My Cleaning and Home Management Schedule
After sharing about my new homemaking binder, I received some questions about my exact schedule, routines, and cleaning lists.
Last week I shared my schedule and routines, and today I’m sharing my cleaning plan.
Again, this isn’t something that works out perfectly, it’s just what I aim for.
Also, my five kids help out a lot! Some of these chores our children are responsible for, and some of them I take care of myself.
I’ve gleaned lots of my ideas from many different time management books, websites, and just figuring out what works for our family through the years.
I recently changed a few things on my cleaning list, so there may be some items that are different from what you see in the photos.
Our Cleaning Schedule
Daily
- Make beds
- Pick up
- Laundry every day
- Dishes
- Sweep floor
- Clean kitchen
Weekly
- Monday: Catch up on laundry, wash kitchen and bath towels
- Tuesday: Vacuum living room
- Wednesday: Catch up on filing and clean desk area
- Thursday: Wipe out refrigerator. wash kitchen and bath towels
- Friday:Â Whole house cleaning, dust, vacuum, mop, water plants, change sheets, restock toilet paper, disinfect toothbrushes, place online orders
- Saturday: Make ahead food for Sunday/guests, prepare for Sunday (get out clothes, shoes, etc.), Plan Menu (here’s a free meal planning printable), plan homeschooling, print chore charts and schedule checklists
Monthly
- Wash walls throughout house
- Clean and sweep garage
- Clean all windows
- Clean outside of cupboards
- Vacuum/Clean out van
- Dust baseboards
- Vacuum edges of all rooms
- Vacuum furniture
- Clean door handles (we sometimes do this weekly)
- Organize/declutter pantry
- Dust blinds
- Flip/rotate mattress
- Go through papers and file/purge
Semi-Annually
- Go through entire house and purge unnecessary items
- Clean Carpets
Yearly/Spring Cleaning
- Clean/dust bed frames and air mattresses
- Vacuum mattresses
- Wash all curtains and window treatments
- Vacuum under beds and furniture
- Thoroughly clean out and straighten all closets and dust/vacuum
- Thoroughly clean refrigerator and freezer and organize
- Clean out kitchen cupboards and drawers and wipe out
- Clean light fixtures
- Touch up trim paint around doors/paint bedroom doors
There are other jobs that I do on an as-needed basis.
When I notice something needs cleaning, organizing, or straightening, I add this task to my weekly list, or try to fit it in somewhere that month. Switching out seasonal clothing fits into this category.
I also have a “yearly/spring cleaning” list that I add to as I see things that need to be cleaned or organized.
Through the years, I’ve come to see that everyone has different ideas about cleaning and how often certain tasks should be performed. I’m always learning and revising my lists!
I hope this is helpful to you in your cleaning!
Related Posts:
I don’t see scrubbing bathrooms or grocery shopping on your list of chores. Also, do you iron your clothes and/or is that part of your daily laundry? I am trying to schedule to make things easier for the family. We have 4 children and I home school my older two and am setting up to do Before Five in a Row for my younger two. I have special needs children and some days it takes much, much longer to home school. When that happens, things tend to get neglected and my other kids feel left out because I have to spend so much time helping my other kids. I am really seeking help on organizing my days to be happy and productive. Any advise would be much appreciated.
Hi Pegi,
The bathrooms get scrubbed on Fridays during our whole house cleaning time. I do the master bathroom, and one of my children cleans the main bath. I almost never iron anything unless there’s a special occasion and something is wrinkled (maybe a couple times a year!). The rest of the time, if I have things like dress shirts or pants that I want to stay unwrinkled, I put them in the dryer for about 10 minutes and then take them out of the dryer, smooth them out with my hands, and then hang them to dry the rest of the way. This allows them to dry wrinkle-free! So ironing isn’t part of my weekly chores. I get groceries when I take my girls to gymnastics on Fridays. We also do a once-a-month big grocery shopping day on the weekend.
We’ve been homeschooling our 5 children for about 15 years, and I know it can be such a challenge to juggle everything. I make a daily schedule for everyone to follow, but it never happens perfectly. When all of my children were little, I tried to have an activity for each one to work on while I worked with their siblings. Now that I have some older ones, it’s much easier because they do their work independently.
As far as the cleaning schedule goes, we do some basic upkeep during the week, but we save our deep cleaning for Fridays. We’ve been doing it this way for years, so it’s pretty much a habit for everyone. I use a dry erase board for each child and they keep the same chores from week to week so they know exactly what to do. I explain all about our chore system in this video. I hope that gives you some ideas! 🙂
Great writing
thanks
Really great!
Thank you!
Hi Joy!
Thank you so much for sharing your schedule! It is always so helpful to me to see how other homeschooling moms do it all! When do you grocery shop? It seems to be a chore I like to do, but always have a hard time fitting it into my schedule! Thanks!
Hi Tricia!
For years my husband has done the grocery shopping (isn't that sweet of him?!), so I haven't had it as part of my schedule. However, now that I'm taking my two daughters to orthodontist appointments in a city over an hour away (and the closest Aldi is there), I'm planning to do the grocery shopping when I take the girls to their appointments. Since we love Aldi and don't have one near us, this seems like the perfect opportunity to shop there since I'll be there anyway. I usually have to just take whichever day they have available, so my shopping days will vary depending on the appointments (I always try to get afternoon appointments).