How to keep your kitchen clean every night and stop waking up to a mess the next day. Tidy your kitchen in just 10 minutes using this step-by-step process. Grab the free printable checklist to help with your cleaning routine.
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Want to know what one of my biggest home frustrations is? A messy kitchen in the morning.
There’s nothing more frustrating than coming downstairs in the early morning, trying to get your coffee going and being greeted with a complete mess.
Now I’m not going to lie, this has happened to me way too many times. That’s how it became my biggest frustration, because I’ve dealt with it so much!
I never had the energy to clean up the kitchen at night and instead I would just go to bed and leave it for future Christene to deal with. Then in the morning, I would wake up and feel immediately overwhelmed with the task of cleaning up the kitchen. It was not a great start to my day.
After doing this enough times that it turned into my biggest frustration, I knew that I had to start building better habits into my home cleaning routines.
I didn’t have time to do a deep cleaning every night. But I knew that I could come up with a quick routine to make the kitchen look and feel “clean enough” to be functional the next day.
Define “Clean Enough” For Your Kitchen
What does “clean enough” mean? Well, that’s something I had to define for myself in my home. I’m not a clean freak at all, but I do like things to be in order. When I have a clean and tidy home, it helps me to relax and feel in control.
So, I decided that “clean enough” for my kitchen meant that I needed to accomplish a few small tasks each night. Once those tasks were done, I would consider my kitchen clean for the night. And I knew that the next morning, I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed with the state of my kitchen.
I also wanted all of those tasks to take no more than 10 minutes each night. I didn’t want to spend an hour, or even 30 minutes of my night trying to clean up the kitchen. I wanted something quick, and actionable that would help me feel accomplished. And I needed to know that it would only take 10 minutes at the most, because that seems manageable when I’m tired after a long day.
Here’s the tasks that I’ve decided will help make my kitchen “clean enough” and set me on the right track for the next day.
Do The Dishes
One of the biggest impact kitchen cleaning tasks you can do is load your dishwasher. Having a dishwasher is like having your own home cleaning robot constantly working for you. And the best part is, you can run it overnight and it will be done in the morning.
Work smarter and not harder by always running a load of dishes through the night. The dishwasher does all the work for you while you’re sleeping.
Unloading and loading the dishwasher always seems like it’s going to take me a lot of time, so I used to avoid it. But then I decided to time myself, and it only took me about 5 minutes to do! That’s so much faster than I thought it was going to be.
Get all of the clean dishes from inside the dishwasher and put them away. Once it’s empty, collect all of the dirty dishes from around your kitchen and load up your dishwasher with as much as you can fit.
For any dishes that don’t fit into the dishwasher this round, take the time to rinse them off and set them to one side of your sink. That way they are ready to be loaded immediately during the next round of dishes.
Remove Clutter From The Countertops
Next, I like to remove all of the clutter that’s accumulated on the countertops throughout the day.
Visual clutter can create feelings of stress in your home. I like to eliminate as much visual clutter from my kitchen countertops as possible each night.
Quickly collect anything that doesn’t belong on your countertops. Then either put the items where they belong, or create a collected stack of items in one location. It doesn’t need to be perfect, you just want to minimize how many things are strewn about.
Try to reduce as much of the clutter as possible and your kitchen will immediately feel cleaner.
This should only take a couple of minutes.
Wipe Down The Countertops
After the countertops have been cleared, I’ll quickly wipe everything down to create a fresh, clean slate.
Again, this doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m not deep cleaning behind appliances and things. I’m only cleaning off the visible cleared countertops to get rid of crumbs, dirt, and other things that have dirtied up the countertop throughout the day.
I like to use the Mrs. Meyers Multi-Surface spray and a microfiber cloth for this task. The Mrs. Meyers products smell so good and are great for giving your home that clean feeling.
If you want to learn about my favorite cleaning supplies, check out this post. You can get some free cleaning supplies for your home – and see where I get all of the amazing smelling Mrs. Meyers products.
Grab a multi-surface cleaning spray and a towel and quickly wipe down the countertops to create a fresh, clean slate.
This will only take a couple of minutes.
Dry The Sink
While I still have the microfiber cloth in my hand, I’ll go over to the sink and dry it off.
I like to wipe away any of the extra water splashes on the sink and the surrounding countertop.
It’s not a necessary task, but I feel like a dry sink makes the kitchen feel so much cleaner. And since you were already wiping down the countertops, this will take less than a minute.
Move over to the sink and dry off the water droplets in and around the sink. Your sink will look so good!
Remove Any Dirty Towels
Once I’ve finished wiping the countertops, and drying the sink, it’s time to collect all of the dirty towels.
I gather up any cleaning towels that I’ve used throughout the day in the kitchen and also any of the hanging towels that need to be cleaned. I keep a wet bag in the cabinet under my sink. These bags are made for dirty diapers, but I think they work great for dirty towels too.
All dirty kitchen towels get collected and put into the wet bag. Once the bag is full, it gets moved up to the laundry room for cleaning.
Collect any dirty towels you have throughout your kitchen. This should take less than a minute. Put them into a bin or bag so that they can be moved to the laundry room in the future.
Light A Candle
Finally, I like to finish my cleaning routine by lighting a candle in my kitchen.
I started doing this as a way to finish my routine and transition into our family night time routine. I like having seasonal candle scents in our home, and I think it makes everything feel cozier at night.
Once I’ve completed all the kitchen tasks, I’ll grab one of my favorite scented candles and light it in our kitchen. I love the candles from Antique Candle Co. Since our kitchen is a nice central hub in the home, it’s the perfect spot for the scent to spread into the rest of our home.
The act of lighting the candle is the final step to my 10 minute routine. I’ll normally turn off the kitchen lights too and just leave on the under cabinet lights. Now the kitchen is closed, clean, and ready for the next day.
Free Printable Nightly Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
If you want to create a nightly kitchen cleaning routine for yourself, you can start by using my routine. I created a quick reference checklist for you to print and hang up in your kitchen.
You can get the free printable Nightly Kitchen Cleaning Checklist below.
Keeping your kitchen clean every day doesn’t have to be a huge hassle. Just make sure to define your “clean enough” and start building the habit of cleaning your kitchen each night. I promise it will make your mornings so much easier.
