How to Organize Your Housekeeping Schedule

And the survey says; hire a maid! However, hiring a full-time maid is not always financially feasible for most of us. I used to be a perfectionist always wanting my home to be clean at all times. Throughout those years I realized that I was wasting far too much time inside cleaning my house instead of living life. Clean home or live life? The good news is you can do both without leaving yourself feeling overwhelmed.

1. In order to maintain a clean home with ease you need to start with a clean home. Start by choosing a time to perform a full overhaul of your home. Take a day or a couple of days to clean the house from top to bottom.

2. Each week choose two major chores to perform. I vacuum the entire house and do laundry.

3. Choose another two major chores to perform every two weeks. I dust the house and clean the bathrooms.

4. Choose two major chores for every other couple of weeks. I clean the tile and hardwood floors.

5. Every first and third week choose a couple of chores that usually get overlooked. Some examples are cleaning out the refrigerator, taking apart fans and cleaning the blades, cleaning the oven, cleaning the lampshades, etc.

6. Every day when I come home from work I pick one or two chores that about 30
minutes to do such as; cleaning the litter boxes, cleaning the dust off of the top
of the refrigerator, or cleaning my cabinets doors with furniture polish.

Here is a sample of my chore list.

Quick Daily chores:

Monday: Clean the stovetop, kitchen counters, and the top of the refrigerator.
Tuesday: Clean the litter boxes, dust the entertainment cabinet and the television.
Wednesday: Dust the dining room cabinet and knickknacks inside.
Thursday: Sweep the stairs and the kitchen floor.
Friday: Tidy up the laundry room and basement.

Weekend Major Chore list:

1st Weekend:

Saturday: Vacuum and laundry. Dust the house and clean the bathrooms. Choose one more major chore that is usually overlooked. (E.g. take comforter or oversized blankets to the Laundromat for cleaning). During the first week you choose a new major chore to be done.

2nd Weekend:

Saturday: Vacuum and laundry. Clean the tile and hardwood floors.

3rd Weekend:

Saturday: Vacuum and laundry. Choose a major chore. (E.g. clean out the refrigerator or clean all the ceiling fan blades, or clean out a closet, etc). Each third Saturday you can choose a new major chore to be done.

4th Weekend: Saturday: Vacuum, laundry, clean tile and wood floors.

Using this method of rotating chores leaves me time to spend with my family and to do things I want to do. During the summer months I double up on chores during the week. Since I already work during the week I just add some of my bigger weekend chores to my work week so I can free up my weekends for outdoor fun. The golden rules of keeping a home clean are: if you take it out, put it away and if you make a mess, clean it up. If you follow these two rules and use a rotation schedule you will never be overwhelmed with chores. It is important for parents to get their children involved with keeping a home clean and cleaning up after themselves. If you teach children to put their toys away before taking out another toy and to clean up messes they make you teach them to be a responsible family member and then mom and dad are not are not running ragged doing all the chores.