Cleaning Breakthrough!

I've been reading Don Aslett's book about housecleaning. I had a chance to use his 4 step method this morning! The four steps are eliminate, saturate,dissolve, and remove. The idea is that you eliminate all the dust, surface crumbs, loose stuff, basically. Then you saturate the surface with your cleaner and then you let the cleaner dissolve the stuck on stuff. Finally, you come back and remove the cleaner and the dirt and are left with a perfectly clean surface.

So, this morning we were cleaning up the kitchen in order to make breakfast. I am ashamed to admit it, but the counter was covered in dishes all day yesterday. So, I finally got the counter cleared off, and lo and behold, the counter itself was dirty! So, I decided it was time to try out the four step process. I wiped the loose crumbs off and squirted down the counter. Before I could even think about letting it dissolve, Sammi dropped a little cup of Cheerios and I went over to help her pick them up. After that was all cleaned up, I went back and wiped the counter off! The timing was perfect.

He reiterates several times in what I've read so far that you have to be patient in letting the cleaner do its job so that you don't have to do all the scrubbing. I had to chuckle at how helpful Sammi's otherwise-unhelpful mess turned out to be!

I still don't like to clean, but I am getting better about motivating myself to do it. Now that I'm arming myself with some techniques and tricks-of-the-trade, I can't wait to have a sparkling pretty house.