Mondays are pick-up the house, recover from the weekend, days. On this day I put everything in it's place. I also wash sheets and towels. On Tuesdays I clean the bathrooms. Wednesdays, I dust and do the floors. Thursdays are for cleaning the kitchen and Arizona (sun/laundry) room. Fridays are free.
Everyday I quickly pick up the house before Mike gets home from work, and each night after dinner I tidy the kitchen. Laundry is done as needed.
I love this schedule because it divides the housework into manageable pieces. I don't want to spend my life cleaning, and this gives me tasks I can easily accomplish in an hour or so a day. I also like that it allows me to be as thorough or as quick as I'd like to be, depending on my busyness and energy level that particular day. One week, I might feel motivated to dust all of our shutters or clean out the fridge, but I don't feel like I have to do that each week.
If I get lazy and miss a few days of cleaning, I try not to worry too much and pick up my schedule where I left off.
Now that my kids are older, they can start doing their share. Last week I taught them how to clean their bathroom. It was fantastic! My goal this summer is to get them more involved in the process. So far they've been really good sports about it.
I'd love to hear what works for you. How do you keep your house clean?
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steph- i have told you before hoe much i admire you. you are one special mimmy,wife and granddaughter. luv you!
ReplyDeleteI have a very similar schedule and 2 teen boys I have trained to clean bathrooms, vacuum, dust + empty dishwasher. This summer we will tackle cooking....maybe!
ReplyDeleteI have just recently created a cleaning schedule for myself, too. I begin laundry on Monday and usually do it through Wednesday. I also do bathrooms on Tuesdays and dusting and floor on Wednesdays. I know what you mean about your stress level based upon the state of your house.
ReplyDeleteI have a loose cleaning schedule. I used to be much more strict but it got hard as my kids got older and we got out more. I didn't want to be like, "No, we cannot go to the splash pad because I have to clean toilets!"
ReplyDeleteNow, each weekday has an assigned load of laundry and a vague idea of what needs to be done and so far it's working! Most of the time, anyway.
Thanks for posting this! (I need some help in this department...) If you have time, I would also love a post about your daily schedule. WHEN do you do your daily cleaning? I seem to try to always do it in the mornings, but then that's the time when my kids are awake (not nap time) and things come up... the kids want me to play with them, a church meeting is scheduled, we need to go grocery shopping, friends call and want us to meet them at the park. I struggle doing it during nap time because sometimes I have other stuff that needs done (emails to respond to, etc)OR its so noisy... vaccuming, cleaning bathrooms always tends to wake the kids up. Afterschool is tough because of making dinner, helping with dinner, and running kids to piano or sports. By the end of the night I'm too tired to tackle something big. What have you found works for you?? :)
ReplyDeleteTiffany,
ReplyDeleteMy baby still naps in the morning, so I try to finish all of my housework and get ready for the day while he's sleeping. If it's a particularly busy day, I'll skip a day of cleaning or just do a really quick job of it. I'm not sure what I'll do when Elliot switches to one nap a day. I haven't figures that out yet.
we are instigating kid-cleaning chores this summer, too! i look back with fondness the days when i could clean my entire house in one day and do laundry in one day. needless to say, those days are long gone. i need to develop a schedule like yours because i'm killing myself (and becoming grumpy toward everyone and anyone who gets in the way of my crazy all-in-one-day goal). i read on stephanie brubaker's blog that she cleans the bathroom while her kids are in the tub; an idea i love and have been doing for years now.
ReplyDeleteMy cleaning schedule is really similar to yours! Sometimes I end up doing the floors and bathrooms on the same day. Somedays it feels like a lot of work to keep up a home.
ReplyDeleteSome great ideas. I need to get back into a schedule. I used to have a pretty good one but now my kids are older I've let it slip to as needed and that doesn't work so well. :)
ReplyDeleteLesa
I use a cleaning schedule, too. It's not exactly like yours but it works really well for me. I think there's a lot of dust where I live so I work really hard to keep it under control. Dust is gross.
ReplyDeletethis is really inspiring and motivating. Thanks for re-invigorating me to do a better job at this work that I love. This is going on my pinterest board to be referred to again.
ReplyDeleteI've just started "once a month cleaning'. i haven't posted about it yet, but I will soon on my blog...
ReplyDeletethehenryhomestead.blogspot.com
It was a full day of deep cleaning and it was great!
Oh my goodness. My kids are WAY to young and wild and messy to follow a schedule. I wash towels every single day. We have to take a lot of baths...
ReplyDeleteBut one thing I've adopted is one laundry basket for the whole family (3 bins for pre-sorting with rollers). When it's full, I do the laundry. And I ultimately have to pick up and vacuum every day. Then it's a good cleaning once a week (dust/kitchen wipe-down/bathrooms/mop). And I have had to intensely organize things into bins with difficult lids. And NO TOYS live in the living/dining room area any more. It has made a huge difference. We are still playing the "learning to clean up" game over here. 4 year old Finn has color-coded bins to clean up his room. It's getting better every day!
I have a very small house. I like to call it a cottage to save my sanity. And a small house means a LOT of picking up and cleaning, but it goes very quickly.
I am not a good example at all when it comes to keeping house, but one thing I've done in the past few months is have my kids clean their bathroom every Saturday (or most Saturdays, anyway). The four of them, ages 7-10, each take a thing: toilet, mirror, sink/counter, and floor (I do the shower) and even if they don't do a 100% great job, still having it at least done partway on a regular basis keeps it so much cleaner.
ReplyDeleteSo far we clean the sheets at the end of the week. I don't like dirty sheets. In the summers my kids have a daily schedule of things they must do before they can play. It includes making their beds, saying prayers, brushing their teeth (I have to include putting the toothbrush away and cleaning out the sink as individual chores too) then they can look at the kitchen chalkboard for extra things that need to be done like taking the sheets off their beds, moving rocks in the yard for our landscaping, picking up sticks or picking up sticks and pine cones so Nate can mow the lawn). They also unload the dishes for me and are starting to make their own breakfasts. This summer Maesyn will learn how to do laundry. We are making chore boards (i'll put them on my blog when I get a camera) for the sake of cute, but now I'm going to make a small one for me with daily chores such as mop the floors, bathrooms etc. I'll look at your post to make sure I get it all.
ReplyDeleteMy schedule is pretty much like yours. It really is nice to do a little every day so it's not done in one big work day.
ReplyDeleteOh ya, and I think it's great when kids can learn to do their part too. That's how I learned. How nice that your kids are getting old enough. :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this post. It is so nice to know that I am not the only one whose stress/happiness depends a lot on the state of my home.
ReplyDeleteWe just bought our home about 6 months ago and it has actually taken us this long to get settled enough that I feel like I can start following a schedule. I've been trying a few different things out to figure out what works for me. I agree that nightly kitchen cleanup is a must.
It took me a little while to realize that my sanity is also linked to the state of my house, laundry, and car! Do you ever notice that other people's are as well? Unfortunately, I think my sister's is but she does not realize it and has so much extra stress from it, yet she doesn't see the benefit of cleaning it up!!!
ReplyDeleteYou're just like the lady whose book your picture is from. I wish I was more with it on house work.
ReplyDeleteYour schedule is very similar to mine, actually. I like to have one chore a day besides laundry and kitchen. If I can do that I am happy. It works pretty well, and I don't feel like I am constantly cleaning. well, sometimes I do. But for the most part it works well.
ReplyDeleteI check your blog from time to time and love your sewing projects and cute little family. I am commenting on your nursing post, but wasn't sure if you go back to read comments lefts on old posts. We had the same problem with weaning my third. He hated milk in any form. What finally ended up working for us was giving him the whole milk YoBaby yogart drinks. We started giving him just the yogurt drink in a sippy cup, now a few weeks later I give him half whole milk, half yogurt drink.
ReplyDeleteMy plan is to slowly wean him off the yogurt to straight whole milk.
I meant to mention this in my last post and forgot....I also have an Oliver (almost 3) and an Elliot (16 months), I can't remember how I came upon your blog, but I thought it was funny that we have the same boy names. :) I also have an older daughter named Ava.
ReplyDeleteesther,
ReplyDeleteha! it must be because oliver and elliot sound so fantastic together. :)
my elliot loves those yogurt smoothie drinks, too. thanks for the advice!
stephanie
Sendhamarai Engineering Aluminium Scaffolding Rental
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