If you’re clean and tidy and a minimalist, that’s half the battle. Why don’t you have a cleaning service come in every other week to clean? On the off week, vacuum and mop the floors, clean the bathrooms (shower/bath and toilet), and dust/use glass cleaner on mirrors/tables/where needed. You should be fine.
One thing I do consistently is put dishes into the dishwasher and leave no clutter on kitchen counters. My avatars periodically have the urge to counter-surf (their dumpster childhood calls or something like that), so I try not to tempt them. 
Other than that, I do a blitzkrieg cleaning once a week: Bona-mop the ground floor, vacuum upper and basement floors, clean baths (I usually do interim cleaning 2-3 times a week in MB and powder), dust. Once in a quarter i clean windows and oil the tall wood baseboards on the ground floor.
@ChattaChia, I vacuum my baseboards with brush attachment first to remove dog hair/dust. Then I use magic eraser and warm water to wipe them clean (mine are painted.)
I just wipe down my maple kitchen cabinets with sponge and soapy water. Seems to work since I do it all the time so there is no grease built up.
For a tougher job try Goo Gone.
https://www.thespruce.com/ways-to-clean-wood-kitchen-cabinets-3017289
I find Murphy’s Oil good at getting that yuckiness off of the kitchen cabinets.
Marie Kondo says in her second book that keeping the kitchen counter surface clear of everything (including cleaning stuff) makes for a happier cooking experience overall. Aesthetics trumped efficiency. She figured that out after visiting professional kitchens.
So I tried it–removed everything except a bottle of soap (I cheated but used WAY too often but it’s a very pretty container) and I bought a 2x4 inch tray to hold a soap pad. Very minimal. Removed everything else. And yes, I love it. Everything really stays much neater and it’s more fun to cook.
Baseboards–umm…maybe I should do those one day. With a vacuum and a prayer. My mom thought baseboards were important–but after too many years doing them and deciding “not in my lifetime ever again” I don’t bother unless something egregious shows up. Life’s short.
Biggest clean asset is no pets. I miss my cat dearly but I can’t believe how much the lack of pet hair has simplified my cleaning (like baseboards!)
I have always had a housekeeper (sometimes twice weekly when there were guests, parties, etc.) but in 2012, I decided my kids were lazy and ignorant about cleaning and that I had a bad attitude and was just unappreciative. We had just moved, so I didn’t have to fire anyone. I just didn’t hire a new cleaner.
So now I do it all myself (kids help when home, but D has graduated and moved to her own apartment, where she is an excellent roommate because she learned to clean so well!)
I dust something every day (allergies) and vacuum cat fur several times a week. I do the bathrooms that we use once a week… I sweep the kitchen floor daily and am always wiping counters. Rooms that don’t get used every day (formal living and dining rooms) get ignored a little longer.
I have a harder time with clutter because my husband is a pack rat and doesn’t mind the mess.
@katliamom I totally agree about the kitchen sink! One of my peeves is getting up to find some late night snacker didn’t clean up his dishes and left them in the sink!
Paper plates. Just sayin"…
@gouf78 , We recently renovated our kitchen and I have to say I agree about keeping the counters as bare as possible. I have my kitchen aid mixer and food processor tucked away in a corner now, so the only thing I have out of my big wooden cutting board. it makes my kitchen look so big to me now !
Really? We use a service called “The Maids.” There is another group called “Maid Brigade” and another called “Merry Maids.” They don’t seem to mind.
@ChattaChia - for ceiling fans, get up there on a ladder and spray the dusty surfaces carefully with something before you wipe. You can wipe with a cloth, or even with a pillowcase covering the whole blade so the dust doesn’t come down.
I use Bona too, instead of mopping hardwood floors. Just spray and use the “mop” with the velcro attached parts that you can throw in the washer afterwards. I have a giant bottle of Bona for now but I’ll probably make my own if it ever runs out. They make good spray bottles - no flailing spray or weird drips.
Magic Erasers are great for getting stains off of painted walls and also for removing soap scum. I keep one near my shower along with a big plastic cup for rinsing after I’ve erased.
Baseboards I don’t do very often, but mine are pretty high and they’re white so they show dust. I wipe them with a damp cloth. Once H opened a bottle of Fantome ale at the dining room table. It was Christmas dinner with a large family group. Fantome is fermented in the bottle and let’s just say it’s unpredictable. The entire contents of the bottle shot up, hit the ceiling, and dripped down all over everything! I’m still finding traces of it on baseboard molding, door trim, window trim, etc. Thank goodness BIL had the thought of mopping the ceiling so it wouldn’t stain. Cleaning can be an adventure!
We have a Roomba but never use it because it always malfunctions and gets stuck. It was a waste of money for us.
I find that doing low-effort daily sweeping/wiping, especially in the kitchen and bathroom, keeps the house a lot cleaner than infrequent heavy cleaning. It helps that only two of us (and no pets) are living here. If you devote 15-20 minutes or so a day to maintenance cleaning in key areas (i.e. kitchen, bathroom, switch plates, high traffic areas), your house will never get that dirty (these extra minutes are in addition to basic things like washing dishes or doing laundry or making beds or taking out the trash). If I know I have to spend a whole weekend cleaning my entire house, I just feel defeated and I won’t do it. But the little maintenance things, I can manage, and the overall result is tolerable if not hospital-standard. The key to a cleanish house, for me, is low-level routine. My house is never completely spotless but it’s never a tip either.
Once a year I dust/sponge wipe my walls, clean interior windows, and clean my kitchen cabinets with Murphy’s Oil Soap solution to get the grime off (do not let it dry on the surface of the wood; wipe off with a clean dry rag after cleaning). A few times a year I lift up the area rugs and pads and vacuum/clean under them. The gunk under my rugs (even without pets) has convinced me that I never again want to live in a place with wall-to-wall carpet.
Thank you, EVERYONE! This is very helpful. I think I am somewhat stuck in my perfectionism. Which I know is a fly lady thing. I am familiar with her from a decluttering standpoint more so than a cleaning standpoint. Speed Cleaning sounds appealing.
We are now pet-less and plan to stay that way. We will be across the street from the beach so SAND is going to be a problem, I fear. Though we always wash our feet before coming in. Our vacuum, sadly, does not have attachments. A roomba would not go under our bed. Its not gong to move, so I guess the rug is just going to get dirty under there.
I need to explore the Bona thing - is it just a dust/dry mop?
My kitchen cabinets have only a Keurig, fruit bowl, and hand soap. I don’t have lots of decor-type, dust collector items anywhere. I always put our kitchen “to bed” every night. Things are always picked up. There would be no tidying to do before cleaning.
@gouf78 - We used to have 4,300 sq ft. We went down to 3,450 five years ago. Now 935. Ds graduates from college in June and is launching which is why we are doing this now. But I always had a housekeeper in our “big” houses. Yes, it’s a big downsize! Dh has said he will help me clean when he has retired. We aren’t quite there yet - just currently living in an apartment that is the same size as our retirement condo as we transition. If I had my druthers, I’d keep a housekeeper, but dh doesn’t want to because he says we can do it, and he doesnt want to spend the $. @Bromfield2 - those tasks you list are what I don’t want to do and what I’d have a house cleaner do! I’m confused about what you are saying they house cleaners would do? Ha ha! This is why I think I’m not doing enough, cleaning -wise. I do need to figure out some, sort of system that works for ME. @Marian - this is my issue - I’m almost resentful about it! I need to have an attitude of gratitude that I have a home to clean! Maybe when dh actually retires and does help me, that resentment will abate. I’m just not sure he will do it to my liking. Eek!
Thanks, again, for all the suggestions. And, for being supportive.
https://m.lowes.com/pd/Howard-Wood-Furniture-Wax-16-oz-Wood-Conditioner/999918618
Works great for my stained wood baseboards.
We’re planning on not using a cleaning service for our next house, but I needed one for this house because it’s yuge. 5000+ square feet. We just bought a 1500 square foot condo, and I’m looking forward to cleaning something that I feel is manageable. It takes me two hours just to vacuum this one. I can get through hours of books on tape washing the baseboards. It’s no fun and rough on my joints.
H thinks I’ll still want an every other week service, though for the smaller place. His thought is that they’ll clean spots that I miss, and the condo will never get too dirty if I go on a cleaning strike because I’m distracted by other things. He may have a point, but my plan is to do without it going forward and see how well it works.
I have a roomba and a wet-floor version of the roomba that mops our wood floors. I love them. I also have a good vacuum cleaner-that makes all the difference in the world when it comes to being less aggravated with cleaning.
Probably what I’m trying to say is, there’s no one right way to clean-if you’re hating what you’re doing cleaning-wise, it’s ok to try other techniques and/or get help if it’s in the budget.
@Hoggirl On the week that the cleaners come, have them do what you don’t want to do. The tasks I listed were for a basic cleaning when the cleaners aren’t there. When my D got married, a friend of mine gave her a book (shower gift) about cleaning. It was called The Art and Science if Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson. Take a look at it.
Bona is a liquid hardwood floor cleaner. You can buy an intro size that comes with one of the mop thingys. They’re fine but there are MUCH better ones sold separately at Home Depot or Lowes. Basically a metal broomstick with a plastic rectagle on the bottom. The Bona one has velcro on it and you stick the Bona pad on either one side or the other (one is fluffy like a dust mop, the other is more like terrycloth). The better version has a rectangle at the bottom, and the dust mop/terrycloth piece is a sleeve you slip over it and velcro into place. Either one can be thrown in the wash.
You spray Bona or whatever you want on your floor and wipe it up with the mop. Or you can use a conventional wet mop first and dry it up with this mop.
I sometimes tell people I went back to work full time so I could hire a cleaning service and get out of cleaning.
I’m not entirely kidding.
@greenwitch - thanks. I don’t have any hardwood floors in our condo. Tile and wood laminate.
Bona makes a cleaner for tile floors too. I use that in bathrooms and laundry room.