Hi Everyone! I’ve been doing some massive de-cluttering around my house, settling into a new cleaning routine, and re-learning how incredibly satisfying a clean, organized house is (can I get an amen!). So, I wanted to write a quick post about some of the things I’ve been doing every day to keep my house clean. Let’s jump in!
You’ll notice that I said there are some things that I do every day. That was not a typo. I’m a busy mom, and I work full-time. Things pile up quickly, but I can’t let them go all week, then spend hours every weekend cleaning everything up. Breaking it down into smaller more manageable tasks that allow me to get through the cleaning quickly is easier for me to sustain over time.
I used to clean my house room by room to avoid the massive end of week cleanups. One day, I’d do the kitchen, one day the laundry room and so on. Depending on the size of the room and the shape it was in, I could usually get done in about an hour and a half to two hours or so. That schedule was fine, and I know it works great for some people, but over time, it began to be too much to do every day. My son is older now, and we both have a few more things going on now than we did when he was younger. Spending over an hour cleaning every day wasn’t working for me anymore. I needed to break the tasks down into smaller chunks of time. So, I sat down one day, wrote out everything that I need to do, and came up with a schedule that only has me cleaning about 30 minutes or less per day. Yes, honey…. 30 minutes or less per day.
For me, grouping my cleaning by like-tasks rather than by room works better with my lifestyle. For instance, all mirrors will get cleaned in one day, not just bathroom mirrors. All hard floors will be mopped in one day, not just the kitchen floor. I don’t live in a huge house right now, so each day’s task only takes me around 30 minutes. Here’s how my schedule is broken out. I’ve also made it available to you all as a free download here.
On Mondays, I’ll clean all sinks and countertops in the house – kitchen, laundry room, bathrooms – and all mirrors, including those in the bedrooms and foyer. Tuesdays – the tub and shower. Wednesdays – the toilets and sweep and mop all hard floors. Thursdays – dust all of the wood furniture, including wiping all cabinet and dresser fronts and handles. Fridays – vacuum all carpeted areas. Saturdays – finish the kitchen, which by this point is usually just the stove top and wiping the outside of the fridge and dishwasher. I’ve played around with my rest day a little bit – sometimes it’s Saturday and sometimes Sunday – but for the purposes of this post, we’ll say each Sunday is my rest day. If there’s a lot going on during the week, and I miss a cleaning day (or two… don’t judge me), I’ll use Saturday or Sunday as my catch-up day. Just one of those days though, not both. I think it’s important to still have some time to chill and recharge each week.
Now, you’ll notice a few things are missing, which I’ll talk about briefly here. Along with these daily cleans, I’ll also do at least one load of laundry per day. It really doesn’t take much extra time since all I’m doing is taking a few minutes to sort at the beginning of the week, then loading one load into the washer and/or dryer every day until all laundry is done. You can shave some time off of this if you sort your clothes when you first put them in the hamper or put them in separate hampers to begin with. It’s probably not the best, but I leave the folding and putting away for later in the week or on the weekend when I have some extra time.
Anything above what’s in my daily schedule is what I consider a deep clean – baseboards and molding, windows and sliding glass doors, ovens, ceiling fan blades, curtains, etc. – or organizational tasks. I’ll dive into these in a later post.
I hope you’ve found this helpful! Let me know if you give this daily cleaning schedule a try!
Jan's Life 