Creating A Workable Cleaning Schedule Part 1

Once I began homeschooling, I quickly found that I needed to balance my homemaking chores in addition to homeschooling and everything else that comes at me in a day. It wasn’t long into the school year that I realized I was losing ground on both ends and was often feeling overwhelmed by it all. I tried doing all my cleaning in one day for a long time, but it still seemed that I was not getting all the things done that needed to be done.

One week I decided to try cleaning in small daily doses instead, and found that my day went smoother, my house did get cleaned, and I felt much more relaxed about the whole thing. My home may not pass the white glove test, but it is mostly always company ready, which is a good thing!

I initially thought that I would feel like my house would never “feel” clean doing it this way, but I was wrong. Everyday I feel much more accomplished in my homemaking just by implementing a daily cleaning schedule. Without a written plan though I would often forget what I needed to go back to after an interruption (which is often in my house!) or I noticed that things would get overlooked. My children would be asking “What’s next mom?” and I would have to stop and see where we were in our cleaning. To be more efficient, I began to scratch out a list in my notebook, and eventually went to a full fledged schedule that I try to do each day.

A daily cleaning schedule will, of course, look different for each family, each home and each home maker. You may have little ones underfoot, or older ones homeschooling, or you may work outside the home. It is important to adapt it to your lifestyle so that it is something that will work for you long term. The key is to create a system that will allow you to accomplish cleaning in small, manageable doses each day. Actually my schedule only runs 5 days per week, as the weekends consist of the Sabbath and family time and I don’t do any particular cleaning on those days.

The first week or so I really began a complete, checklist ready schedule, there were some bumps in the road but I was determined to stick to it. With a little tweaking here and there, and some training of the children we are now stepping into a rhythm each day that works, and it is working very well for us!

There are days where, well, life just happens and I can’t get as much done as I would like. The children need me, my husband has something he would like me to do, or we just need a day of fun. By having this cleaning schedule, I am not chaining myself to a mop and broom all day every day, rather I am freeing myself of seemingly never ending things so I can move onto more important things in my day, like spending extra time with my children or tackling a project I have been wanting to do. When my house is clean, I just feel like I can accomplish just about anything!

In part 2 of this series, I will share how I actually implemented this plan and what it looks like for our family. I will also share with you my checklist and what our day looks like doing this.

Do you have a cleaning schedule that you implement in your home? Is it a written out schedule that you check off, is it a list on a piece of paper, or something completely different? I would love to hear it!

Tagged as: cleaning schedule, home school, homemaker, Homemaking, Keeping the Home