that’s ok J but now how do you get caught up without wasting all your energy? Funnily enough we just wrote a blog post on how to speed clean your kitchen. This will make sure it is in working order for the holidays and looking pretty great. Check it out below:

(Tip: We recommend setting a timer for 20 minutes on your phone to give yourself a little deadline. Below we give 4 different steps so try working in 5 minute increments.)

CLEAR: Spend the first 5 minutes quickly taking everything off the counters and out of the sink. You can either put them on the floor together or put them in a big laundry basket, just as long as they are out of the way! It’s really important to remove absolutely everything from the counters and not just plates or cutlery. This includes the coffee machine, wine bottles, toaster and sponges.

speeding-through-things

REMOVE: Next let’s shift your focus to removing old/expired products from the kitchen. Throw away things you don’t need from the countertops, then go into the fridge and the freezer (you probably have really old frozen veggies in there somewhere!) and quickly scan it for things you have forgotten about. Chances are your fridge is getting really full with all the ingredients needed for holiday meal prep, so taking care of all the old stuff will clear a lot of room you didn’t know you had.

CLEAN: While this is just a quick speed clean, we should aim to be primarily wiping down areas in 5 minutes here, rather than thoroughly going over everything. Do a quick spray and wipe-down of the countertops and sink first. Then work your way to the smaller areas if you have time, such as the microwave and toaster. You can also prioritize cleaning the areas you will be using to cook. If your meal is going to be made using the oven but not the microwave, then spend time on the oven first.

ORGANIZE: Ok, we’ve cleared everything, gotten rid of old stuff, and wiped down the surfaces, so now the kitchen is starting to look clean again. Last thing to do on your whirlwind tour is to spend the last 5 minutes putting everything you took off back in its place and grouped together for ease of use. Now it is clean and neat to boot!

If you have some time left on the timer, or if you just want to spend a few extra minutes than we recommend doing a quick sweep of the kitchen floor as there will probably be some crumbs and dirt on the floor from throwing stuff out and moving everything around.

We hope that helps get your kitchen in working order for the holidays. The kitchen can be a challenge as it is usually the area of the home that needs the most thorough cleaning. If you would like some additional tips on decluttering or cleaning other areas of your home you can check out our “4 Simple Tips For Cleaning Bathrooms”, or if you are sick of us you can check out a great blog over at our friend’s in Illinois. They run HouseKeep, which offers cleaning services in Oak Lawn IL.

Happy Holidays from Think Maids!