Organization Solutions {Cleaning Schedule}

I don’t know about you, but if I don’t have something written down, I tend to not do it. It’s not necessarily that I forgot, but for some reason lists seem to get me motivated. It’s a great visual of everything I need to get done. Same with schedules. I have this awesome Dr. Seuss calendar in my kitchen that is full of stuff. I have my blog post schedule, my regular events and birthdays, and I have my cleaning schedule.

And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Because having this cleaning schedule has seriously saved my sanity. Plus because I know when I need to get certain things done, I’m not worrying so much about them the rest of the week.

So what do I do? I have 2 days set aside each week for cleaning. Monday is my biggest cleaning day. I basically clean the whole house (I have a smaller house so it’s very possible for me to do this). Tuesday is a deeper cleaning day. But on Tuesdays I only focus on one room. For instance, this past Tuesday was bathrooms. The first Tuesday of the month is the Kitchen and Dining Room. Second is the Living Room. You get the idea. Now if it’s the week of deep cleaning the bathrooms, I leave them out of my Monday cleaning. Does that make sense? No use in cleaning a room, only to go and deep clean the exact same room the very next day.

Now how do I balance this with my two kiddos? Well I generally only clean when the baby is sleeping or happily playing (laying on a blanket kicking her feet). As soon as she’s unhappy I take a break. I do try to work as quickly as I can. Fun music helps. As for my 3 year old, I enlist her help for some chores, like dusting, windows, picking up, etc. For rooms that I don’t really want her help (like my bedroom) I turn on a movie. We only watch movies a couple days a week and this is one of them.

But like I said before, I need lists to keep me motivated and remind me of what I need to do. So I created some printable lists in Picmonkey (have you checked it out yet? It rocks!). I printed and laminated them. I keep them with my cleaning supplies so they’re ready to go when I am. And since they’re laminated I can use a dry erase marker to check things off as I go. Want some for yourself? You can get them here.

Obviously, this system isn’t going to work for everyone. But it definitely works for me. I start the week off with a clean house, so the rest of the week I can focus on other things. Of course I clean things as needed (dishes, etc.) but I really don’t sweat most of the stuff.

So what’s your cleaning schedule? Do you have a system that really works for you? Share in the comments below!