Cleaning the house is one of those things that you have to do over and over again … and over again! How can you make it less of a burden?

When I taught time management classes, one of the things I loved to teach was the 80-20 rule. It is best explained with examples. Eighty percent of the time, he wears twenty percent of his wardrobe. Eighty percent of the phone calls you receive come from twenty percent of your friends. Eighty percent of the dirt is on twenty percent of the floor. Twenty percent of salespeople make eighty percent of sales. Okay, sometimes it’s 90-10 and sometimes 70-30, but you get the idea.

Eighty percent of the dirt is on twenty percent of the floor? Hmm, what does that suggest about cleaning your house? Often times, a quick walk through the parts of your house that really need it will make cleaning the house that much easier. If you are in a hurry, leave the dust behind the sofa and under the table alone and wipe a swath through high traffic areas. Sooner or later, you’ll either reach out to them, or hire someone else to do a deep cleaning every now and then.

You can probably come up with many examples of the 80-20 rule that apply to your own ways of cleaning the house and keeping things packed. Perhaps eighty percent of the dirty dishes left behind come from a single person. Perhaps eighty percent of your frustration with the look of your home could be solved by doing twenty percent of what you think you should.