10 Time-Saving Housework Lifehacks You Need to Know

Housework sucks, okay? Even if you are like me and tend to have a thing for relaxing with a little housework to reduce stress, there's really only so much you can take before you feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work you need to do in order to keep your home clean.

Once in a while, it's okay to want to cut down on housekeeping time. Here are some of the best time-saving housework lifehacks you should know for those days where you need to trim a few minutes off your schedule.

Use a wet sponge to clean your microwave.

If you clean a microwave the old-fashioned way, you'll end up scrubbing and toiling away at that thing for ages. To reduce elbow grease and cut your cleaning time in half, grab a clean sponge and run it in water. Next, add a little white vinegar to the sponge.

Then, place the sponge in the microwave and nuke it for about 30 seconds. The water from the sponge will help loosen up the grease, while the vinegar will sanitize everything.

Wipe down the microwave, and you're done cleaning!

Do a monthly toss-out.

Did you ever notice how much stuff people have? Did you ever notice how time-consuming cleaning all that junk is? Believe it or not, you really don’t need all those things in your life. In fact, many of them might be causing more stress than relief!

If you want to reduce your cleaning time, then take a single day out of the month to look at your items and determine which could use a toss. By tossing out a minimum of 10 items a month, you keep clutter (and cleaning time) to a minimum.

Clean your bathtub faster than before.

Bathtub cleaning isn’t easy to do…or is it? This might be the king of time-saving housework hacks, simply because it takes a multi-hour task and pares it down to a five minute scrub. Just grab dish soap and a clean brush.

Drizzle the dish soap all over the tub’s basin. Then, scrub it with the clean brush. The dish soap scrapes away all the grease from bath bombs and soap—not to mention scum. Then, just use the shower to rinse all the grime away. How good are bathroom cleaning lifehacks you didn't know you needed?

Streamline your laundry.

Are you one of the many people who tends to do their laundry multiple times during the week? That’s great, but you save time and money by doing it all in one jump. By doing big batches of laundry, taking time to fold them immediately after, and just stockpiling them away in one swoop, you’re set for the week.

Grocery shopping is a form of housework, too! If you’re like me, then you already tend to dread spending time at the grocery store. It makes sense, really. That time at the grocery store could be used relaxing, cleaning, or hanging out with friends!

Believe it or not, you can actually save time and money by getting an Instacart account. Their yearly subscription gives you free delivery and can even send your favorite cooking and cleaning supplies straight to your door after work.

Skip ironing using ice cubes or dryer balls.

Ironing… who needs that stuff?! If you are in the middle of doing laundry and just don’t feel like ironing out the wrinkles in your clothing, we have some good news. You can skip ironing by tossing in ice cubes before you turn the dryer on. The humidity releases wrinkles in a pinch.

Not a fan of ice? Not a problem. Dryer balls, like the ones you get in stores, can have a similarly beneficial result to your clothes’ wrinkles.

Clean as you walk around the home.

If there were two time-saving cleaning hacks that will make your home spotless to learn, let them be these. The first is to make a habit of tidying up while you walk around the home. The second is to reduce the need to clean by simply putting away things immediately after you use them.

Between these two rules, you will cut down clutter in ways that you never knew was possible. Bartenders love this trick, and use the French term mise-en-place to describe it. Doing this, you won't need cleaning hacks to make your place livable.

Use your dishwasher to clean other household items.

Your dishwasher is way more useful than you've ever imagined. A wide variety of different household items can be put in there and cleaned safely, including plastic children's toys, fan blades, crockpot parts, and even certain types of filters.

If you aren't sure what will work in the washer, take a look at lists of dishwasher lifehacks to see how you can make more use of everyone's favorite household appliance.

Use a wet sock to clean blinds.

Blinds are pretty troublesome to dust, aren't they? No joke, they can be if you don't know a couple of time-saving housework lifehacks. One of the most popular ways to cut down on cleaning blinds is to use a wet sock to "pet" the blinds. This removes the dirt and grime.

Want a more thorough way to clean them? Just wrap socks around tongs, and run the tongs against each blind. You'll be surprised how easy it is to save time this way.

Have a bag bag.

Bag bags are something that are pretty commonplace in low-income houses, but they make for excellent tools. This is a bag filled with all the plastic bags you get from grocery stores.

They actually can be used in multiple time-saving housework lifehacks. For example, grab a bag from your bag bag and use it to take out the recycling before you go to work. This cuts down on the trash in your home, and also makes it easier to recycle.