Underachieving Clean-Up Tip #1

If you have put your children to bed too early before they cleaned up the toy heap on the floor and your house needs vacuuming, use my secret method to a quick clean.

#1 Get out your vacuum.
#2 Watch an episode of Top Chef.
#3 Plug in vacuum. (sometimes you can skip #3 if necessary.)
#4 Turn on vacuum in furthest corner of room.
#5 In straight lines, run vacuum up and down your room.
#6 (Very important) When you encounter toy or toys, push them into a corner or under your couch or bed.
#7 (Also very important) Be on the lookout for the following items: coins, small legos (if you care), strings or ribbon, doll's hair. These will turn this quick clean into a long clean.
#8 If you were not able to find a good hiding place to shove the toys with the vacuum then pull out your handy professional-style sweeper with extended dust pan. (You know... the kind the movie theater staff uses to sweep the popcorn you deliberately drop because it's fun watching someone else work especially when they are younger and better looking than you.)
#9 Sweep toys into dust pan.
#10 Dump toys into toy bin, box or heck- even the garbage can.
#11 With a smile on your face, smack your hands together, then put your hands on your hips and say, "My job here is done!"