If you're one of the select few who enjoys cleaning, keeping your home tidy might not seem like a huge chore.
However, if cleaning isn’t your favorite activity, creating a schedule can remove a lot of the stress involved, ensuring that no task goes unnoticed for too long–especially if you live in a larger home. Keeping your entire house clean doesn’t need to be a daunting or overly time-consuming task if you can design an efficient and easy-to-follow routine.
Keeping your home clean has bigger picture benefits like preventing germs, pests and mold, and has even been proven to support mental health. Here’s how to create and stick to a cleaning schedule that will fit into even the busiest of schedules:
Prioritize
Think about what needs to be cleaned and how often–consider daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal tasks that will need your attention. The most important cleaning tasks will differ from person to person, but decide upfront which chores are non-negotiables and which ones can be completed less frequently than a typical cleaning schedule might recommend.
Dishes are an example of a task that will likely be a daily chore for many households–piling up dirty dishes for too long can lead to foul odors and even attract unwanted pests. If you live alone, you might only clean the bathroom weekly, but if you have a large family this task might need to take place more often. Think about your household and your personal preferences, and decide which cleaning tasks are a top priority, and which ones can be placed on the back burner.
Evaluate
The best cleaning schedule will work around your household’s real daily lives. Scheduling conflicts are bound to happen, and sometimes your cleaning schedule won’t go exactly as planned. This is where prioritizing will help you. Wiping your baseboards or cleaning your windows may not be realistic daily tasks for a busy family.
Plan in blocks of time that work for your schedule and with the schedules of any others who will be helping out with household chores. As time goes on, don’t be afraid to reevaluate and reschedule as needed. The more realistic your cleaning schedule is, the higher the chances that you’ll actually stick to it.
Divide and Conquer
If you live with others, dividing up chores into a schedule that works for everyone will keep the entire family from getting stressed or overwhelmed. Additionally, you can divide your time to make sure you aren’t stuck with a huge amount of cleaning all at once. Divide up your list by room, by task or by priority–whatever works best for your household.
More Tips
Try out different schedules: Maybe blocking out a couple of hours one day a week and tackling everything on your list works best for you and your household. Maybe tackling one room a day is more your style. Some find success setting a 20-30 minute timer once a day to tackle household chores.
Build a carrying caddy: Load an easy-to-carry caddy with all of your cleaning supplies so you don’t have to work as hard carrying everything from one space to another.
Multitask when possible: Finding small blocks of time throughout the day to knock out one or two easy cleaning tasks will set you up for success. Do a quick load of dishes while you’re heating up your lunch, or sweep the living room floor while watching the latest episode of your favorite show.
Write it out: Either handwrite or print out the cleaning schedule you decide on to help hold you accountable. Seeing the tasks and the days they are assigned to will serve as a visual reminder throughout the week.
Cleaning can be quite a chore–literally–but it doesn’t have to be stressful or complicated. Creating a realistic schedule will help you prioritize tasks and get the job done!
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