Works For Me Wednesday: Updated Cleaning Schedule

I love having a cleaning schedule. Over the past few years with doing childcare in my home, I've found that cleaning one room a day works a whole lot better than trying to clean the entire house one day a week on "cleaning day".

Lately though, my schedule hasn't worked for me. If I didn't get to the room of the day early in the morning before the kids got here, most likely I wouldn't get to it at all.

This meant that I was spending my day off on Friday cleaning all day. Except that I often have to run errands on Friday so I'd push the cleaning to Saturday. And if we are busy that day, well...let's try again next week!

Obviously, it wasn't working for me. But after carefully looking at it, I realized that I needed to make cleaning a little each day part of my routine again. Because this is the best option for my schedule right now.

I revised the schedule putting tasks together to make it a bit more streamlined. For example, previously I cleaned the bedroom one day and the living and dining rooms the next. All rooms are fairly small and I basically just dust and vacuum in each one so it makes sense to do them together. Adding the bedroom to the same day as the other two rooms makes about an additional ten minutes. That works!

One thing I'll have to work on is being more flexible. Such as doing a bit here and there if that's all I can do. Such as mopping the bathroom floor during nap time if I just didn't get to that in the morning. Or finishing up the cleaning as soon as the kids leave for the day like I did yesterday with the bedroom dusting. The trick is to be consistent with doing something rather than skipping it all since I don't have a block of time to do it all right now.

I have a regular morning routine that is very helpful. This includes sweeping and vacuuming all floors, general clean-up, emptying the dishwasher,fixing the bed, etc. So even if I don't get the cleaning done every day, the house still stays pretty neat-looking!

So far this new and improved cleaning schedule is working for me.

Monday:
--laundry (wash sheets every two weeks)
--clean kitchen and laundry room

Tuesday:
--dust and vacuum bedroom, living room and dining room

Wednesday:
--clean bathroom
--change towels
--water plants

Thursday:
--laundry
--clean office
--menu plan
--grocery list on shopping weeks
--one deep cleaning or organizing project

Friday:
--errand day
--catch-up or special projects if at home
--wash mirrors and windows(especially those at toddler and dog height)

A very specific new and improved cleaning schedule: this works for me!