This post is Part 5 of the series How to Easily Manage Your Home (you can catch up on all the parts here!), and today we will be digging into how to create a simple, easy to follow weekly cleaning routine that you will be able to stick with forever.
Now, if you’ve been around the blog for a while, you may be thinking, “Kassy, don’t you already have a blog post about creating a cleaning routine?”
Yes, yes I do…
BUT it was one of the first 10 posts that I ever wrote, so I think it’s safe to say that it is time for an update!
As I was creating my course, I realized that there needed a couple of extra steps in order to organize all of your cleaning items, so this post will give you even more bang for your buck than the last one did!
(If you want to check out the original post… click here!)
I know you are as excited to get started as I am, so let’s dig in.
If you want to be sure you are keeping up with the series and are creating all of the routines you need to Easily Run Your Home, grab the Easy Home Management Checklist!
1) Grab Your Gear
If you want to create your routine right alongside me, go ahead and grab everything you need.
To create this routine, you will need a pen, some scratch paper, and a notebook (or whatever you are creating your Home Management Binder in).
And if you’d like to use the same templates I am using, you can grab the Autopilot Workbook!
If you want a free template, you can grab my cleaning schedule template. It is a little less pretty than the workbook, but it will totally work for creating the schedule 🙂
2) Make a List
So we are going to start by making a list on our scratch paper of all the cleaning tasks that we have.
As you are making this list don’t worry about if it is a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly task.
Just write everything down that you can think of.
One suggestion I have is that you write each item down separately. So instead of writing “bathrooms” on your list, write down “master bathroom, kid’s bathroom, and downstairs bathroom”.
If you just write “bathrooms,” it won’t look like much on the paper and it might be hard to remember that each of those bathrooms can take a bit of time to complete.
You want to write each item individually because that will give you an accurate representation of how long the task will take you.
Writing the items down separately also gives you the freedom to decide if you want to do all of your bathrooms on the same day or if you want to split them up and do them on different days of the week.
And as you are making the list, add in anything that feels like a chore to you.
For me, this is grocery shopping. I just don’t like it. It takes a long time, and it just stresses me out.
Because of this, I add it to my chore list so that I will remember to space it out with my other cleaning tasks.
So if you have anything that feels like an extra chore to you, add it to this list as well!
3) Look at Your Weekly Routine
Now we are going to look at the Weekly Routine that we created in the last post and we are going to figure out which days make the most sense for us to clean on.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to create your weekly rhythm, check out this postbefore you go on. Determining your weekly rhythm first will make sure you put the correct cleaning tasks on the correct days.
This is because you don’t want to pile too much cleaning onto days that are already Busy, and you want to take advantage of the days that give you a little bit more downtime.
Now you want to be sure that you are basing your cleaning routine on a typical week. We all have weeks that are a little bit different than the norm: like holiday weeks, vacations, and of course birthday week (because life is too short not to have birthday week!).
So I wouldn’t base my cleaning schedule off of one of those weeks.
And since I base my cleaning schedule off of a typical week, when one of those weeks comes up and I may have to skip a day or two of cleaning, it isn’t a big deal because my house gets cleaned consistently.
4) Choose Your Cleaning Days
Based on the Weekly Routine that we looked at in the last step, decide which days make the most sense for you to add some cleaning in.
For some people, it may make sense to do a small amount of cleaning every single day. That is what I do for my cleaning routine. But for other people, it may make sense for them to do most cleaning on fewer days.
So it really depends on your weekly routine how many days a week you should be cleaning.
The only recommendation I have for you when you are making this decision is to do at least 2 days a week.
It is just too much to try to do all of your cleaning on one day. Doing it all on one day of the week will leave you feeling tired at the end of the day and dreading next week’s cleaning day.
Spreading the cleaning out over multiple days just lets you enjoy life a little bit more on the days that you are cleaning 🙂
The more days that you can spread the cleaning over, the better and more relaxing it will be because you won’t be spending your entire day cleaning.
5) Sort Your List
Now we are going to grab another piece of scratch paper and sort the original list that we made.
Across the top of the sheet write “Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly” then put the cleaning tasks under the proper column.
6) Divide and Conquer
Next, we will take everything in the Weekly column, and we are going to divide it among our Cleaning Days.
Now be sure that everything on your weekly cleaning list is everything that YOU want to do in that week… not everything that your mother-in-law, or your sister, or your best friend or your cousin thinks you need to clean every week… only things that YOU think you should clean every week.
And that is really important because if you are trying to keep your house clean to someone else’s standard, you won’t be happy.
It will only make you happy if you keep your house as clean as you want to.
So if you want to just vacuum your floors and clean your toilets every week… just vacuum and clean your toilets every week.
No one will call the cleaning police on you (and even if they do, they really can’t do anything to you ;).
And I would say if you are going to err on one side or the other, I would err on the side of doing too little cleaning.
That might sound a little weird on a blog post about cleaning, but it is much more important to spend time with your family than it is to spend all of your time cleaning up after them.
So if you are using the Autopilot Workbook, grab out the Weekly Cleaning Routine and fill out the top lines under the days. (If you are wondering what the bottom 3 lines are for, check out How to Easily Manage Your Home Part 2).
Now, you’ll probably notice that on my template I only have 3 lines under each day designated for cleaning. And that is because I don’t think that we should be cleaning all the time.
If you are doing more than 3 cleaning tasks every day, you will pretty much be cleaning in all of your spare time and you won’t have any time to take a break.
And you all know how important I think it is for mom to have a break!
Why This Step Is So Important: Story Time
I used to clean one day per week and it was very overwhelming to try to do this.
Splitting it up to multiple days of the week really took the stress out of cleaning, and it also made my house feel cleaner longer.
Which is honestly kind of weird.
You would think that dedicating one day to completely cleaning the house would make the house feel really clean. But I found that it usually only last one day before it felt dirty again.
I’ve found that doing a little bit of cleaning every day just keeps the house in a state of perpetual cleanliness!
I don’t know why that it, or if it is just me, but it is definitely something I’ve noticed since I split up my cleaning among multiple days.
And remember as you are writing down your routine, take at least one day off where you don’t do any cleaning or laundry because everyone needs a day off!
7) The Cleaning Task Organizer
That last step used to be the end of the cleaning task creation… but as I was creating Put Your Home on Autopilot I realized that you also need a way to organize those long-term tasks. And that is why I created the Cleaning Task Organizer.
So if you have the Autopilot Workbook, grab the Cleaning Task Organizer and put your Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual tasks in the correct column.
Then as you go through the year and complete the tasks, just put a tick by one of the little circles next to each line so you can keep track of what you still have to do.
If you don’t have the Autopilot Workbook, you can easily make a template with three columns. At the top of the columns write “Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual”
In each column write several lines for you to write the tasks on. Then write the proper number of checkboxes next to the items. (12 boxes for monthly, 4 for quarterly, and 1 for annual.)
Now I’ll show you what I have on my Cleaning Task Organizer, but only if you promise not to judge me! Remember that everyone will put different things in each column based on the size of their house and their
Here are the Tasks that I have on my Cleaning Task Organizer:
Monthly:
Dust Downstairs
Dust Upstairs
Clean the Microwave
Declutter one area of the house
Quarterly:
Wash the Ionic
Wash the Highlander
Annual:
Clean the Baseboards
Vacuum the Couches
Clean the Stove
Clean and Organize the Garage
8) Test It Out
The last step to creating any cleaning routine is to test it out.
It can be really easy to write things down on paper and have it look really good, but in reality, it may not work as well as we had planned.
So test out your new routine for a week or two before you decide it is set in stone.
And if you find any glitches in your routine, go back to whichever step you need to and create a new routine!
If you find that no matter what you do you can’t seem to fit all of your cleaning in, try using a bi-weekly cleaning routine.
For that, you just split your cleaning up between two weeks and rotate between the cleaning tasks. If you are using the Autopilot Workbook, you can just print off an extra page of the Weekly Cleaning Routine and put Week One’s Items on one page and Week Two’s Items on the second page.
It is better to clean your bathrooms every other week if that is tripping you up than to never get around to cleaning them because you are too overwhelmed to get it done every single week!
I hope this helped you create your weekly cleaning routine! let me know in the comments how you set up your schedule!
If you are ready to get organized and make a plan that will help you run your home without stress, check out my course Put Your Home on Autopilot!
This course walks you through the steps to get your home practically running itself!
In Put Your Home on Autopilot, you will learn how to set up effective cleaning systems, set up your day for success, and start making time for the things that matter most.
In just one month you will go from feeling overwhelmed to in control. And if you have any questions along the way, I’m only an email away!
I stood at the door of my laundry room staring at the mountain of clean clothes that was waiting there for me to fold.
I felt defeated.
It was Friday afternoon and I had spent the whole day cleaning.
I still had at least a couple more hours of work before me, and a child happily erasing every bit of evidence of how I had spent the day behind me.
Plus, I hadn’t even thought about what to make for dinner yet.
Why did I feel like I spent so much time cleaning and so little time enjoying a clean house?
Well for one I had fallen into the trap of thinking that my house needed to be perfectly clean by Friday so that it would be nice and clean for the weekend… because who doesn’t want a pristine house to hang out in?
I had also mistakenly thought that I needed to clean my entire house in one day… and that I could clean my house in one day with a busy toddler.
No problem. Toddlers don’t need much attention or supervision so this should be easy, right?
I mean, why would anyone spread their cleaning out over the week, when you could do it in one day???
That didn’t sound like good time management to me, or good organization of resources. I mean, not batching your tasks is so 2013.
And I also really, really, really thought that the house should just stay clean through the weekend and the following week until Friday came again.
Ha, ha, HA. That’s a good one, Kassy.
After trying this method for way too long, I realized that something needed to change.
I was tired of spending my entire Friday cleaning… and being frustrated every Sunday when you couldn’t tell that I had cleaned at all.
I was tired of feeling like I was always treading water in a sea of household chores.
Motherhood was supposed to be about enjoying my children, right? So why did it feel like all I did was clean up after her and I never got to enjoy her?
I started doing some research to see if there was a better way to get everything done. But nothing that I found ever worked for me.
I usually just felt more guilty after reading suggested cleaning schedules online because they required even more cleaning than I was currently doing! (Does anyone actually clean all their windows every week? Seriously?!)
Instead of following all of this crazy advice I was ready, I decided to see if I could simplify and minimize my daily duties.
My goal was to have the house running on autopilot as much as possible.
I set a couple rules for myself when I created my cleaning routine:
1. It had to be simple. I had a toddler and a new baby. If I had a rough day with the girls, I needed to be able to accomplish the tasks during nap time, while still allowing myself a little downtime.
2. It had to be predictable. I didn’t want my basic routine to vary from week to week. After a month or so on the new routine, I wanted to know what my chores were for the day without having to consult the calendar.
3. It had to be realistic. There is no way I was going to take out my trash every single day or wash all my windows every single week. That just wasn’t going to happen.
I needed my cleaning routine to make my house feel clean by my standards. Not by any friend’s, my second cousin’s, or one of those Pinterest Infographic’s standards. My Standards.
After some serious trial-and-error, I finally figured out a way to keep my home running smoothly, spend less time cleaning, and have my house stay clean all through the week.
So in this post I’m going to show you my Simple Weekly Cleaning Schedule, and if you want to see the 5 steps I took to figure it out, check out this post.
And if you prefer to watch instead of read, you can check out this video:
About My House
I hesitated to share my cleaning schedule at first because everyone’s house is so different. But when my friend asked if I could share it, I decided to do so with some additional information about my house.
After all, those Pinterest cleaning schedules that I had seen might work amazingly if you live in a small studio apartment. But for my house, they were unrealistic.
If your house is the same size or smaller than mine, it might work for you to do something like my schedule.
If your house is a lot bigger, you may need to spread out your cleaning schedule over two weeks in order for it to not feel like a burden.
My House:
Our house is two stories and 1730 square feet. I have three bathrooms (technically it’s two-and-a-half baths) and three bedrooms. We have a laundry room upstairs and an office nook.
Upstairs we have carpet everywhere except in the two bathrooms, the laundry room, and the office nook.
The stairs are carpeted as well.
Downstairs I have a long entryway and bathroom with laminate flooring, a carpeted living/family room, and a kitchen/dining room with laminate flooring.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s get to the cleaning schedule that took me from overwhelmed to in control.
My Simple Weekly Cleaning Schedule
Sunday:
Tidy the House
Sundays are typically a busy family day, a travel day, or a work outside the house day for us. This doesn’t leave much time for housework.
So because I don’t have much time, the only job that I have to do on Sunday is put away everything from our weekend shenanigans.
This includes unpacking if we have been on a trip. We try to arrange our travel so we get home no later than 7:00 pm on Sundays which gives us time to put everything away and still get the kids to bed at a decent time.
(If you want to see how we reset after a trip, check out this video!)
I find that if I wait until the next morning, those suitcases will be sitting there for days.
Giving myself a deadline to have it done by the end of the day on Sunday gets everything back in its proper place quickly.
Since this is the general rule in our house, the girls know the drill and take responsibility for making sure all of their toys and clothes are tidied for the next week.
Tidying up our house up usually takes me less than half an hour after a crazy busy weekend. If it takes you longer than that at your house, or if it is a week-long project, you may want to consider decluttering.
Decluttering your house is the single most effective way to keep your house looking and feeling clean all the time while spending less time cleaning than you ever thought possible.
My downstairs bathroom is my half-bath and it usually gets a lot of use over the weekend if we are home.
I clean this bathroom on Monday because I like to start off the week with a clean bathroom in case we have any visitors during the week.
2) Vacuum the Downstairs Floors
I used to do all of my vacuuming in one day. It seemed like it would make sense to get all of the floors completed instead of doing half one day and a half another.
But when I shifted my focus to completing one floor at a time, I was able to get the cleaning accomplished more quickly.
I also used to sweep my laminate floors, but I always felt like they were dirty again immediately after I put the broom away.
After I broke two vacuums earlier this year (it’s a long story, you can read about it here if you’re interested), I got a Shark Vacuum. My Shark switches easily between vacuuming carpet and hardwood floors… and I realized that vacuuming takes so much less time than sweeping!
Plus I found it worked a lot better to get the dirt directly out of the house than to pile it up, put it on a pan, and most likely spill some of it before I got it into the garbage… what can I say, I’m as graceful as a puppy.
Now I only sweep my floors under where the kids eat at the end of the day.
3) One Load of Laundry
I have a whole post about How to Solve the Laundry Problem that you can check out for my full laundry routine and my complete list of laundry tips, but I wanted to put a couple of the biggest tips into this post as well… just because I like you!
Laundry Tip #1: Do one load every weekday from start to finish.
And by finish, I don’t mean stuck in the dryer until the next load needs to go into the dryer. And by finish, I don’t mean in a pile on the floor. By finish, I mean folded and put away.
Since our laundry machine is upstairs, I start the laundry before we go downstairs for breakfast.
After we get home from swimming lessons or the park in the morning, I switch the laundry to the dryer. Then, depending on what we are doing that afternoon, I will either fold the laundry after my younger daughter wakes up from her nap, or I will fold in the evening as my husband gets the girls ready for bed.
Completing one load of laundry every day has been a huge cure for the laundry problem I was facing.
If you work outside the home, try starting the laundry as soon as you walk in the door at the end of the day, then switch it over before you sit down to dinner. Then you or your spouse can fold the laundry while the other gets the kids to bed, or you can fold together while you watch your favorite show in the evenings.
Tuesday
1) Grocery Shopping
Fun Fact About Me: I would rather do any other chore than grocery shopping. Ever since I was little it has stressed me out.
When Ross and I first got married, we realized how differently we felt about this necessary evil when we went shopping together (because we were cute like that).
Ross would get giddy about going grocery shopping and go up and down every aisle, looking at anything with a shiny box, and convincing me to get anything that said “NEW!” on it.
I usually spent the entire three hours (yes, I said THREE HOURS!) convincing him to stick to the list, showing him that there was a cheaper, less shiny box right next to the one he was looking at, telling him that “NEW!” doesn’t mean that you are required to buy it, and reading the labels.
When we would finally get up to the counter to pay, Ross usually wanted us to guess how much the groceries were going to cost in a Price is Right style game. I would usually come pretty close to the correct answer because, during the ordeal, I also kept a running total in my head of everything in the cart. I can’t seem to turn this magical superpower off.
Since grocery shopping isn’t something I enjoy doing, I put it on my chore schedule so that I don’t stack any other less exciting tasks on the same day. (Although it takes me much less time to grocery shop now that I go with just me and two little girls.)
Obviously, you don’t have to put grocery shopping on your weekly cleaning schedule if you don’t want to. But if you’re anything like me, I suggest you put it down when you are making your list of weekly chores.
Pro Tip #2: I line up my cleaning routine with my meal plan. I put longer tasks, like grocery shopping, on days when we are having leftovers or something easy for supper because I never feel like cooking after I go to the store.
You can do something similar with any chore that you don’t like doing. If you get the chore done, give yourself the night off from cooking!
2) One Load of Laundry
Laundry Tip #2: Don’t leave the laundry room to fold your clothes.
I used to take all the laundry downstairs in the evening to hang out with my husband while I folded. But it took FOREVER.
First, I had to move it all downstairs (usually more than I could carry in one load). Then I had to fold it, before hauling it all back upstairs. I find if I just do it in the laundry room it takes much less time.
Wednesday
1) Tidy Upstairs
A couple of days after I tidy the whole house, the upstairs can usually use a touch-up before I vacuum. This isn’t anything too crazy, and I usually enlist my daughters to run from room to room putting things where they belong.
(Remember to use your children where you can in this process!)
My oldest daughter just turned four and she knows where everything goes.
This is partly because our house is decluttered and everything has a place in our house, and partly because she has been helping me tidy things up since she was about two.
2) Vacuum Upstairs
As I mentioned above, I stopped doing all my vacuuming on one day. And I love it!
I vacuum my upstairs on Wednesday and will often vacuum my stairs the same day that I do the upstairs.
3) One Load of Laundry: Sheets and Towels
Laundry Tip #3: Stand up to fold the laundry. I find if I sit down with the laundry all around me it feels overwhelming and takes longer. If I stand, I can get it done more quickly.
It is also more efficient to fold standing up because I can easily see where all the jeans are in the pile and get those done before I move on to shirts.
Thursday
1) Clean the Two Upstairs Bathrooms
Our two upstairs bathrooms are full bathrooms with showers and bathtubs.
The girls will often clean the bathtub and/or toilet, while I work on the mirrors and sinks.
I highly recommend getting your kids involved with chores from a young age. They will become increasingly more helpful as they get older and helping out will be second nature to them. You can check out my Beginner’s Guide to Toddler Chores for how to get started!
2) One load of Laundry
Laundry Tip #4: Fold your clothes soon as you take them out of the dryer.
Before, I would take the clothes out of the dryer to find one thing or another and leave with the best intentions to come back later and fold the rest.
I soon discovered that “later” never came. The next day I would find myself pulling the laundry out of the dryer onto the pile that was still on the floor.
Now, I force myself to get everything folded and put it away immediately.
Friday
1) Vacuum Downstairs
Yes, my Friday and Monday Cleaning Routines are identical.
I like to start and end the work week with a fresh downstairs since that is where we spend most of our time.
If your house is a lot bigger than mine, or if you don’t have as many days you can clean on, this may not be practical for you.
There is something refreshing to me about having a freshly vacuumed main floor so I do it twice!
2) Clean Downstairs Bathroom
Just like our downstairs floor, our downstairs bathroom gets the most usage.
I like cleaning it twice a week, then I don’t have to worry about how the bathroom looks if someone happens to stop by.
3) One Load of Laundry
Laundry Tip #5 Don’t do it all by yourself. If both you and your spouse work, divide up the laundry chore. You can do this a number of ways: one way is to give each person in the family a hamper and have them be responsible for their own laundry.
It may take a couple of weeks if your spouse is used to you doing it for them, but once they run out of clothes once or twice, they will remember to do their own laundry.
When we both worked outside the home, laundry was my husband’s job. He would spend Sundays watching football and getting all the laundry done. Maybe your husband would enjoy this chore if he could do something similar. You’ll never know unless you ask!
Since I run the house now and my husband brings in the income, I am happy to do his laundry for him. However, I still enlist the help of the girls.
When my oldest was about 18 months old, I started teaching her how to fold washcloths. And once she knew how to do it, that became her job. Every time I folded laundry, I would separate out all the washcloths and she would fold them as I would fold everything else. It took a lot more time at first as I would help her and remind her to stay focused, but it paid off in the long run.
As she became proficient at the washcloths, she started asking what else she could fold. Between the ages of three and three-and-a-half, she learned to fold all of her own clothing. Now, at the age of four, she folds all her clothes and all her sister’s clothes.
When my second daughter was just over one, she started helping me put the clean clothes into the drier and pulling them out of the drier when they are done. No, this doesn’t make my life any easier at that moment, but I want her to know she is an important part of doing chores in our house.
Saturday
Rest Day
On Saturday, I don’t do any housework.
For me, it is part of my religion not to do any work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
But even if you aren’t religious, I think everyone should take a day off every week, especially moms.
If you feel like you can’t take a day off and still get everything done. I totally get that! There are only so many hours in a day.
If you want to take a day off and don’t feel like you have time, here are three things you can do to give yourself a break.
Lower your expectations about what needs to be done each week. (Does anyone really care if you dust every week? I sure don’t!)
Declutter your things. This will greatly reduce the amount of time you spend cleaning your house. (Check out How to Start Decluttering if you would like a step-by-step guide and a free checklist!)
Also, you will have more energy to tackle the next week if you let yourself rest.
I promise the carpets that need to be cleaned won’t go anywhere and will be happily waiting for you the next day.
Clarification
Now, when I say I take a day off, it doesn’t mean that I let the dishes pile up all day, or that I just let the girls leave their toys wherever they lie.
We still treat our things with respect and put them away when we are done with them. If I didn’t do that, taking a day off would make more work for me and it wouldn’t be enjoyable knowing what I would have to deal with in the morning.
If you decide that you don’t want to do anything at all on your day off, grab some paper plates and disposable utensils and use them on your mom’s day off!
If you’ve never taken a day off before, try it out and see if you like it!
Every Day
In addition to my weekly chores, there are a few things that I do every day to keep my house always feeling clean.
Make the Beds: Every morning before you leave your bedroom (and before your kids leave theirs!) make all the beds. (You also get the morning & evening routine checklists for moms and kids in the Autopilot Workbook and Spreadsheet!)
Making your bed will keep your room feeling fresh and clean.
Plus, it is more motivating to put everything else away instead of making piles on the floor if the bed is neatly made.
Unload the Dishwasher: I usually need to run my dishwasher every evening since we eat most of our meals at home. This means every morning as breakfast is cooking, I unload the dishwasher (with the girls’ help, of course, don’t forget to get your kids involved!). Then it is ready for the dishes to go directly into it at the end of each meal.
Put Things Away When We Are Done With Them: I’m teaching the girls that when they are done with a toy or a jacket or anything else, it goes back to where they got it from.
It’s still a work in progress, but it makes cleaning much easier if everything is in its proper place.
Clean the Kitchen: After every meal, put the food away, put the dishes in the dishwasher (or clean them by hand), and wipe down the counters.
Don’t put it off! There is little that is more daunting than a pile of dirty dishes that haven’t been touched all day.
Laundry: I listed laundry out on each day on my weekly schedule, but it is still a daily chore for me.
Since laundry is a time-consuming item and if I don’t list it out each day, I may be tempted to load my schedule with too many other tasks and not leave enough time to get this done.
Remember to check out How to Solve the Laundry Problem if you want to see my laundry routine in detail and all my tips for staying on top of your laundry.
Here’s a quick re-cap of my simple weekly cleaning schedule:
Sunday: Tidy House
Monday: One Load of Laundry, Clean Downstairs Floors, Clean Downstairs Bathroom
Tuesday: One Load of Laundry, Grocery Shopping
Wednesday: One Load of Laundry: Towels and Sheets, Tidy Upstairs, Vacuum Upstairs
Thursday: One Load of Laundry, Clean Upstairs Bathrooms
Friday: One Load of Laundry, Clean Downstairs Floors, Clean Downstairs Bathroom
What? It’s not your favorite thing in the whole wide world? Oh sorry, I must have been thinking about something else.
Here’s the thing: I truly believe we aren’t enjoying this piece of our lives because we aren’t doing it correctly.
When I was looking to streamline my cleaning process, I searched Pinterest faithfully, read every infographic studiously, and blog hopped religiously for a few weeks before I realized that none of the ideas were even close to practical for me.
Everything I read not only had a very long list of daily duties but also required deep cleaning a different area of the house every day in addition to decluttering for 15 minutes a day. I just don’t have time to clean all day every day with two young kiddos.
And, maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t really want to.
I actually read one schedule that claimed you needed to clean every window in your house. Every. Single. Week. Am I the only one who doesn’t have time for that?
Next, I tried to do all my cleaning one day each week. I started doing this on Friday, but the cleaning in addition to making our special Friday night meal usually left me feeling edgy. I tried moving the cleaning day to Thursday (leftover night at our house,) but I was usually frustrated when the house didn’t *feel* clean for the weekend.
Then came my *ah-ha moment* when I was working on creating my weekly schedule: The house will be clean if each area that needs attention is cleaned once each week… even if it isn’t all on the same day.
Let’s get into how I built a cleaning schedule that I not only love but is so easy to stick to because it saves you time and energy.
And if you prefer to watch instead of read, here is the video that goes with this post:
How to Create a Weekly Cleaning Schedule
1) Make a List
Grab a pen and a notebook, or my Printable Workbook and make a list of everything you feel needs to be done each week. This list will be different for everyone. Only write the things you really think need to be done every week (no matter what anyone else says!)
When I did this, I listed each item out individually. For example, instead of writing “bathrooms,” I listed each bathroom separately.
Then I could decide later it if made more sense to do my bathrooms on the same day or if it worked better to split it up.
If your upcoming week is more (or less!) busy than normal, don’t use that to create your cleaning routine.
You want to base your cleaning routine off of a typical week for your family.
We had a week not long ago in which one of my daughters celebrated a birthday, we went to the museum with friends, I had to stake-up and transplant a ridiculous amount of tomato plants (it’s a long story,) my sister came to visit, and my parents came to visit. I didn’t have a single free day.
Was I able to get my daily cleaning done? Nope. Did it stress me out? Not even a little bit.
Why? Because I know my house gets cleaned consistently. No one is going to know if the floors were vacuumed that morning or six days earlier (I have the type of carpet that gets messed up as soon as someone walks across it.) As long as the toys are picked up, which the girls do before every nap and bedtime, the house will be clean enough.
Your schedule works for you, not the other way around. If you make your schedule something you can stick with the majority of the time, it isn’t going to matter if you miss a day here or there.
There is freedom in consistency, my friend!
3) Pick Your Cleaning Days
Next you will want to decide which days you want to clean on. I prefer to do a little every day and take Saturday off.
If cleaning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday works best with your weekly schedule, then do that. Don’t try to cram cleaning into an already stressful or overbooked day. It will only make you want to give up on your new schedule.
Set yourself up for success and be realistic.
4) Divide and Conquer
Divide your list of everything that needs cleaned in a week among the days that you are cleaning. Be strategic here and work with your weekly schedule instead of against it.
For example: if you only have a small amount of time on one of your cleaning days, decide to clean one bathroom and nothing more. Don’t over-commit yourself.
If you try to cram too much into a small amount of time, you will only become frustrated when you realize that you can’t clean three bathrooms in 10 minutes.
Sunday’s are always a bit of a wildcard at our house. Sometimes we are home all day hanging out, but other times we are barely at the house between all of our adventures. This means I have very little predictable time to get anything accomplished.
Often once we get to Sunday night there are remnants of our weekend happenings all over the place. So my only job on Sunday, according to my cleaning schedule, is to tidy the house.
That’s it.
It’s a little like hitting the reset button before Monday and it gives me a good outlook for the week ahead.
5) Gut Check
Evaluate your schedule. How do you feel about it? Does it seem doable? Will your house be clean when it needs to be?
We like to have friends over on Friday evenings for supper or for after church lunches on Saturday; so I like to ensure that my downstairs *feels* clean on Friday. I vacuum the floors and clean the small downstairs bathroom.
Easy, right? But my company doesn’t have to know how easy it was🤫. If you like to have people over on Wednesday evening, maybe clean your guest bathroom on Tuesday or Wednesday.
If something doesn’t feel right or seem doable, now is the time to change it. Go with your gut!
Move things around until you are happy with it. Sometimes it takes trying it out for a week before you realize you need to switch a day. As soon as you realize it, make the change!
If you feel overwhelmed when you look at it, see if you can drop anything. Do you really need to clean your oven every single week?
Could you rotate a couple of items bi-weekly? Maybe you could alternate cleaning your bathrooms so each bathroom gets cleaned every other week.
You can keep testing and keep working your routine until you have a cleaning schedule that you can rock every week, while still enjoying some downtime.
If you are struggling to find time in your day to get your cleaning done, I highly recommend creating a Simple Daily Block Schedule.
3) You have a clutter problem.
If you have your laundry, kitchen, and daily routines in place, and you’ve implemented your new cleaning schedule, but your house still feels dirty… you don’t have a cleaning problem.
You have a clutter problem.
And the great news about having a clutter problem is: you can fix it!
