No Time to Clean! How to Reduce & Prevent Cleaning the Professional Way by Don Aslett

Don Aslett is THE guru when it comes to cleaning. His books on cleaning, time management and “decluttering” are as enormously popular as they are entertaining and educational. (I also really like his books on other topics too). “No Time To Clean! How To Reduce & Prevent Cleaning The Professional Way” is Aslett’s new approach to cleaning for a new day.

The book is written in Aslett’s easy to read and entertaining style and is accompanied by the artwork many of his texts are know for. I personally find the style, layout, and artwork enhance the reading experience, but make no mistake about it; Aslett’s books contain a lot of meat with that sizzle. His down home practical advice is right to the point.

This book on cleaning is just under 200 pages long and contains 10 chapters. They include:

Intro: No Time To Clean! Aslett knows you don’t have time to clean, so he points out that he will show you how to prevent cleaning as well as other strategies to solve your “no time to clean” worries.

One: Modern Cleaning’s Biggest Mystery: The Time to Do It. Three page chapter with the focus of if you are cleaning more than a couple of hours a week, you are cleaning too much or inefficiently. Quick motivation to get started now!

Two: Adjusting Our Standards and Schedules. If it isn’t dirty, don’t clean it. Among the great tips in this chapter include advice on how clean things really need to be and how to set standards rather than cleaning by charts or schedules.

Three: Cleaning on the Run. Aslett shares some “whys” regarding cleaning and some tips on doing things before they become bigger. You might also be surprised at what you can get done in a very short amount of time, and the chapter shows you how to clean faster and ways to make things stay clean longer.

Four: The Best Way of All to Cut Cleaning: Prevent It! This chapter is all about preventing those down-the-road problems. Aslett provides some great suggestions on how to do just that.

Five: Too Much = Too Much Time Cleaning. Aslett is known for getting rid of junk. This is a very short chapter because he focuses on this topic in several other books. “Clutter’s Last Stand” and his other clutter books are great if you need more help with clutter.

Six: Do Your Housework With a Hammer. This is an interesting chapter on designing your house, or parts of it, to make it easier to clean.

Seven: Other Hands That Can Help. If you are going to hire others to help you clean, you will benefit from reading this chapter first. Aslett provides some good advice regarding getting others to help with your cleaning needs.

Eight: The Big One: Getting Kids to Help Clean. Aslett suggests this might be the most important topic in the book. Besides the help you get cleaning your home, it will help young people late in life. He has some very good suggestions for getting kids to help out.

Nine: Quick Cleaning Room by Room. Tips and strategies for cleaning every room in the house as well as the garage and outside. Just implementing some of these would make a big difference.

Ten: Quick Cleaning Guide. This “guide” is 68 pages long and covers a ton of professional cleaning tips from dusting to pet messes. If you want to clean like the professionals and get more done in less time, Aslett shows you how.

Face it, cleaning is a big pain. It’s one of the necessary evils. We have to do it, but none of us really enjoy it. (well… maybe a few do…) Cleaning is not a topic that you leisurely read about either. So pick up this book, read it (it won’t take long) and implement the advice so you can clean more in less time and then get on with the better things in your life, after all that’s what living is about. Highly recommend if you want to clean faster, better, and cheaper.