How To Quickly Clean the Bathroom

How to quickly clean the bathroom. Get the bathroom clean in 15-20 minutes each week. Great bathroom cleaning tips and routine for busy moms. 

Woman holding cleaning supplies

Let me let you in on a little secret to being productive. If you want to be productive as a mother, you want to learn how to get as much done as quickly as possible.

My husband often comments in amazement how I can get things done so quickly. I am a speedy mover when it comes to cleaning things. That obviously helps to be able to get things done faster in life.

As mothers, we spend a whole lot of time cleaning. If there is anything we can do to make cleaning something a little faster, those little minutes can all add up to a 15 minute breather on the couch or with a good book in bed. You might need that time to attend to other chores or jobs you aren’t able to get to. You might use it to spend some fun time with one of your kids. There is no shortage of things moms can spend time on!


Read: Balancing Household Responsibilities with Family Time


How to Quickly Clean a Bathroom

Here are my tips to quickly clean a bathroom. Here is how you can clean a bathroom in just 15-20 minutes. 

Here is my quick cleaning guide for the bathroom. Note this is a quick guide, so I will include steps for cleaning the shower/tub/floor, but those things will add time to the quick cleaning. Things don’t necessarily have to be in this exact order.

Clean the Bathroom Consistently

The first rule for a quick cleaning is consistency. Take the bathroom. You can spend 15-20 minutes a week or 30-40 every two weeks. If you want it fast, it is easiest to attain that by not letting it get really dirty.

When you are working to be consistent, a good first step is to have a regular, dedicated day to cleaning the bathroom. There was a time I cleaned bathrooms on Thursdays. My only cleaning focus on a Thursday was bathrooms. There have been times I have done all of the major cleaning in one day.

Read my post on Easy Cleaning Schedule Options for Busy Moms for help setting up your cleaning routine and schedule. You can also see my post on How to Organize Your Cleaning Schedule. You can see great cleaning ideas from Christine Keys here. 

How to quickly clean the bathroom with picture of a woman cleaning

Step One

Put your toilet cleaner in the toilet. This way it can “soak” while you do other things.

Seasoned mom tip! Use toilet bowl cleaner tablets. When you use these, you don’t even have to clean your toilet bowl every week. Love it!

Step Two

Pick up the bathroom. Put everything in its proper place. Get the clothes put away, the brushes put away, etc. 


Need help organizing your bathroom so it is easier to put things where they go? See my post on Tips for Organizing Your Bathroom


Step Three

Clean the countertop. Move anything you leave permanently on your counter so you can clean under those items. Scrub the counter. Then put everything back.

Cleaning tip. I like to move from the top down when cleaning. That way if something gets wiped onto the floor, you still get a chance to clean it and you aren’t getting your clean floor dirty.

Step Four

Clean the outside of the toilet. This is everything but the inside of the bowl.

Step Five

Time to clean the floor. Start by picking things up off of the floor. Get everything off the floor (rugs, garbage can, etc.). 

Sweep the floor. You might also want to wet a sponge and run it around the edges of your floor. This will pick up loose hair and dust. Those things tend to get pushed to the edges of a floor.

Spot clean any necessary areas.

Next, use a steam mop. This makes cleaning any floor SO MUCH EASIER. Hands down, a steam mop is one of my favorite cleaning tools, if not the one and only favorite. You can find a lot of great steam mop options here.

Before I had a steam mop, I did not scrub the floor each week. I did an official floor scrubbing once every other week. In a perfectly clean world, I would have done it weekly, but in our bathrooms, we just didn’t need it weekly most of the time. The sweeping, wiping edges, and spot cleaning sufficed. 

Once you are done with the floor and it is dry enough, replace everything back on the floor where it goes. If you need to wait for it to dry, grab your new towels, empty the garbage, or do something else. If you want to be speedy, you don’t sit and wait. You keep yourself busy. 

Step Six

Clean the sink. I clean the sink after the counter, toilet, and floor so that any time I rinse off a sponge, I am doing it into the dirty sink. Then I clean away all of that cleaning product and dirtiness when I clean the sink. 

Step Seven

Clean mirror. I do this after I am done cleaning the counter and sink so there is no water splatter up onto the mirror.

Step Eight

Empty the garbage can. I do this toward the end so anything I might have thrown away in the process of cleaning the bathroom gets emptied.

Step Nine

Scrub the inside of the toilet. By now, your cleaner will have had a lot of time to soak in the toilet. 

Step Ten

Change the towels. I do this at the very end. I do it then so that as I dry my hands off, I am drying them off on dirty towels rather than clean ones. My clean towels start the next week off clean. You can also possibly use old towels to help clean the bathroom depending on what kind of cleaner you use.

Adding the Shower

Obviously scrubbing the shower is going to add time to your process. 

I  clean each tub about every other week. However, we have three tubs so they don’t get that messy. When we had one tub, it needed to be washed weekly.

A tip for cleaning the shower easily is to do so while you shower. I get in and scrub the walls, then wash my body. Then I scrub the floor once I am out.

5 Tips for Making Laundry Easier and More Tolerable!

Multi-Tasking While Cleaning

I often clean with multi-tasking steps going on. For example, me cleaning the shower while I shower.

Another example is my kids’ bathroom. Sometimes I clean it while a child is in the tub. I just have my cleaners in the room before we start the bath, then clean while they play.

Make Cleaning the Bathroom Even Faster

Want to make this process even faster? Of course, you do!

Involve your children. Yes, it will take a few years before they are old enough to truly contribute to the process, but I promise you it will be worth it. All of my kids have been able to clean a large portion of the bathroom independently by the time they were 6 years old. I break down the steps of what age they take on each task. You can see my chores for children posts to see what age a child takes on each task in the bathroom.


Read A Beginner’s Guide to Children Doing Chores


When my kids were younger and learning, I would clean the counter and such and have the kids remove everything from the floor, sweep, then scrub the floor. It taught them to work and it helped me out. Cleaning the counter is a great early step in cleaning the bathroom, also. Kids can also take out the garbage while you srub other things. 

Yes, there were years I went through with the “help” from the kids being no help, but let me promise you it is worth going through those times to get kids helping make the cleaning process easier. Even a 3 year old can help in a meaningful way. 

Read tips on Teaching Children Cleanliness from Emily at The Journey of Parenthood here.

You will get better at thinking of ways to have kids help as time goes on. When my kids were toddlers, I would find ways to let them help. I would tell them to put things away and they would do it. They loved to hold a rag and think they were doing something major. Having the child present with you helps her learn how the job gets done.

Always remember to not jump in and let the child do the cleaning. It can be so hard to not jump in, but it is important to let kids do it. You can read about that perspective from Katrina here.

Conclusion

There you have it! Hopefully, this can help you be faster and more efficient in your cleaning time and give you time for things you enjoy more.

Do you have tips for making cleaning the bathroom faster and easier? Please share!

Do you want tips on keeping the house clean in ten minutes a day? Go here.

Related Cleaning Posts

10 steps to clean the bathroom with a picture of a woman holding cleaning supplies

14 thoughts on “How To Quickly Clean the Bathroom”

  1. I like this post. It is helpful to hear although I've heard similar methods before. I really like your idea of cleaning while children are in the tub. (At first I thought you were scrubbing the tub while they are in there, but I got it 🙂 ) I also scrub my shower while I'm in there.

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  2. I tend to always keep the bathroom tidy, so cleaning it isn't that hard or time consuming. And my DH tends to be teh one who cleans the showers, so that generally doesn't get cleaned at the same time as the rest of the bathroom. And FWIW, I read some article that said that bathroom floors that are not mopped every couple of days have fecal matter particles and other nasty bacteria living on it. Not that I mop every couple of days, but I try to mop the bathrooms atleast once a week for that very reason.

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  3. I would love to see this for for other rooms. I also keep double the cleaners,upstairs and downstairs. It cost a little more but for me its worth it!

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  4. I like the idea of having your kids help you clean. Currently I do most of my cleaning when my ds is napping, but since he is 2.5 he is definitely old enough to help. And if I can get some cleaning done while he is awake than I can do something just for me while he is asleep. I've also learned that sometimes it's worth is to pay a bit more for cleaning products that make the job go faster. For example, I've found that Scrubbing Bubbles really does work. I can spray it on the bathtub, then clean the floor, then I only have to wipe down the tub instead of scrubbing it myself. Scrubbing Bubbles costs a bit more, but the time I save is worth it to me.

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  5. I'd love to see this for other rooms in the house. Most of what you mentioned I do as well – but it's still a good reminder. I am all for "cleaning as you go"… for example, if I'm standing at the microwave waiting for something to heat up, I'll wipe down the stove or clean out drawer while I wait.

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  6. When I wash my hands I take my soapy suddy hands and wipe in/around the sink, then rinse it down while I am rinsing my hands. It's a spit and a promise until I get the cleaners out to do the "real cleaning."

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  7. a little Head and Shoulders takes soap scum off, makes the shower doors perfectly clear and you don't have to shower with stronger smelling cleaners.

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  8. I'm curious to know what cleaning products you use while cleaning with your kids bathing. I've recently ordered some Mellaluca as they are safe for kids.

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  9. I would love to hear about how you quick clean other rooms. Also, Mr. Clean magic erasers work amazing on cleaning tubs with no hard scrubbing and no fumes!

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  10. Nilsen's Journey,Take note I don't clean the tub itself while the kids are in the tub, just the rest of the bathroom. I just wanted to make that clear since one reader said she was confused at first. Most of my cleaners are basically water and vinegar. I love the Queen of Clean book (I have written a post on it if you want more on that).

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  11. Hi Val,I'm loving your practical tips here, but wonder if you can help with my vaccuming problem. My 14-month-old is still very upset/scared of the vaccum cleaner and other noisy things like the lawn mower. I admit that I didn't vaccum when he was a baby (the house didn't get cleaned then!) and struggle to keep on top of the cleaning even now.As soon as I turn the vaccum on he starts crying. He even cried when I just got it out of the cupboard and wouldn't go anywhere near it. Do you think I just need to keep putting it on until he gets used to it? (He's fine with the washing machine and other kitchen machines, but they are not as loud.)Just want to say congratulations on the birth of Brinley too!

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