I Hate Cleaning, Here's What I Do Instead
- Kate Waldo Jones
- Jul 28
- 4 min read
I hate cleaning. I really hate it. That might surprise some people, since I'm a professional organizer in a past life and admittedly a little bit OCD. I love a tidy house! I just really hate cleaning it.
If I could have a cleaning service come once a week, that would change my life. This isn't a replacement for that, there's no replacement for that. This is what I do instead, and it leans hard on my systems background so my house never piles up into a two-hour, exhausted, resentful clean.
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Why I Use Reminders Instead of Asana
I'm a big fan of Asana for task management, but I'm not using it for this. Asana collates push notifications, so you get "you have 5 tasks due today" instead of just the one thing you need to do right now. The Reminders app on my phone shows up with exactly one thing at a time, which makes it feel doable instead of overwhelming.
I try to space everything out by day so nothing piles up on the same day. It's a quick little thing I can knock out fast, and honestly, checking it off makes me feel good. That's kind of the whole trick.
How I Set Up a Cleaning Schedule in the Reminders App
Here's what's on my recurring list, spaced across the week:
Clean toilets, showers, and tubs, and take out the bathroom trash (I use Clorox toilet-cleaning wands, so tossing the used one is a built-in trash reminder)
Swap and wash all the towels, once a week
Clean out the fridge and wipe down old leftovers, once a week (I'll be honest, I don't always do this one, but it's a good nudge)
Wash the sheets, every Monday (Sunday's for staying in bed, not stripping it)
Wipe down mirrors and countertops, plus a weekly dust
If just one part of the house gets touched every week, it never has time to get out of hand.
Setting it up is easy, you can even do it by talking to your phone: "Hey Siri, set a task recurring every Wednesday, take out the trash."
Give it a time so it actually sticks around on your phone instead of disappearing, and make sure you set both the day of the week and that you want it to repeat weekly.
You can also skip Siri entirely and set it up straight in the Reminders app. Either way, it'll pop up and stay there, quietly bugging you until you do the thing. Weirdly, I love that.
I've linked Apple's official guide to setting up repeating reminders here if you want the full walkthrough with screenshots.
The Quick-Win Products That Make It Easier
A few things that remove the friction of actually doing the tasks once they pop up.
I keep a Scrub Mommy in each shower along with a shower spray, so I can do a quick 30-second scrub while I'm already in there instead of hunting down cleaning supplies later.
That's honestly one of my biggest barriers, having to go get the stuff, bring it in, take it back out. Keeping it right there removes the excuse entirely.
For surfaces I use Mrs. Meyer's cleaning spray in the Clean Linen scent, but I keep hearing the Tomato Vine one is unreal, so that's next on my list to try.
The Bona spray floor mop makes mopping so easy, the spray is built right in, no separate bucket or spray bottle. I've heard Swiffer can actually damage your floors over time, and this one is supposed to be much gentler.
I also swapped to push-top trash cans to keep our Labrador (and soon our crawling baby) out of the trash, since he loves to steal things. And Windex for the mirrors, nothing fancy, it just works.
The Vacuum I Have, and the Robot I'm Manifesting
I love my Dyson Animal cordless vacuum. Mine's an older model, and I run the battery down fast, so I'd love to upgrade to the newer version with more power and better pickup for pet hair. We're in the separation anxiety stage right now, so holding the baby in one arm and the vacuum in the other and still getting the whole house done is such a game changer.
The actual dream, though, is the Narwal Flow 2. It's a robot vacuum and mop with a docking station that cleans the water and the vacuum out on its own, so it can just run the whole thing without me. They're getting smart enough now to avoid toys and clutter too. If someone could just hand me that life, I'd take it.
That's what I do to clean without really cleaning, and to keep my house in decent shape without ever letting it pile up into one miserable day. It works really well for me, and I hope it helps you too.
If you've got a system or a product that makes this easier for you, tell me!! I'm always trying to get better at mine.
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xo, Kate
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