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Keeping the house organized is an EVERYDAY battle! But keeping the house organized AND clean… well that’s almost IMPOSSIBLE! It’s always been my goal to have the house somewhat together and cleaned up so that if someone unexpectedly stopped by, I wouldn’t feel embarrassed or annoyed with the condition my house was in.
This has always been something that I have struggled with and I have searched and searched for a cleaning system that would be doable AND easy to stay consistent with. And I feel like I have tried everything: clean one level of the house one week and then the other level the following week; clean one room a day; clean the house in one day in 1 hour (NOT possible, by the way!).
My ultimate goal with my cleaning schedule is that it’s light and easy -I don’t want something that I dread doing, that’s going to take a lot of time or is going to seem almost impossible to do. I wanted to find something that didn’t feel overwhelming and something that I felt like I could consistently keep up with.
I know other Moms and families might feel the exact same way so that’s why I’m excited to share what’s been working for me and what I have been doing the last year or so.
TA-DA!!! This is my Daily & Weekly Checklist! It’s actually part of my “Binder System” that I’ll be sharing more of in a future post but I’ve been following this cleaning routine for a year and it’s been tremendously helpful!
Here are the main points about this list:
- It combines both the upper level and main level of the house so that I’m hitting both each week
- Because I’m able to get to each room every week I don’t feel like a “deep” clean is needed so it doesn’t require a lot of time
- To keep my time spent cleaning to a minimum, I’ve come up with a timer system for each room that I’ve found to be reasonable so that I have time to clean what I need but I don’t find myself spending more time on something that can be done on my “deeper clean” day
- This list is flexible – if a different laundry load needs to be done on another day or a different room needs to be cleaned on a different day, it’s easy to change around and do; this is just a guide to set some sort of schedule to make things easier
The Daily chores are pretty straight forward and are just a helpful reminder of the big picture items I want to keep up with everyday – the dishes after meals, making the bed, finishing a load of laundry (including folding and putting away).
The chores in the “Weekly” column highlight what rooms I plan to clean that day and what load of laundry I want to complete that day. When I start cleaning a room, I set two timers: the first timer is usually about 6 minutes and that is to complete the dusting, and the second timer is another 6 minutes and that’s to vacuum. My thought is that I’m giving myself 15 minutes per room to dust and vacuum, which includes things like picking things off the floor, getting the vacuum, putting things back, etc.
Now, when I say “dusting” I don’t mean the ceiling fan, the blinds, the walls, etc. I truly mean just the main pieces of furniture -which includes the tops, front and sides-, and depending on my time I won’t even pick up items on the furniture, I’ll just dust around them.
Same thing with the vacuuming – I don’t pick every single item off the floor and vacuum under it. Instead I will move a few things that either makes it easier to get to the room as a whole (for example the glider in my son’s room I might push out of the way to do the half of the room it sits at, and then push it back to finish the room) or anything that really shouldn’t be on the floor and needs to be picked up.
When it comes to mopping, I am extremely grateful that I have my “robot mop” like this ONE where I can set it to run and sort of forget it until it’s done. But what I’ve done some days instead is since I’ve built in a few spare minutes in my 15 minute window, I may cut the dusting down a few minutes and use a few extra minutes to spend on mopping and again, just the main walking/playing areas… I don’t go crazy here!
This is my general routine for the rooms that just require dusting/vacuuming/mopping. For the bathrooms, I take a similar approach where I try to spend only 8 minutes on the mirrors, counter, sinks and toilet, and then 6 minutes on the vacuuming/mopping. I do NOT do the tubs and showers on this quick clean schedule, and again, I’m not spending extra time on wiping cabinets or even dusting fixtures. My goal is truly to be able to hit every room every week so the build up of dust, dirt and just general life shouldn’t be too crazy.
That means I only spend about 30 minutes on the weekdays cleaning.
⬇️ You can download the Daily & Weekly Cleaning Schedule HERE ⬇️
To help make this check list reusable, I put it in a sheet protector like this ONE and add it to my Binder to use and erase each day as needed.
Now, this is what I do for my deeper cleaning routine and I got this idea from Lunanima Fox. Since I now have my light, everyday cleaning done, I will take one day a week and do a little deeper clean. And this is what that would look like…
Week 1- KITCHEN
- Clean appliances: microwave, oven, dishwasher, refrigerator, etc
- Wipe down outside of cabinets
- Wipe baseboards
- Quick clean of windows (I’m not getting crazy here, just any window(s) that I see that has marks, dirt; I’m not taking the window out and cleaning both sides and the screen… that’s for another time… if ever!)
- Dusting additional items such as lights, walls, the tops of cabinets
- Any additional straightening or organizing, the pantry shelves, the refrigerator, command center, drawers, cabinets, etc.
Week 2- BATHROOMS
- Clean tubs & showers (my least favorite to clean!! but once a month I think I can handle!)
- Wipe down outside of cabinets
- Wipe baseboards
- Quick clean of windows
- Dusting additional items such as light fixtures, walls, etc
- Any additional straightening or organizing, linen closet shelves, counters, drawers, cabinets, etc.
Week 3- BEDROOMS
- Dust additional items such as ceiling fans, blinds, walls, etc
- Wipe baseboards
- Vacuum any areas you don’t normally get to during the weekly checklist
- Any additional straightening or organizing, the closet, drawers, etc.
Week 4- LIVING/FAMILY/DINING ROOMS
- Dust additional items such as ceiling fans, light fixtures, blinds, walls, etc
- Wipe baseboards
- Vacuum/Mop any areas you don’t normally get to during the weekly checklist
- Vacuum chairs/couches
- Any additional straightening or organizing, drawers, etc.
Remember, during this weekly cleaning I am NOT doing my normal 15 minutes of cleaning, that has already been done. So for bathrooms I’m not re-cleaning the sinks, doing the toilets again, etc. This weekly cleaning might take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour but you can adjust that to fit your particular schedule and availability that week.
You’ll notice too some items aren’t even on either list, like any outside chores or garage cleaning. Some items are hard for me to put into a checklist/schedule/routine so unfortunately (like the deep cleaning of windows) those will get done when they get done… if ever!
Another tip that I feel has helped A LOT when it comes to keeping the house clean is to keep it organized FIRST before I start cleaning. I have done this too many times, I’ll get myself pumped up and ready to clean and I end up spending most of my time just putting things away and straightening up instead. It can feel very frustrating to find out I used my “cleaning” time as “straightening” time and I either end up not ever getting to the cleaning part or I used twice as much time than I should have to finish my cleaning.
So now what I’ve been doing is I’ll look at my schedule to see what room(s) are on the checklist to be cleaned for the next day, and I’ll make sure those particular spaces are already picked up and straightened up -and stay that way- until I’ve finished my cleaning.
I also want to mention I enlist the help of my kids with A LOT of this stuff!! My husband works a crazy, long day and since I work from home I like being able to keep the house up and together, but it’s definitely not a task I can do by myself or should even do by myself. The majority of what is getting cleaned up are usually messes made by others (*cough* MY KIDS *cough*).
So whenever possible, I ask for their help and include them in my routine and checklist. They help with rinsing off the dishes, trying to fold some laundry, dusting (and a lot of time their responsibility is to dust their toys!) and of course picking up their toys. I am slowly learning how important it is to teach them responsibility and that really my job as a parent isn’t to do things for them but to teach them how to do things for themselves. That was my inspiration behind the “Morning Routine Checklist” and it has done wonders in getting the kids some more responsibility and independence.
Here’s a “sneak peek” at what I keep in my cleaning basket:
- All Purpose Natural Concentrate: I use this for my mirrors, counter tops, faucets and glass shower doors. I’ll even add a little to the robot mop along with water for a fresh, deeper clean. I love that it’s highly concentrated so a bottle lasts a LONG time, it’s multipurpose and environmentally friendly
- Heavy Duty Concentrate: I use this for the sinks, toilet, tubs, tile and sometimes even as a spot treatment. This solution is also highly concentrated and is super tough on grills, stoves, ovens, oils and rust.
- Cleaner Disinfectant: I add this sometimes when I’m cleaning the toilets -I’ll also spray the toilet brush with this after each use- or the sinks and I like to wipe down handles with it as well. Really anything that I want to make sure is thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. This disinfectant is also concentrated, and is perfect for bathrooms and kitchens.
- Duster: I like the Swiffer duster with the extendable wand and the 360 degree refill dusters.
- The rest of the items in my basket are pretty straight forward: toilet bowl brush, bristle sponge with handle for the sinks, quick erasers, washable microfiber clothes and sponges for the counters. And most of this I’ll just grab from the Dollar Tree and will replace as needed, like the sponges for the sinks.
I hope this little trick will make a difference for you and your family! Please leave a comment to let me know how this has worked for you or any other cleaning hack that you have found to work well for you and your family!
