How To Clean Efficiently With The "Follow The Wall" Strategy

Whether or not you think about it consciously, you probably have some sort of strategy for cleaning your house. But it’s worth taking the time to consider how effective your current strategy may (or may not) be!

While any cleaning strategy can help you keep your house clean, some strategies are more efficient than others! And today I’ll be introducing you to a cleaning strategy that makes it easy to clean your space quickly and efficiently!

For more practical tips for keeping your house clean, check out my eBook Spring Into Clean! You can buy it in my shop, or download it for free if you’re an OGT Plus member!

The “Follow The Wall” Cleaning Strategy

The “follow the wall” strategy is exactly what it sounds like! You start cleaning in one corner of the room, then work your way around the room by following the wall.

When you follow the wall, you’ll eventually complete a full circuit around your house. That means you won’t miss spots that are often overlooked, like the hall closet or the space behind the couch.

This method is so thorough that it’s a favorite of many professional housekeepers and home inspectors. Sometimes an inspector will even physically touch the wall as they move through a space, ensuring that they don’t miss a thing!

The “follow the wall” strategy is a neat and orderly approach to cleaning that can help simplify your routine! Here are some of the benefits you can experience from adopting this strategy in your own home.

3 Good Reasons To Follow The Wall While You Clean

1. You’ll Be More Thorough

When you follow the wall, it makes it harder to skip or forget certain tasks. If you’re working on a section of wall with a window, it’ll be much easier to remember to dust the blinds before you move on!

2. You’ll Feel More Motivated

Another benefit of this strategy is that it produces more obvious results. This addresses one of the major drawbacks of cleaning by task instead of by area, which can leave you feeling as though you have little to show for your efforts.

But when you clean by following the wall, each area will look pristine when you’re finished. When you’re able to clearly see the results of your efforts, you’ll feel more motivated to keep going!

3. You Can Do It Your Way

You can adapt the “follow the wall” strategy to fit any cleaning schedule. For those that prefer to do one big weekly cleaning session, following the wall will give you a clear beginning and end point to work from.

For those that prefer to do shorter daily cleaning sessions, you can simply follow the wall to clean one room per day. You’ll still clean your house thoroughly with fewer distractions, and you’ll likely save time in the long run too!

Bonus Tip #1: Finish In The Kitchen

Many experts recommend planning your route around the house so that you finish in the kitchen. The kitchen is often the most labor-intensive room to clean, so addressing it last can help you avoid premature burnout.

Bonus Tip #2: Use Imaginary Walls

The “follow the wall” method will automatically include the majority of the furniture in your home. But what about coffee tables, kitchen islands, and other items that are positioned in the middle of a room?

In order to make sure you don’t accidentally forget these items, it helps to construct a few imaginary walls. For instance, if you’re cleaning in the kitchen, you might imagine that there’s a barrier extending from the wall next to the oven that wraps around your kitchen island.

So when you finish cleaning the oven, you would follow the imaginary “wall” around the island before returning back to the wall next to the oven.

So if you’ve been wondering if there’s a better or more effective way to clean your house, I hope you’ll give this strategy a try! It may be just the thing you’ve been searching for! :-)