Have you ever cleaned out of order and felt like an idiot? I once dusted and vacuumed my living room and then cleaned my fan blades, dropping more dust all over the space. 

When you’re cleaning, work from the top down, dusting walls or high shelves before you sweep the floors, for example. 

When cleaning a ceiling fan or overhead light, in particular, you want to work slowly and with a damp cloth. 

I’ve found that if you use a feather duster then you’re just sweeping all the dirt and dust down to the ground. With a damp cloth you’ll pick up all the mess on the rag. 

From a step stool or ladder and with the fan turned off, slowly rotate the blades of your fan and wipe down the flat blades on both sides and the edges which pick up a lot of dust. 

While you’re up there, wipe down the lights and the top of the unit. If you need to replace light bulbs take care of that as well. 

If you need to change the direction of your fan blades look for the switch which will be up near the base.

Then you can clean any fallout from the blades down below.