At the risk of sounding like a cloyingly optimistic Peppy Patty (which I can assure you, I am not), I never really understood all the pervasive hate for Mondays. I get that easing yourself from the freedom of the weekend into the structure of the workweek is a bit of a shock to the system…Hiring just the right housekeeper can be life-altering for the busy family. Now this may seem to be a little over-the-top, but I am serious. Think about your life-whether single, a couple or a family-you have no time. No time to keep your home as organized or clean as you would like. No time to do the smaller tidying jobs that would make a huge difference.

It seems cliched to say it, but often we let things slip through the cracks. We spend too much time thinking about them, too much energy worrying about them. You deserve a house cleaner or home maker to make your life easier. You deserve professional house cleaning, or a dedicated housekeeper. Maybe you struggle to fold laundry, clean ovens and counter tops, or scrub bathrooms.

Maybe you need to clean your house fast for a party, need a hotel maid to help scrub motel rooms, or are looking for a professional to help with hospital housekeeping.

And here enters great housekeeping. Now to be realistic, all relationships whether working or personal, have a starting point, and with the right match, can grow into something much more. It is certainly so with a new housekeeper. You look for certain qualities in a person, offer them a job and hope that it was a good choice. Went to the opinions of my friends. I asked each of them the same question. “What is the one quality that you would have to have to see when hiring a new housekeeper?” Below, I’ve distilled down their answers.

Plan and Efficient

A lack of efficiency – either through an eclectic personality, an easily-distracted mind or simple laziness – is one of the primary reasons that cleaning the house can take hours. In all but the most extreme cases, if you spend hours cleaning up a room, you probably weren’t really cleaning the whole time. Instead, you were trying to do about ten different things at once. Clany Tip: Don’t try to take on more than one chore at a time. Focus on what you’re doing.

The best way to motivate yourself to keep things clean is to set up a schedule. Have a day and time on which you’ll clean the bathroom, or reorganize your clothes, or vacuum, or go pick up groceries. Don’t deviate from that time unless you absolutely have to. Alright, this last one is admittedly a bit of a crazy statement, but maybe you spend too much time cleaning – and too much time putting it off – because you’ve got the wrong perspective? Why not, as Babauta suggests, try turning it into a meditative exercise? You probably still won’t enjoy doing chores, but at least you’ll feel like you’re doing something else with yourself instead of just sweeping or scrubbing a toilet.

Many food establishments fail to meet health regulations on cleanliness due to failures in daily cleaning tasks. Tasks in this category are sensitive and failing to execute them compounds the resulting mess. Areas that come into direct contact with dirt should be cleaned on a daily basis. Some of these areas will require to be cleaned more than once in a day when they become dirty. Daily cleaning tasks include:

• Disinfecting food preparation areas.
• Cleaning beverage dispenser heads and bottle openers.
• Wash the crockery and utensils and leave them to dry.
• Clean rags, aprons, towels, and uniforms.
• Disinfect the waste disposal area and the waste bins.