I recently learned about this simple nightly routine that seemed to be a revolution in The Kitchn writer’s household: the act of sweeping the kitchen every night before she goes to bed. She says the act is a transition “from dirty to clean, from work to rest.” It’s a simple enough process; you literally just spend a few minutes every night sweeping up the kitchen. If something that small could help my mind transition out of work mode, I knew I had to try it.
Off I went to buy a new broom. I had one already, but it was about 15 years old, and I had been wanting a standing dustpan because my middle-aged back isn’t what it used to be. I found a $16 broom and dustpan set on Amazon that I loved, in red, one of my favorite colors. Then I got to work!
What Happened When I Tried This Nightly Sweeping Routine
In the article, writer Katie Leaird suggests hanging the broom in a special spot. While I thought an adhesive hook would do the trick, it didn’t quite hold up, and instead, I stood the broom and dustpan up next to the garbage can in the kitchen.
The first sweep was fine. It was more work than I expected because the dishes hadn’t been done and we hadn’t cleaned the kitchen in a few days. I realized I was pushing down too hard on the broom because bits of the dirt pile would scatter when I lifted the bristles. But I felt virtuous when I finished and went to bed knowing I would wake up to a clean space.
The day after I started sweeping at night, my husband remarked that the kitchen looked a lot cleaner. I had to agree — it looked like our housekeeper had just visited. That’s probably because this particular ritual is more than just sweeping. It also calls for wiping down the counters (just push everything to the floor, you’re about to clean it up anyway).
For me and my small kitchen with very limited counter space, that meant picking everything up and wiping underneath it, putting stray dishes away, and reorganizing here and there. Basically, I had to clean and organize the kitchen just to try this experimental routine. To be fair, it did make the nightly sweeps easier because everything was already clean.
Two days after I started sweeping every night, I realized just how much crap accumulates on the countertops and floor in one day. Crumbs, everywhere! An empty can left outside the garbage! Fur from the cat lingering near her water! You’d think having two dogs would help some of this mess magically disappear, but I guess not.
I also learned that if you also have dogs, brushing everything from the counters onto the floor before sweeping is not always the best idea. Their supersonic hearing heard a single crumb fall, and the two of them would barrel into the kitchen, ready to catch anything I dropped. The cat soon followed because she had FOMO. I didn’t want to chance anything the pets shouldn’t eat falling onto the floor, so I began to brush everything into my hand instead.
Three days after I started sweeping every night, the pets learned my pattern. They heard me tear off a paper towel and all came into the kitchen, full of anticipation for the bread bits leftover from toasted steak sandwiches and the rogue french fry that I didn’t notice had not made it into my mouth. Poor pets — I’d planned for this and again swept everything into my hand and dropped it into the trash before I started sweeping.
Over the next few weeks, my cadence slipped. If I was particularly tired, I left the sweeping until the morning. If I had to work late, I forgot to sweep. I never moved the broom out of the kitchen, though, because its presence reminded me to sweep the next time I walked through.
What Really Happened at the End of the Routine Challenge
By the end of my sweeping challenge, I found I actually enjoyed the benefits of sweeping every night. At the same time, I’d started to become too alert of any lingering mess (particularly crumbs left on the counter). If it wasn’t swept and cleaned, to me our kitchen looked horrible.
Don’t get me wrong, though — I definitely don’t like sweeping. What I do love is the way my kitchen looks after. I also have diagnosed OCD, and sweeping every night scratched a little itch for me in the hyper-tidy realm of my neurodivergence. That’s also the reason I’m not going to continue sweeping every night. I found, about midway through this experiment that the process was triggering my OCD in a way that I’ve worked hard to avoid. I don’t want to hyper-focus on meticulously cleaning the kitchen every night before bed, or lose my temper if I don’t. So, I stopped.
In a way, this challenge to sweep every night helped me reconcile more of my own issues than anything else — and I’m grateful for the experience. While it won’t be a daily ritual for me, I can understand why it’s satisfying for others. Maybe it’ll work that way for you, too.
Would you try this five-minute nightly routine in your own kitchen? Let us know in the comments below!
