See how to get a free printable version of this plan at the end of this post!!
Most important? A reality check. An hour is only 60 minutes, and you can’t go from disaster to perfection in that amount of time. But if you focus on the right things, you can make a major impact and be able to do the one thing that matters: enjoy the time with your guests.
Repeat this phrase to yourself over and over for the next hour: Follow the Visibility Rule.
The Visibility Rule is pretty self-explanatory, but does not come naturally to some people (people like me).
What will your guests actually see? Focus your effort there.
This is not the time to sort through the pesky basket of mateless socks that’s been bugging you for months.
Head to your front door, stand where your guests will enter, and see what they will see. You haven’t noticed that pile of papers on the coffee table because it has been sitting there for months. Seeing your home through the eyes of your guests will keep you on track as you make the most of the next sixty minutes.
Grab your phone. Set the timer to ten minutes.
Over the next hour, start the timer again each time it goes off. Race the timer on each task you tackle. This will help you focus on the task of the moment and keep you from getting lost in one task and forgetting about all you have left to do.
First, pick-up and straighten. A clean house has layers, and the first layer is clutter. Starting at the door where your guests will enter your house, move through the house hitting all the areas they’ll see, picking up anything that’s out of place. Close the doors to rooms or closets where your guests don’t need to go. Don’t worry about what’s behind those doors, this is not the time to rearrange your linen closet!
If you are generally a put-it-away-right-away kind of person, you can probably put things where they go in these ten minutes. If you’re not, and you can’t even imagine how ten minutes could make a dent, load up your arms and go dump the junk in whichever room you can lock!
Once those ten minutes are over, reset your timer for another ten minutes and head to the bathroom where you’ll direct your guests. Grab cleaning wipes and wipe down the surfaces including a quick wipe of any visible dirt on the floor. Your guests are going to hang out in this room all by themselves with nothing to do but look around, so you want it to be as clean as possible!
Dry your own hands after you’re done and then use that now-slightly-damp towel to wipe down the mirror. Put out a fresh handtowel and reset your timer for another ten minutes.
Head for the kitchen. If all you need to do in your kitchen is a quick wipe-it-down-and-straighten, yay for you. If not, your goal is to do whatever needs to be done so you can do a wipe-it-down-and-straighten in the next ten minutes.
Clear surfaces are the goal. Put away what you can, start the dishwasher, and load whatever’s left into a box and haul that box to the garage. Or the trunk of your car. Or wherever your guest won’t look. Don’t shove things in the oven unless you know for a fact that no one is bringing something that needs to “go under the broiler real quick.”
This is far from ideal, but an hour to clean the whole house isn’t ideal if your kitchen counters are covered in dirty dishes. Watch that timer and try to give yourself the last three minutes to wipe down and shine up your surfaces.
Set your timer for another ten minutes.
Grab the vacuum cleaner and your duster (or a rag, or a clean sock), and head to the room where your guests will spend the most time. There isn’t time to thoroughly dust the entire house, but stick with the Visibility Rule. What will your guests definitely see? Dust the TV, the lamps, and the end tables where they’ll set their drinks.
There’s no time to grab a ladder and dust the ceiling fan. Turn up the heat and turn on the fan. If it’s running, no one will be able to see the dust-chunks that have gathered on it in the past few weeks months.
Vacuum the visible parts of the floor (there’s no time to move furniture) and move to the next room where your guests will spend time. I know it’s tempting to haul out the mop, but there’s only time for vacuuming.
If you’ve been able to stick to your ten minute timers, you have twenty minutes left.
Take ten minutes to focus on you. Change your clothes, fix your hair, and put on some deodorant and lipstick.
For the final ten minutes, go back through the list, checking for things you may have missed before. Walk through the areas your guests will see, checking for clutter. Be sure doors which hide the messy areas are still closed (and locked, if possible). Flush the toilet. Check the kitchen for random dishes that mysteriously appeared while you were focused elsewhere. Put away your duster and vacuum cleaner and fluff the couch pillows. Wipe up that smudge of dirt on the tile by the front door (the smudge that made you think you needed to mop the entire house).
Most of all, before you answer the door, take a deep breath and relax. The people are here, and they matter more than anything else.
Get your free printable plan for cleaning your house in one hour.
Do you have a copy of my book yet? If frantic cleaning sessions like these make you determined to change your everyday ways, this might be the book for you. Find out more here.
Some of my tips were shared in a great one hour plan in Redbook’s November issue!
Nony!!! What if you had a baby moving around you?!!
That’s why people used to have playpens.
“Used”-to have!!
Babies nowadays+playpens=impossible!!
Not pretty witty babies who want to explore and wander whenever they’re awake…..we don’t have any choice but to : surrender! !
Amen!
It is SO much harder in that phase of life, but do what you can and know that people understand that a baby makes it harder! If they only give you an hour’s notice when you have a baby, they shouldn’t expect perfection!
Yes Dana, you are absolutely right! We need to take things easy; for those who really care won’t mind…and kids don’t stay kids for long. We ought to cherish those moments spent with them.
In one of his many books on cleaning, Don Aslett has a similar plan for a similar situation, but his first task is a quick wipe down of the bathroom, which I think is a good idea.
To parents of babies (takes a big breath because she fears she will sound like a bad mother):
A little time in the crib or pac n ‘play won’t destroy your child. My son is a freshman in college and I see now I should have obsessed less about doing the wrong thing when he was a baby (ok, let’s be honest, all 18 years and counting!). Giving yourself a little time to tidy up is very healthy. Actually a spa visit would be even healthier but I better keep it real here 😉
This is why I try to do most of my tidying when my toddler’s napping. Otherwise she sits in her crib and screams which does nothing for my stress levels while trying to tidy.
Many hugs- I remember those days well. When I wrote my comment I was thinking about “What To Expect When You’re Expecting”, or one of its many permutations, which had, and maybe still does, a sidebar with the heading “Don’t Fence Me In”. It made me feel bad for EVER popping baby James into his crib so I could accomplish anything. That book made me feel guilty about a lot of things and I wish my older self could go back and burn it in front of my younger self.
Amen, Sista! I used a playpen for my children. They never spent more than an hour in there at a time, usually about 30 min. It is a great way to begin teaching them that there are limitations, and the world doesn’t really revolve around them, like they thought it did when they were three months old. Other people need consideration, too, and this is a way to start teaching them that.
Yup! One of the parenting books I read stated that some pack-n-play or crib time while baby was awake was good for them, as it helped them learn to entertain themselves. That was enough to remove the guilt and focus on the panic of getting ready for people. Want to know how many times I swept the top of the buffet off into a paper bag with one arm before running the bag into my bedroom closet? **laughing hysterically**
This is a great approach even when not expecting guests. If I find an hour to clean, I usually pick one room to focus on and am left with several other rooms that are still messy when my cleaning time is done. I tried this approach yesterday afternoon in the hour before my husband got home from work. I was really impressed with the results! It wasn’t perfect, but my living room, dining room, kitchen, and hall bath all looked presentable in under an hour. 🙂
Thank you for this. My question is what do you do for that person in your life who, instead of choosing to focus on the fact that you’re better than you were before, only focuses on how you still have a long way to go?
I’ve quit having my parents over anymore because, even though my house is miles better than it used to be, my mother still lets me know I need to get my house in control. (I try to remind her that the nursery will never be perfect because the moment I put the books back on the shelf and the few toys back on the shelf, my toddler pulls them off and spreads them everywhere… but she seems to have forgotten that time in her life.)
The visibility rule is amazing though. Thank you for that.
is your mother beginning to get the message ? how sad that she would rather be critical than be welcome in her daughters home ! Hang in there and remember we all have different styles and experience. Happy Thanksgiving.
Have a very
Honestly, she hasn’t been over since I posted this…
The answer to your question is, You forgive them. Because you don’t want to be critical like them… you don’t want to be criticizing their attitude. (Yes, I have battled this myself.) Instead, try to think of a loving, thoughtful answer, such as “I realize I have a long way to go still, but I am thankful for how far I have come”; and to yourself, realize that she is trying to help you in her own way. She’s just trying to say, “Don’t stop now.”
I used this plan to get ready for some moms from my playgroup to come over and it worked like a charm! That podcast was so helpful. This weekend I took the time to go through all those boxes and laundry baskets I stashed away.
Oh I love hearing this!!
Quick tip: Put a new roll of TP on the holder in the bathroom.
Yes!
And if you DO hide the dirty dishes in the oven…especially plastic dishes….be sure to take them out right away or next thing you know it’s a week later and you’re wondering where you cutting board is why does your house smells like burnt plastic when you’re trying to get dinner on the table…
Not that I have experience with that or anything…*ahem*…
🙂
My mother used to hide dirty dishes in the oven occasionally. One time when I was in HS I preheated the oven without checking inside first, which caused the large Tupperware cake plate/dome combo thingy she had stashed inside to catch on fire. Total disaster. By the time the fire was out, we had destroyed the bottom oven rack – never did figure out how to remove melted & re-solidified tupperware from the rack. Pretty sure my mom proceeded to live with only one oven rack for around 25 years until she finally bought a new range.
You might think this type of experience might have taught me to avoid ever stashing dirty dishes in my own oven, but I’ve got to confess that I’ve done this from time to time….along with probably every other thing copped to in your book or on your blog! So glad I discovered Nony & her truth-telling!
Except for the ‘clean the mirror with the cloth you used on the bathroom floor’, this is great.
Well that made me go back and re-read my own post since I would never (like, ever) in a ba-jillion years say to clean the mirror with the cloth you used on the bathroom floor . . .
Not sure where you got your quote, but the actual quote from the article is “Dry your own hands after you’re done and then use that now-slightly-damp towel to wipe down the mirror.”
About the bathroom floor, the article says, “Grab cleaning wipes and wipe down the surfaces including a quick wipe of any visible dirt on the floor.”
Unless you’re drying your hands on a used cleaning wipe, I’m not sure where the confusion came in!
Ah there you go, I read it as the slightly-damp towel being the wipe. Sorry! Makes a lot more sense now that I read it through slowly and carefully… 🙂
Your book made a big difference in how I look at not only house cleaning but simplified the steps for me so I quit beating myself up about being a slob too!
Thank you
Filled in info, but don’t see where you “enter” it to get cleaning chart.
Just hit enter and you will go straight to the printable. But thanks for letting me know there isn’t a button there!
As a mother of nine, I have to address the ‘playpen’ topic that came up. I think it’s INSANE to not have play pen. Playpens can be the difference between life and death, and I’m only being slightly funny here. I would NEVER have been able to go pee, wash dishes, take the trash out, or clean other rooms, if it had not been for a safe place to place my little ones.
Don’t EVER let someone tell you playpens are a bad thing.
What IS bad is a mother who is so exhausted from constant vigilance, that she can’t think straight, she can’t keep her eyes open, or she’s so stressed that she’s not healthy for the family to be around. Or God forbid, become a woman who think children ruin one’s life.
I get so sick of hearing all the changes in motherhood that are expected of young women today.
1. NO, children don’t HAVE to be expensive.
2. No, your house does not have to look Minimalist. I really sense that Minimalists hate staying in their homes. I think that’s for people who work long hours or constantly travel. A house is meant to look like it is loved, not like a doctor’s reception area.
3. Babies need boundaries. A house that has too much free space is unsettling to them. And are much harder for you as you seek to train your children to obey you. A playpen helps create boundaries and it helps the child not get distracted with everything he COULD do, and just focus on the entertainment at hand. (ever watch Nanny 911? The thing they have the most in common is too many open spaces and they can’t run fast enough to keep up with the children who are running circles around the parents.) (Oh btw, it is possible to train your toddler/baby to stay on a blanket that you place on the floor. It’s good training for going visiting or going to church. But you can’t trust a blanket to keep your child safe when you’re not looking. Thus a playpen is gold!
4. A playpen next to your chair, while another child is on your lap, is the next best thing to a hug from Mommy. Playpens are not evil, they are your friend. And the child’s friend.
Thanks for an opportunity to vent.
I think Jennifer (and Dana) are genius!!!
I completely agree, a play pen is a safe space. How else can you go to the bathroom? It’s also a place from which the baby can observe everything that goes on around. My kids loved the playpen.
A friend of mine called it a baby prison an put her baby on the floor. That must be terrifying for a baby, all those giants passing by in a room where they can’t see the borders because they still have limited vision.
We always referred to our play pen as a baby prison after that, in a loving way.
Later when nr. two was too big for it but not too big to leave the Christmas tree alone we put the Christmas tree in the play pen.
I am 6 feet, so we screwed a big wooden plate underneath and 9 sturdy wooden legs. Perfect height and also perfect for 4 ikea roll under plastic bins to put toys etc in.
I feel for the person who has a critical family member who comments on her level of chaos. I, for one, am super delighted to see my son, his wife and my grandchildren. Yes, I see the dog hair, the crumbs, the dust, etc., but life is too short and we all can only do what we do in a day. In fact, I didn’t clean my full length mirror for eons, why, it had my precious grand baby’s finger and handprints all over it! I absolutely loved seeing them. They brought joy to me, more than a sparkling mirror. Now my husband recently told me that he did a quick wipe down in dear DILs powder room! Who knew? He said that he just saw it, wiped off the sink, vanity and swished the toilet bowl a bit, just in case a neighbor of hers needed to use it…bless his heart!
Dana, I love all your advice so much! Totally irrelevant, but I needed to comment that the doorbell in the top photo is the exact one we had at our previous house, and the one in the second photo is the one we have at this house, so that was a bit freaky. Now if we could ever just keep them clean well enough! 🙂
When we lived close enough to our extended family for them to visit us (two hours away) they would always come way early, so this strategy would not work for us unless we started two or three hours before the scheduled arrival time. Just something to think about for those who like to arrive really early to your home.
This video popped up on my YouTube feed. I am currently selling my home so this has been perfect for me when the agent calls to arrange a viewing. By the time I get out my checklist there is nothing more to do except grab the dog for her walk and leave