Help! - I need to simplify dusting

[sora]

I hate dusitng. I don't do enough of it as I'm always busy cleaning the floor but I know the importance of it and it stresses me out not to do it.
First of all, how often do you dust? Do you keep a dusting schedule? I can't seem to find time to dust maybe because I'm not efficient with dusting. I have not dusted the blinds and wall for a year. If I don't see it I don't remember to do it.
Do you dust all the toys too? So much work.....

How do you dust? do you dust with dry rags or wet rags? i mostly do wet rags but i do dry rags on lamps and some wood furniture with microfiber clothes. How do you shake the dust fromt the dry rags? For example, I dust a few things and have lots of dust clinging to the cloth. Should I continue to dust other things with it or get a new cloth and wash the dirty one or shake the dust out and reuse it? I would hate to shake it as I will inhale the dust. If I want to wash it, I will be needing lots of dry clothes to dust the whole house.

My wet dusting is also not very efficient. Every time I wipe something, there is a lot of dust clinging to the cloth so I end up rinsing it out very often, which is very time consuming. Or I could use a clean cloth - again I will be needing at least 5 cloth just to do one bathroom and maybe 30 of them to do the whole house?
Would it be easier to have tons of cloth ready and keep dusting with new clothes and wash them in a washer?
How many dusting rags do you have? I have about 7.

Also, if you dust one room a day, you don't have enough dust rags to do a full load. Where do you keep all the wet dirty rags until you have enough to do a wash?

Thanks for your tips!

[Turquesa]

[sunnysandiegan]

For quick dusting, I use a really good feather duster I got from flylady dot com. Actually, I got two from that site years ago...one large and one medium.

For more thorough dusting, I use a damp rag. Rinse and squeeze as needed.

I broke up the dusting duties to feel less overwhelmed. I dust the bathrooms when I clean them versus doing all the dusting in the whole house. I rinse and reuse the same rag over and over working my way from the "cleanest" tasks to the "dirtiest" tasks. I use the feather duster for the lights and picture frames and tops of mirrors and along the top edge of the shower, etc.

I dust all the ceiling fans in the house at the same time. We have four. When I clean any of these particular rooms, I tend to work my way around the room clockwise. That means the middle tends to get skipped. Doing the ceiling fans as a separate task takes care of that. I use the large feather duster for the top of the blade and the medium feather duster for the bottom of the blade and run them simultaneously from the inner area to the outer area, overlapping the edges. I go over every blade at least twice. Then, I use the large feather duster to dust the main fan housing above the blades while using the medium one for the lights attached underneath. It just takes a couple minutes for each ceiling fan...ten minutes tops for the whole lot of them. Once a year, I will climb up on a ladder and use a damp rag to clean the top and sides of each blade. This is really only necessary in the kitchen, though, and that fan could actually use this type of cleaning more often and skip the dusting altogether. In the kitchen, it works best to use dishwater due to the grease. Once a year, I also take down the light covers and wash them like dishes.

To clean my feather dusters, I walk outside away from the doors/windows, point the feathers away from me and downward, and quickly run the handle of the feather duster between my hands back and forth super fast. This spinning action releases all the dust back to the earth. Once in seven years, I have actually washed the feather dusters in dishwater and rinsed extra well (gently submerging and treating them gently when wet). While it was dripping wet, I hung the handle from a hook. Then, I turned the handle downward, feathers upright in a vase to dry completely and fluff up again.

With rags, I rinse well and squeeze, then air-dry and wash them with the whites or towels or rugs -- whichever load is next. If I waited for a full load of rags, I'd only wash rags a few times a year and I'd need dozens and dozens of them. No room to store that many. Air-drying after use prevents icky smells.

Most feather dusters aren't worth a dime. They just spread the dust around and make you sneeze. These particularly feather dusters are rather unique and really work. They grab the dust and don't release it until you vigorously spin that handle.

I have done several dusting tests. A damp rag is definitely the "best" in terms of most thorough and least irritating to eyes/nose. I can literally dust every single day at my house and it still looks dusty by the end of each day. I don't let it build up to a disgusting layer, but I do not dust every single day. My happy medium is spreading out the dusting chore and doing a different area each time.

[ChristyMarie]

I think part of it is learning how often your house needs to be dusted to keep it at the level where it is still an easy job. For my house right now that means I clean/dust one week and feather dust the next. That rotation keeps the house dust free. I just use pledge and a rag - it never gets dusty enough to need more than one rag.

I had one house where it was a good month before anything looked/felt dusty but it was a brand new, sealed building.

I had an old house where by the time you got done with the room, the first thing looked dusty already. GRRR! Drove me crazy.