With the end of the year just a few days away, people will surely be conducting their end of the year version of spring cleaning. This is the time to do away with the old stuff, retain the stuff that they will still be using and purchase the stuff that they will be using for the next year.

But cleaning the whole house after perhaps six months of no major cleaning can be really time-consuming, not to mention stressful. To ensure that the end of the year cleaning gets done with as little stress as possible, here are some tips that can help you make the most of this one-time chore.

Involve the family

Who says you should be the only one doing the cleaning. Your home is also the home of every member of the family (unless you are living alone of course. In that case, you have to do all the cleaning yourself!); so they should all give you a hand.

Assign different chores to different people. If you can, ask them what they want to do? Clean the floors? wash the dishes? tend to the garde? clean windows? organize the garage? Involving the whole family will not only lessen the job for you but will also foster a spirit of togetherness. When everybody takes his or her part, there is better unity within the family.

Involve the little kids

Assigning chores to the kids is a wonderful way to also teach a sense of responsibility early on. This is like hitting two birds with one stone, they get to learn something and you get help. Easy tasks like feeding the pets while everybody is cleaning or folding the laundry is already a big thing. If they have their own rooms, they can clean their own rooms and get rid of their own trash.

Start from the top

When cleaning the house, it is good to start from the top then proceed down. This means that you clean first the ceiling, the walls and the windows before cleaning the floor or dusting off the sofa and the other furniture. This is because dusts from the top will go eventually fall off, dirtying the lower areas once again. If there are many people doing the job, they can simultaneously do clean everything but you still have to do one final sweep or vacuum on the floors and on the furniture.

Don't be a scavenger

If you have not used something for more than a year, chances are, you are not going to be using it anytime in the future. This is especially true with clothes on your closet. Get rid of it.

Most people who cannot seem to throw things away see to think that time will come when they will be able to use the item but unless you have a tracking system or a special database that lists down every knick knack that you have, you will forget that you have them in the first place. So just put them on a box and organize a garage sale for it. Who knows, others have a use for them now.

Divide and conquer

Cleaning the whole house cannot be accomplish in one day, even if you have a battalion of hands to do it for you. Try to schedule the cleaning day by day so that everything can be logically done. Three to five days will suffice depending on the number of helpers and the size of the house.

Bob is the owner of http://cleaning.knowsmart.com/ which is an up-to-date cleaning information site.