We have been listening to the Little House on the Prairie books on cd.  In one of them Laura mentions fall cleaning. I wondered to myself how hard it would be to clean the tiny house that they lived in but she went on to talk about pulling all the hay out of the mattresses and refilling them.  That did not sound like fun and I’m thankful that I do not have to do that!

However, fall cleaning would not be a bad idea at all.  My house became messy and disorganized during the summer because we were busy having summer fun.  It didn’t get any better once school started because, well, we were busy getting our homeschool year off to a good start.  What I really need is an easy house cleaning schedule!  

How to Create a House Cleaning Schedule that Works

Drawing from what has worked from past cleaning schedules and attempting a few new ideas which I have recently learned about, I think I have a pretty doable plan.  I am writing this from the same perspective I wrote “How to Create a Homeschool Schedule that Works” as far as just sharing with you what I do as well as what others have found works for them to help you come up with a plan that will work for your family.

What has worked well for me in the past is dividing cleaning chores up into daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks.

Daily House Cleaning Schedule

Daily cleaning schedule is probably the most obvious.  These are the tasks that build up and make your house messy if not taken care of regularly. Often times when we begin to feel overwhelmed as stay at home moms, these are the chores that have been neglected.

• Dishes washed 
• Floors vacuumed and swept
• Laundry- Everyone’s laundry schedule is different.  Some people do a lot once a week and others prefer a little every day.  I wash, dry, fold, and put away 4 days a week. This works well for my family and our schedule.
• Bathrooms wiped down- Wipe all the toothpaste and hair out of the sinks and disinfect toilets (I have four boys, you can imagine what my toilets look like if this is skipped for a couple of days!)
• Put away toys, books, games, crafts etc. This job usually belongs to the kids.

Weekly House Cleaning Schedule

Weekly cleaning schedule includes things that become nasty if not kept up with, but are too time consuming to do regularly.  For me this includes the following.

• Mopping floors
• Scrubbing stove top- I have a gas range and while I’d like to say that I remove the grates and wash the whole stove top after dinner every evening, that is simply not the case.  I wipe down the obvious spils every day, but give it a good scrubbing weekly.
• Scrub showers

Monthly House Cleaning Schedule

Monthly cleaning schedule is fun because you only have to do it once and then you can forget about it for 4 weeks!  This is my list of monthly cleaning chores.

• Clean fridge- Throw away spoiled food, wash inside and out
• Run washing machine through the clean cycle
• Run vinegar through the coffee maker- we have hard water
• Dust- you know when I was growing up my mom dusted once a week and at one point it became my job.  I hated to dust then and I still do so it falls onto the monthly list.
• Wash inside and outside of dishwasher
• Wipe down fronts of kitchen cabinets
• Wash finger prints and dog nose prints off windows
• Reorganize toys and books- in spite of my best efforts, books are always put away upside down and spine facing in,  Toys are consistently thrown willy-nilly into closets in an effort to clean up as quickly as possible by my kiddos.

Creating an Easy House Cleaning Schedule

I hope this gave you some ideas on how to create an easy house cleaning schedule of your own!

Have you ever tried loop scheduling? This popped up on my radar a couple of months ago and think it is a wonderful idea! The Proverbial Homemaker explains about loop scheduling in A Flexible Cleaning Schedule that Works.

Molly Maid has wonderful charts and checklists to keep you on track!

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