How to Successfully Implement a Cleaning Schedule

Now that we’ve been living in our new home for a couple months, I’m finally in a comfortable groove and have developed a cleaning schedule that fits our house. When my house is clean, I feel like I have a freedom to focus on and enjoy my family without the piles of laundry and dust bunnies guiltily looming over me.  For that reason, I follow a cleaning schedule to keep our little household sane.

I think many of us, including myself, have probably tried implementing a cleaning schedule at some point, only to find ourselves lagging behind and once again failing to consistently keep things clean. Since my home is about to get real crazy soon with the addition of our twins, when we moved in I knew I needed to devise a plan quickly that I’ll be able to maintain when the girls come. So far, I’ve had success with this schedule, and I attribute it to adhering to the following principles.

How to Successfully Implement a Cleaning Schedule

1. Do a little bit each day. My schedule only requires me to do about 20 – 30 minutes of cleaning each day, doing certain tasks the same day each week.

2. Do your tasks early in the day. I’ve found that when I clean early in the day I’m much more likely to complete my daily tasks as opposed to when I’m tired in the afternoon and want to piddle out on the couch.

3. Remember that life happens, and it’s okay to miss a day of cleaning from time to time. As faithfully as I try to follow my schedule, life happens, and there are days when I have to prioritize other tasks over cleaning. When this happens, I simply skip that day instead of compounding it onto the next one, which could make me me feel overwhelmed the next day resulting in another skipped day. There are worse things in the world than the bathrooms not getting cleaned for a couple weeks.

4. Delegate tasks when needed and include your family. It’s never too early to teach your kids the importance of picking up after themselves and helping you out. Since Baylen was about 12 months old I’ve given him a dust cloth when I dust and he loves to mimic what I’m doing. When I tell him it’s time to vacuum he’ll walk over to the closet and point to where we keep it. He likes to help mommy and I’m hoping that teaching him about picking up after himself now will result in good habits later on!

5. Create a schedule that works well with the layout of your home. My schedule is basically broken up into the 3 levels of our house. We spend most of our time on the main floor and have a yellow lab who sheds like crazy, so that’s why I need to vacuum it everyday. On Wednesdays I clean the bedrooms and toy room which are all on the second floor. Fridays are spent in the basement cleaning the guest bedroom and living area down there because I figure if we have house guests I’d like that area to be fresh for the weekend. Do what works for you and what will set you up for success to follow through with the schedule.

If you’d like a little jump start to create your own cleaning schedule, I’d love to give you a hand! I’ve included the Word file I used to create mine so you could download it and tailor it to fit your home. I printed mine and framed it which allows me to use a dry erase marker on it. Then I hung in on my pantry door with 3M velcro stickies. Now I can have the satisfaction of checking items off the list and the accountability of seeing the tasks I need to get done each day! 

*The preview looks wacky, but when you download it the format will be as seen in the pictures.

[gview file=”http://www.mommysmetime.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Weekly-Cleaning-Schedule.doc”]

Questions for you: Do you follow a cleaning schedule? If so, what helps you to stay on top of it? 

Happy Cleaning!

Amber

P.S. For more reflections on parenthood and life, follow us on Facebook (Hun Let’s Run) and on Instagram: @ambermariekuiper and @jakekuiper! We’d also love for you to subscribe to our Hun, Let’s Run Podcast! For more info about joining our fitness community as a customer or coach, please email us at amber@mommysmetime.com!