The Lazy Genius Podcast - #51: The Lazy Genius Cleans the Bathroom

Episode Date: February 12, 2018

Mentioned in the episode: The Lazy Genius Guide to Cleaning the House The Lazy Genius Does Laundry The Lazy Genius Cleans the Kitchen Download the transcript of this episode The Swap: The Lazy Genius Guide to Decluttering for Life   This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey guys, you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 51. The Lazy Genius cleans the bathroom. I think the bathroom is one of the hardest rooms to clean because it is just so gross. It's just so gross. I always feel like I need to take a shower after. And then the longer we wait to clean the bathroom, the more it feels that way.

Like we need a hazmat suit and then a shower. So today we're going to talk about the most efficient way to clean the bathroom. It's one of the least fun jobs in your home. This is not going to make it fun. But with this method, you'll get it done faster and without being creeped out by all the dirt. Right? Let's do this. First, we're going to set the stage.

What needs to happen before you start cleaning the bathroom? Then we'll power through the order with, because there's always an order, right? With tips and tricks, scatter all around this. And then finally, I'll just give you a couple things you can do, kind of like every day or thereabouts every day, to make the regular cleaning a little bit easier. So before you begin, a couple of things. First, don't clean the bathroom when you're feeling cute and clean. Like in your best clothes with your hair, like real cute and your makeup on. I mean, you can.

But even the cleanest bathrooms will still leave you feeling a little gunky after. So your best bet is to clean the bathroom. in the morning before you get ready or on a day when you're already home in your yoga pants doing your thing and if you have more than one bathroom don't feel like you have to do them all at the same time we have two and a half bathrooms in our house and I rarely clean them all on the same day like rarely sometimes I do if I'm super motivated or if I have the time but that is rare so I usually do my master bath one morning and then maybe the half bath another morning. of the same week or maybe over two weeks and then use like a Saturday when we're you know lazy

and my husband is home to kind of get whatever bathroom tasks I didn't already do done or tell him to do it which he does so lovingly um he is like such a kind soul he will clean the shower on a fairly regular basis that's my least favorite part is getting in the shower and cleaning that shower and he will do that it is such a gift so share the bathroom cleaning with someone if you can man that's that's great but the whole point Don't clean the bathroom when you're feeling clean. That is just not a great idea. Second thing is to set the stage.

You need to limit your products and you need to have a million rags. I talked about this as a general strategy for cleaning in the blog post, The Lazy Genius Guide to Cleaning the House, which I will link to in the show notes, the LazyGenClective.com slash lazy slash guest bathroom. It's always slash lazy slash something. Today it's slash lazy slash bathroom. But one of the problems with cleaning, especially in the bathroom, is that we need so many different kinds of cleaners to hit all the surfaces. And then a rag gets dirty after one wipe of the toilet.

And then you definitely have zero desire to keep holding that rug. A little slow growth. The solution to this is fewer cleaners and way more rags. And if you're on top of your laundry, which you can hear how to do that in the episode, the lazy genius does laundry. Adding a few extra rags is just not going to be a big deal. Okay, so

have a few cleaners and lots of rags. Now, let's get to the actual cleaning. There are steps. Are you ready? Let's do that. Step one. Gather your cleaning toolkit. Here's what you need to clean the bathroom.

A bucket full of rags. Yes, you do need the bucket. One all-purpose cleaner. if you can. Just try to stick with one in the bathroom. A second cleaner, if you must, for soap scum or toilets or whatever you need. But if you can limit yourself to one bottle, that's magic. Okay, so a bucket of rags, one to two cleaners, a towel or bed sheet, which you can just pull from the laundry, if it's not like disgusting. I'll get to why. You need that in a second. And your favorite floor cleaning tool. I love my swiffer. And I love their dusting pads, you know, that pick up every speck.

of dust that I have talked about all week long that I used to dust furnisher too. If you have a broom and a mop, that's great too. The swifter does both. So I just love it forever. Amen. Amen. Gathering all your tools, which isn't a lot, by the way, if you notice that. It ensures that you stay in the bathroom, which is half of the battle and finishing cleaning the bathroom. How many times do we leave to get another bottle of cleaner and then we get distracted by the breakfast dishes or the Today Show or just the couch. Like, stay in the bathroom to get a clean. So have everything with you from the start.

Okay? So again, a bucket of rags, one to two cleaners, a towel or a sheet, and some sort of floor cleaning tool. Okay. Step two. Pull everything out of the bathroom. This is where the towel or the sheet comes in. Put it on the floor outside the bathroom. and grab everything. Now, not inside the bathroom, outside the door, and grab everything in the shower,

on your sink, the trash can, the hamper, the rugs, all of it, and place it on the sheet or the towel. Now, this keeps any stray water from getting on your floor. It also keeps the stuff visually gathered, which is amazingly helpful. I know that's super weird. But have you ever had stuff on a bedside table scattered about and then you put that same stuff on a little tray and it looked like it belonged in a magazine creating visual boundaries around stuff it makes such a difference like even in your shampoo bottles but mostly it's for the stray water let's be real now why do we pull out everything all at once because it's more efficient it's just more efficient combining similar tasks and movements and it limits your time and it saves your sanity it just does now you could take everything off your sink

as you clean it. But do you put it on your floor that's covered in hair or even on the floor you just cleaned? And then you have to do that again with every new surface you come to. It's just not super fun. That's why the bathroom is so frustrating because there's so many little bottles of things everywhere. So take everything out at once, put it on the towel, outside of the bathroom, and now it's time to step three, which is dust. What? You're like, we're in the bathroom. You don't dust the bathroom? Yes, yes, we're going to dust the bathroom. You know how when you go to clean the sink and when you spray your cleaner and then you wipe and there are all those blue and gray dots everywhere, they're so annoying and they never leave.

That's dust. That is dust. Dusting every surface first, it makes cleaning with a cleaner so much better and less annoying. So grab one of those rags, which, okay, by the way, forgot this part. You need to dump out the bucket of rags. just outside your bathroom door. Okay, so you're going to have a pile of rags on the floor. And then when you have a dirty rag, where does it go?

It goes in the bucket. The bucket is now empty, and it is a home ready for your dirty rags. You never have to touch it again. Once it's dirty, throw in the bucket. So grab a clean rag from the pile on the floor and just wipe all the surfaces. The sink all over the outside of the toilet, especially. That is like where dust loves to have.

hang. Skip the shower and the floors probably. The floor's for sure. This shower is like wet too often to really get dusty. And then the floors, of course, we're just going to do later. Now, if you have, let's say like a tub that you don't really use in the bathroom, that's going to need to be dusted too. So you can do that as well. Basically, if something is dusty, wipe away the dust before you spray cleaner on it. That's step three. Dust. So step one, gather your toolkit. Step two. Step two. pull everything out of the bathroom. Step three, dust, step four, spray the tub and the shower,

and the insides of the toilets. These are the dirtiest parts and the cleaner works better if it says for a few minutes. Again, your single cleaner will probably do the trick. So try to avoid multiple bottles for multiple surfaces.

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Next, step five, sweep or swiffer. Of course, I'm going to say swiffer. Again, Swiffer is not a sponsor or anything like that. I just don't themselves will swiffer stuff. Sweep or swiffer the floor. Now, this might seem like an odd next step since you haven't even cleaned the sinks yet, but removing the loose dust and dirt and hair from the floor before you might drip water on it from cleaning stuff is just best.

Of course I swear by my swiffer. I use the same tool for both wet and dry cleaning. We'll get to the wet part in a minute. But I use those dry duster sheets that attach to the little swiffer mop and just go to town. Dust the floor. I'm not against brooms at all, but I do think that the bathroom needs something a little more aggressive that picks up everything. and the swiffer does that for me. So step five, sweep the floor or so for the floor. Dust the floor,

essentially. Step six. Okay, so let's imagine yourself in this bathroom, by the way. It's empty of all the things. It's starting to smell like cleaner because you've already sprayed a couple of areas, right? There's no dust anywhere. It might not be like super shiny yet, but it's not like grimy because that's where some of that grime comes from too is the dust. So you're you're already in a really good spot. So step six is clean the surfaces. That is step six. How often do we make that step one? Right? And that's why cleaning the bathroom feels grimy and annoying and all the things. We are not cleaning with cleaner until step six. But I guarantee it will be a better cleaning experience. I just do. The order for cleaning goes mirrors.

sinks, toilet, tub and shower. Use as many rags as you need to, y'all. Now, the order is not because of your rag. Now, it can be a little, because, like, if you clean the mirror with one rag, the mirror's not, like, super nasty, and you could probably use that same rag with the sink. But the reason we have a million rags, like, even if you started with the toilet, it's no problem because you just dump those dirty rags in the bucket, right? It's not like you're using a toilet rag on a mirror.

But just in terms of, like, top to bottom. it's just a it's a good efficient order so mirror sink toilet tub and shower and use as many rags as you need to dirty ones go in the bucket if you get the dust off beforehand and you use a cleaner that actually works you need no tips beyond that like just wipe with varying degrees of strength until you get the shine you want and you are done lovely step seven mop the floor Mobbing is the worst, right? Now, for me, it's the wetness. I know that's weird because you can't mop without floors getting wet.

No matter how great your tools are or how efficient your method, you always end up with wet floors that are going to get walked on. Now, that is a little less true of the bathroom as opposed to like a kitchen, you know, that's walked through constantly. It might not be quite as maddening in the bathroom. But to those of you who hate a wet floor, I get it. I just get it. But here's the quickest way to do your current bathroom cleaning situation for the floor.

For sure, start the farthest away from the door, right? So you can mop yourself out of the room. But rather than getting an actual mop of any kind, here's what I do. I grab a rag from that clean rag pile. I attach it to my swiffer, you know, because it has those little like holes at the top where you connect the sheet. You can do that with a rag as well. And then I just use the same cleaner that I use because my, Most of our bathrooms are some kind of tile or linoleum, right?

I use the same cleaner. I used on the sinks in the toilet and the shower. And I spray that on the floor. And then I use my swift room of my rag. One cleaner, one tool. Just spray and scrub. And since you've already taken everything out of the bathroom, it really is not that hard because you don't have to move things around.

And if your floor, it gets exceptionally dirty. Like, AKA the rag is gross halfway through the bathroom. Just grab another rag, man. Again, a million rags, you guys, is the best. You can never have too money rag. Okay, so that's step seven. Step eight. Final step. Clean up. Make sure all the dirty rags are in the bucket and take everything except the towel under your sink, not under your stuff, back to where it goes. Okay. So the broom closet or the laundry room or wherever. So your cleaner and your bucket. Put that stuff away before it sits. out and makes you crazy while you're still in cleaning mode and then wash your hands. So you're

going to put away your cleaner and your swiffer and your bucket of dirty rags and your clean rags. And then you're going to wash your hands because that grimy bathroom feeling is unpleasant, right? It's just not fun. Like it's just, you know what I'm talking about. And you're about to touch your stuff again and put it away. And the floor is kind of still drying. So just take your time to wash your hands, get a sip of water, whatever you need to do. and then go back to the bathroom and put everything back in its place and then throw that towel or that sheet in the laundry and then you're done and it's magical to be done and it's really efficient I promise it's really efficient and you're going to be done a lot faster than you think now one bonus

to this method especially step two where you take everything out of the bathroom is that it will automatically help you kind of pare down what is essential in your bathroom like the item If you get sick of moving seven different soap and lotion and skincare bottles every time, you might ask yourself if you do indeed use them all. You might explore putting your stuff in a cute little basket, which will do wonders for the visual clutter, right? Because it creates that boundary that we talked about. But it will also make removing your stuff a breeze because you just pick out the basket.

After you clean your bathroom in this order a couple of times, you will find yourself making steps to make even that process easier. by setting yourself up for success when the cleaning time comes. It's the same way with cleaning the kitchen. Like once you get in the habit of cleaning up with a fridge and a dishes zone, you start putting food and dishes in those zones before you even eat dinner. Like when you're cooking. All of your movement in the kitchen plays into taking care of it better and with less stress.

And the same is true of your bathroom. And remember, you don't need a ton of products or like a million gadgets or a fancy rack. the simpler your cleaning routine, the more likely you'll actually do it. And the other thing about that is that the simpler it is, the less rules you feel like you're breaking. Because like once you get into a rhythm of cleaning your bathroom, however regularly, like that makes sense for you, you're going to start to notice ways, like I said, like in the kitchen, that's going to help yourself along. So like if you wash your face with a wash cloth one morning or evening, you can use that wash cloth to just kind of wipe off the sink really fast. If you're dusting your bedroom with my beloved

swiffer duster sheet, hop into the bathroom and dust the toilet before you throw away the sheet. If you use cloth napkins and the guest bathroom is on your way to the laundry room to take those cloth napkins from dinner, grab one of them that's not dirty as dirty and hop in that guest bathroom and like wipe off the glob of toothpaste or the soap, like the ring underneath the soap pump or the watercolor paint that didn't quite get washed off when your toddler tried to wash your hands earlier. Tiny moves, whenever you notice them, it will make the bigger process a lot easier. And the simpler your routine and the less married you are to those cleaners and those tools, the more you're going to do those daily steps because you're not breaking any rules.

Okay. So, the simpler your cleaning routine, the more likely you'll actually do it. Okay, now I know that this was eight steps. And that might seem the opposite of simple. But when you break it down, it's just basic. It's basic and efficient. It's all it is. It's okay if you don't clean your bathroom as regularly as you would like or as regularly as your mother would like for you too. We are all different. But it has to be done sometimes. It just does. all hate it, but it has to happen. So you might as well do it the best that you can. And I really hope that this way does that for you. Okay. Now a quick, lazy genius tip of the week. That bucket of rags I mentioned, I actually have a bucket on top of my washer that is just for dirty rags. Like I said, I go through so many rags for lots of jobs. So having a dedicated spot for the dirty one's just really great. Now that said, anytime I'm cleaning something, like the greasy stove, the spilled milk that's dripping in between the slats of the wooden area rug that I really regret buying under my iron table and the bathroom. I just bring that bucket with me. And dirty stuff

just goes right into there. You know, it's not like resting in a pile in my hand or on the floor or in any other less desirable place, right? So consider. if you have the room in a laundry room or something, to add kind of a rag capture bucket. It is surprisingly helpful because you always need a rag somewhere. You know, you're always cleaning something and just having one bucket that you can actually take with you with a handful of clean rags is so helpful.

Okay. That'll do it for today, you guys. If you would like to see links to some of the other episodes I mentioned, because you did mention a couple, those will be in the show notes at the lazy geniuscollective.com slash lazy slash bathroom. And don't forget that there is a post up on the blog right now about how to clean your entire house

in a way that does not make you crazy. Honestly, it's one of my favorite posts I've written and I think you'll really love it. And plus, don't forget the swap, my system for decluttering for life, is still available for you to purchase now until the end of February 2018. I will link to all of that in the show notes, okay?

So again, that is the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash bathroom. And I'll see you this Thursday on Instagram at 1215 Eastern to talk bathrooms to answer any questions you have about this topic or any other topic. I just am so grateful that you listen and you share this with your friends and all of it. It just means the world to me. I'm so honored, so honored to be a voice in your life. Thanks for trusting me with your home and your ears. Remember to be a genius about it.

the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.