The first thing that sets high-end hotel bathrooms apart from yours and my bathrooms is that hotel bathrooms are cleaned every day. While in a hotel, a bathroom undergoes a cleaning every night that the guest is staying in a room, your home is not a business, and you do not have time to clean to the highest standards. So, do the quick stuff. Wipe down the counters, faucet, and sink. Spot clean the mirror and pick up any towels, clothes, or trash. By doing these brief tasks on a daily basis, it will make your weekly bathroom cleaning routine that much more efficient.

When cleaning a bathroom the right way you want to start by vacuuming and dusting. Work from the top to the bottom. In a small bathroom, this step will only take a minute or two as you dust light fixtures and shelves and then vacuum the corners and baseboards of the room. Next, use hot water. For every ten-degree increase in water temperature, you are doubling the effectiveness of your cleaning job. Get that water as hot as you can tolerate, without injuring yourself. Fill the tubs and sink with hot water and then use your cleaner on the shower walls, sink, toilet, and floor. Remember again that you want to start at the top of the room and make your way down. Let gravity work for you, not against you. Allow sufficient time for your disinfectants to work. Experts suggest that five to seven minutes is all you need for your cleaner to get the good contact time necessary for grime penetration.

As much as we would love for it not to be the case, there is nothing that is going to substitute for a good scrub when it comes to cleaning the bathroom. The tub and tiles will need a good hard scrub with a non-scratch abrasive pad (i.e. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser) to remove any discolorations. Make sure that after you have scrubbed your surfaces, you rinse away any cleanser. Because cleansers are designed to attract dirt, leaving traces of them in your bathroom is only going to be even more work to clean up next week.

After everything has been cleaned and rinsed, your next step is going to be to ensure that everything is dried. Use cloths to dry the sink, tub, floors, and toilets. Be sure that you only use certain rags on certain parts of the bathroom. For example, you wouldn't want to use the same rag on the sink that you used by the toilet. You are almost done! Now all that you need to do is give the mirror a good spray and wipe down. Exit the bathroom by wiping and drying the floor as you go. By the time you reach the doorway, you will have finished cleaning your bathroom just like the pros.

Remember, it does not take a long time to clean a bathroom, so long as you do small things to keep it mostly clean during the week. As you get into a better cleaning routine, you may discover your own little shortcuts to cleaning the bathroom.