I know most people enter their home from the garage, but I don’t. (It’s a weird thing I have about being attacked in my garage or back yard. Don’t ask. Ok, you can ask, but don’t expect an answer that’s sane.) I enter my house through my front door. So, one of the best small tasks I can do over a weekend is a quick cleanup of the porch area. Makes an unexpectedly huge difference in such a short time.
Even if you don’t ever go through your front door, the rest of the world enters that way. Do it for them. Heck, do it for your mailman. He needs a pick-me-up.
So, 10 minutes to a nice, tidy front door/porch area:
- Grab a broom and sweep the porch. Move fast, don’t take a bunch of time to make it overly perfect. Yes, I said it.
- Use that same broom and sweep around the frame of your front door, clearing all cobwebs, etc. Do the same for the walls around the porch. Just a few quick motions is all you need here.
- If you have a window in your front door, grab some window cleaner and a cloth and give that glass a swish. Same thing for the door handle and the lock.
- Look around your porch area and make sure there’s nothing there that shouldn’t be. Is it July and you’ve still got the Easter Bunny hanging out? Ditch that.
- Give a quick swish to any furniture you have on your porch.
- Make sure your front porch light is in working order and not covered in bugs and dust.
- Finally, swish your mailbox with a cloth if it lives in that general area. I’m forever surprised how many cobwebs are attracted to that thing. And how spiffy it looks when I’ve given it just a bit of attention.
Step back and admire your work. Looks better, doesn’t it? Good job, Penelope.
- Assignment: quick desk clean-up Last week, we got our keyboards nice and clean....
- Assignment: clean your refrigerator and make your food happy Cleaning the refrigerator is a pain in the ass. Period....
- Assignment: Clean Behind and Around Your Toaster True confession: the other day, I gave into a massive...
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Penelope, I love your 10-minute front porch clean up! I’m going to try it tomorrow. I had to laugh at point # 4 — last year we really did have an Easter doormat out until July! Hopefully I’ll get in the front-porch cleaning groove, and change our summer doormat before Thanksgiving
. Thanks for the great post, Maureen
Great clean up idea!
I enter through the front door as well. I cleaned my porch up this weekend, but I only did a half a** job. I am going to take your list and complete the job this week. I think it really does make a difference when you come home. It’s the first thing you see, and makes it more relaxing when it’s pretty and clean.
It’s crazy how quickly those places get gross, huh? Thanks for the 10 minutes!
Love this idea…any ideas on how to keep the bugs from dying on my porch light and then drying like super glue? I can get the cobwebs and dust off, it’s the bugs that keep getting me!
@ Melissa: I have the same problem! My porch light was fairly overflowing with little gnatty things. Yuck! I think as long as we have light, we’re gonna have bugs.
I just did this last week! Even gave the door frame a fresh coat of paint:)
@ Beth: Wow! You really went above and beyond! Good for you!
Hi Penelope, love your blog.
The order of this assignment is wrong: when you clean is better to start from high to low. This way everything that you clean (Cobwebs, dust windows) will fall to the floor where you can collect it with a broom.
So a better order is:
Lights for bugs
Ceiling and walls for cobwebs
Windows
Mailbox
Furniture
Floor
Another part of a good technique is going clockwise or counterclockwise at the same time you are going from higher to lower. This requires that you have all cleaning supplies very much at hand. The idea behind this is that you will be more throughout.
I learned this from Jeff Campbell’s books. He is a cleaning expert. This works!
@Monica: you are so right! The order IS wrong. And I’ve been doing it incorrectly.
Thanks for this!
I love breaking any goal you have into small bite sized chunks of time. 10 or 15 or even 25 minutes can go a long way when you’re focused on doing just the general space in question. Great tips.