Maintain a Clean House More Easily With the 'Swish and Swipe' Method

There are plenty of techniques you can follow when it's time to get down to business and clean your home, but if you want to maintain that cleanliness in between larger tidying sessions, you'll need to follow another strategy, too. I suggest "swish and swipe," which comes from trusted cleaning pro The FlyLady. I already love her all-over home cleaning technique and this one is no different-although I do think you can and should adapt it for other rooms.

What is the FlyLady's "swish and swipe" cleaning method?

To understand what cleaning influencer legend the FlyLady means when she talks about "swish and swipe" as a way to maintain your bathroom, you have to understand her primary technique, known simply as the FlyLady Method. In her original technique, you break your home into five zones, then focus on a different zone every week. Zone 1 is your entryway, front porch, and dining room, while Zone 2 includes your kitchen and so on. Though your main bathroom is bundled into Zone 3 along with another room like an office or panty, depending on your home, there isn't any space in the five zone categories just for bathrooms. According to her, this is because you should be cleaning your bathroom every day.

She recommends swishing the toilet wand around in the bowl and swiping a cloth across a dirty surface, like the vanity counter, every morning when you're using the bathroom. You don't need to use cleaning liquids for this. The brush and the cloth are fine on their own for maintenance.

The idea is that by incorporating two quick cleaning motions into your morning routine in the bathroom, you keep it cleaner for longer without having to do much.

Adapting "swish and swipe" to help keep the whole house clean

The FlyLady has a great idea here when it comes to your bathroom, but you can expand this thinking to other areas of your home, too. The goal of rethinking how you clean isn't as much about focusing on swishing and swiping the "right" things so much as it is about building a habit of doing small tasks in each environment to keep your space clean. This can involve swiping a rag across a surface, like the FlyLady recommends in the bathroom, or "swiping" an out-of-place item before you leave a room, for instance. Here are a few examples of ways you can adopt this technique all around the house:

• Wipe down your nightstand and take last night's empty water cup to the kitchen before you leave your bedroom each morning.

• Wipe your faucet and fridge handles before exiting the kitchen.

• Sanitize light switches and the remote when you're done in the living room for the night.

• Wipe down your door handle and lock when you get home and lock the door.

• Spritz and swipe mirrors with cleaner before you leave a room.

Whatever you choose or need to do, build the habit of taking on two almost-miniscule cleaning tasks before walking out of any room so eventually, it becomes second nature and you don't have as much to tackle when it's actually cleaning time. These tasks will depend on what small messes you have or want to prevent, but this is less of a guide for what to do than it is for how to think of your ongoing quest to keep your home in shape.