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1. Before you start, gather all your kitchen cleaning supplies together in a basket or caddy, so you don't have to hunt through all the nooks and crannies in your apartment to find where your roommate stashed your bulk white vinegar.
2. Oh, and you'll probably want to get all those dishes out of the way, too. If you don't have a dishwasher — or you have some extra greasy dishes that won't fit in said dishwasher — Dawn's Foaming soap will help hasten things at least some.
3. Steam-clean your microwave: heat a bowl full of water for five minutes, let it sit without opening the door for another five minutes, and any stuck-on grime will easily wipe off with a paper towel or damp sponge.
4. While you're waiting the 10 minutes for your microwave, drop a tab of foaming cleaner into your garbage disposal, and as the foam builds and retreats, it'll deeply cleanse the underside of the splash guard, the grinders, and the interior side walls. This should take about five minutes start to finish!
5. When that's done, rubber band a plastic bag filled with vinegar to your faucet, and it'll banish those hard water stains, zero scrubbing required. If you're dealing with heavy staining, substitute the vinegar with a more intense mineral cleaner.
6. In the last three minutes before it's time to wipe down your microwave, spritz your counters, backsplash, fridge, appliance doors, and stove and stove hood with a degreaser spray. Start with the greasiest surfaces first, so it has one to two minutes to break all the grime down!
7. Have a lot of stainless steel? Swap in a cleaner and polish for the degreaser on those surfaces to help protect them from those dreaded fingerprints — and make 'em nice and shiny!
8. Then, starting with the inside of your now-steamed microwave, use a rag or a microfiber cleaning cloth to wipe everything down!
9. Water spotting and funky smells in the dishwasher can be solved by simply running a cycle (either with or without dishes) with a cleaner designed exactly for those purposes, while you go focus on cleaning the rest of your home!
10. Pop one of these cleaning pods in your Keurig coffee machine and "brew" it exactly the same way you make a regular K-Cup, and you'll have a cleaner coffee maker in less than, like, three minutes.
11. Before cleaning anything else in the bathroom — so you don't make a mess of what you already cleaned — unclog your slow-draining tub or sink using a simple drain clearer. It may be gross, but it works pretty much instantly, and is way faster (not to mention cheaper) than calling a plumber.
12. Simply run a ring of basic toilet cleaner around the inside of the bowl, then scrub with a regular ol' toilet brush. They're a classic for a reason, because they're the easiest way to keep your commode from getting gross.
13. Once your toilet bowl's all fresh and clean, it takes two seconds to plop in a stamp-in gel, which can actually keep it sparkling for weeks at a time.
14. Shine up every surface with some cleaning wipes or a basic all-purpose cleaner and a rag or microfiber cloth. Stash 'em under the sink when you're done, so it's easy to quickly swab things down once a week or so. That way, you never have to deal with a buildup of dust or mildew.
15. Erase flecks of toothpaste on your mirror without having to deal with any streaks by using a quick spray-and-wipe of glass cleaner. You can either opt for store bought or make your own in advance: I use a 1:1:1 ratio of vinegar, water, and cheap vodka and it works like a charm.
16. Tackle even the worst, most egregious rust stains with a spray-on cleaning gel that'll dissolve it right before your eyes. It literally takes only a few seconds to work before you can wipe and rinse it off!
17. Bleach out any mold or mildew stains, because TBH that's the only way to quickly get rid of them without spending forever and a day scrubbing your heart out. The reviewer who took the pictures below used a no-scrub bleach formula called RMR 86, which claims to work in just 15 seconds.
18. Or — depending on what inspired this speed clean — I fully give you permission to skip your tub and shower entirely and just close your shower curtain. Out of sight, out of mind! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯
19. Erase any trace of mineral and soap scum buildup from your glass shower doors with soft cleanser, so they sparkle like they've never seen even a single speck of water. There's *no* super fast, no-scrub way to do this, but this is definitely the fastest I've seen — one reviewer says it takes about 10 minutes.
20. If you want a sparkling shower WITHOUT having to really clean it, regularly mist the walls, curtain/door, tub, fixtures, and floor with a daily shower cleaner after you turn off the water. Then you can skip the shower scrubbing entirely on speed clean days.
21. Make pet or lingering food smells vanish without lifting a finger: Just light a candle designed specifically to eliminate those sorts of scents.
22. If you're a pet owner or parent and have one or two choice ~organic~ carpet or couch stains you'd like to tackle (think pee, poop, and vomit), choose an enzyme-based stain and odor-eliminating spray because for those sorts of stains, you need those enzymes — a type of bacteria — to feed on the ammonia to completely eliminate the smell. Other stain removers might help some, but without the enzymes, that not-so-lovely stench will stick around.
23. Or just cover old carpet stains up with a rug or other furniture and toss a cozy throw blanket over any particularly egregious old upholstery marks. Like the shower curtain situation, sometimes the speediest thing is to skip the clean until you're not in a time crunch!
24. Head into your room and make the bed if you haven't already — your bedroom will immediately look neat and tidy, no matter how messy the rest of the space happens to be.
25. Next, dust the surfaces in your house, starting at the top (skipping the parts too high to see, for time's sake) and working your way down to the bottom. That way you won't vacuum first but afterward end up with dust from your bookshelf all over the floor! Dust around all your tchotchkes, don't move 'em — in your need for speed, a simple wipe can be enough.
26. Pull out a lint roller to quickly pick up all the dust that's built up on your lampshades...well, since the last time you cleaned your lampshades.
27. Use any old squeegee and some water in a spray bottle to easily clean pet hair off your sofa, furniture, and basically anything that's upholstered with fabric.
28. Or try an infinitely reusable pet hair roller to pick up gobs of hair all at once.
29. Finally, vacuum all your floors! Yes this includes the kitchen and bathrooms too. Unless your floors are gross and sticky like your favorite club's at 3 a.m., you can probably get by without mopping for now. But even a fast-and-furious vacuuming goes a long way to pick up hair, dirt, crumbs, and other mystery gunk.
30. Or to really keep your floors cleaner than you ever thought possible, splurge a little on a robo vac. It'll speed clean for you like, once every single day.
You, zooming through your home until it's sparkling:
