Weekly Cleaning Schedule
This summer, I struggled with keeping the house cleaned. I did have somewhat of a cleaning schedule from last school year that I attempted to carry into the summer. One week I would do a “big” clean. This included changing sheets, cleaning upstairs (rarely used), removing all things on tables to dust, and removing all the things in our tub and shower to clean it. The next week was a “small” week. This was just the basics: wiped around things without removing, wiped down the tub and shower, all simple things. This worked during the school year, but I struggled with this during the summer. So I decided to come up with a better routine. I am only a month in, but it seems to really work. It does put me cleaning daily (which I was afraid I would hate), but I built it so that it could take me less than 30 minutes or an hour. It really depended on my capacity that day.
To start, I broke down every room in the house and also included a column for my daily cleaning tasks. Then I listed everything I would LIKE to do.
Not pictured: I then rated things. They were rated into four categories.
1 - low capacity items - these items are the most basic of items. These are the items I think I can do even on the most overwhelming of days. This included dusting, straightening, changing towels, cleaning toilets, etc.
2 - middle capacity items - as you can expect, these are the items that are middle of the ground. I will do these on the days that I have a bit more bandwidth, but not a full capacity worth. This includes windex mirrors, cleaning the backsplash, taking out the trash from the rooms, cleaning the tub and shower, etc.
3 - max capacity items - again, these items are the items I would like to do weekly if I have the most capacity available to me. These are things like vacuuming, mopping, changing sheets, wiping down extra things in the bathroom, etc.
4 - occasional items - these items are things I don’t need to do weekly, but still eventually need to be done. This is like refilling soap containers, blinds, baseboards, fans, etc.
Next I grouped rooms together to help spread the work but also make sense. I made 5 groups, one for each day of the week. Then I looked through to decide which group to do which day. I know Mondays are my most productive days while Friday is my least. So I planned this way. I also decided which week of the month to do the “occasional/extra” items. (Now I have not started this yet.)
I think put the weekly items as well as the daily items in a word document. I color coded them, printed it, and laminated it. Now I keep it on my fridge and mark it off daily.
So far this has allowed me to clean a lot more than before. I now mop daily and still feel like I have plenty of time to do other tasks. On days I know I may not be home, I can easily double up on one day and just do lowest capacity items, if needed. I am hoping to start the occasional items next month! Here is a copy of the schedule I made. I changed some things to make it more generic.
