This year, December 31 will come and go once again. It’s the start of a new year, and hopefully, a new resolution.

Resolutions take work. Developing a new routine, especially one that involves daily chores and maintenance, may seem like an insurmountable task given how little time there seems to be in a day as we get older. Keeping a clean house is one of those daily duties that often requires training your mind to be ok with spending time when you don’t have it, or when your body has already begun shutting down for the day, and as such is easy to procrastinate and postpone.

Here are five tips to keeping a cleaner house for the new year and how to make it part of a comfortable routine!

Do a nightly clean. It doesn’t have to be a thorough, top-to-bottom spring cleaning type of clean that you need a shower after, but making an effort to maintain some semblance of organization in your home before you go to bed for the evening can do great things for your mental wellbeing. Putting a book back on the shelf, or picking up a pillow off the floor are small gestures with big benefits.

Do your dishes. It’s so tempting to finish making dinner and then forget about all of the utensils, pots, pans and whatever else went into making it. You just spent an hour putting together something for the family after a full day on your feet, or at the office, leaving the cleaning until the day after seems like something you deserve (and believe us, you do!) but taking the extra 10 minutes to wash and dry things like pots and pans so you can wake up to a clean kitchen the following morning is well worth the effort.

Take preventative measures. Even something as simple as running a squeegee over the walls of your shower after every use to prevent soap scum build-up will save you time and effort in the long-run.

Sanitize the toilet. If you do a cursory clean of your toilet every week, or even twice a week depending on its use, it will mean that you never have to come face to face with the abomination that is a two week-old uncleaned toilet in a multi-person household. A clean bathroom promotes a healthy household.

Know how to dust. Many people, especially those who dust with old-school feather dusters, simply move dust from one place to the other. The most efficient way to get rid of dust is with a dampened cloth, but most vacuums also come with efficient dust removing heads.

Making daily maintenance and preventative cleaning part of your routine takes some effort getting into, but once you have established these good household cleaning practices as second nature, you will be amazed at just how much cleaner your home looks and feels from this year to the last.