This post is sponsored by the makers of Clorox® Disinfecting Wipes, the quick and easy way to clean and disinfect your home!
I get a lot of emails asking about my cleaning schedule after I wrote about my typical day on Joanna’s blog. I truly do not love cleaning, but I know that I’m so much happier with life when my house is clean. Don’t you feel the same way?
A couple years ago, right after I had Claire and when Gracie was old enough to really start doing some damage, I was feeling like I would never have a clean house again. (I also thought there was a good chance I would never get to sleep through the night again. :) good times) I was picking up the house all week long it felt like, and then I would do all my laundry and deep cleaning on the weekends. That meant my Saturday was completely gone and that the house was totally dirty again by Monday morning. Stresses me out just thinking about it.
Then one time I was visiting a friend’s house who had three rambunctious toddler boys. I walked into her house for the first time and my jaw dropped. Her house was CLEAN. Like, I’m not talking about tidy – tidy is not always possible during the day with kids, but it was clean. She is one of those amazing mothers who is really active with her kids, so I knew she didn’t spend all day neglecting her boys to clean the house. I was surprised and a little jealous of her sparkly floors so I begged her to share her secret. She laughed and said she kept a chore chart, which I thought was hilarious! What grown woman has a chore chart?! Suddenly I had to have one!
I copied her chart and have been using a slightly tweaked version ever since. I can’t say that I’m always following through here, but when I do, my house is practically spotless and best of all, I don’t feel like I am cleaning all the time – which honestly was the hardest part for me of being a stay at home mom in the early years.
It looks like a lot, but I think even on the most intense days I’m only spending 30 or 40 minutes in aggregate cleaning (though we live in a 1500 sq ft apartment, so your home might require a little more time). I’ve listed the chart here below, and here’s a simple printable version.
So the basic idea is this: there are daily chores – easy things you should take care of almost habitually in the morning and in the night, and then there is a single special chore of the day. Most of these chores end up getting done once a week (for example, every Monday I do a deep vacuuming of all our rugs. I took only one interior design class in college and I only remember a handful of things from that class. One of them was a tangential comment my professor made about vacuuming. She said that you should go over the same area on a rug SEVEN times super slowly to get it clean. Isn’t that just nuts? I don’t do that, but I do try to do a slow vacuuming on Mondays.). Friday though is the swing day, where you rotate in chores that need to be done less frequently, like scrubbing the microwave.
I’ll walk you through today’s cleaning schedule. It’s Tuesday. I wake up and make our bed. It won’t get done unless I make it as soon as I get up. The girls are getting good about making their beds too. After I finish getting ready I wipe down the bathroom counters and the sink. While I’m making the kids breakfast I empty out the dishwasher.
Then life happens and the house sort of falls apart during the day.
Then at night the girls help me clear the table and load the dishwasher. Michael does the trashes. Once the kids are in bed I quickly sweep or vacuum the kitchen and dining room and I might pop into the living room too. I keep a wet rag with me and as I go I’ll spot clean the floor. My goal is fast and furious cleaning!
And here’s where my baskets come into play. I keep them everywhere. I really love this basket that I posted about yesterday because it is super sturdy and holds its shape. I zip through my house every night with this basket, throwing in every misplaced item, then going back to each room once and put the things back where they belong. It takes me just a few minutes to pick up a day’s worth of clutter this way. No more running back and forth and back and forth from room to room putting things away. Try the basket method – you’ll never go back!
Plus – another bonus of having your pretty baskets out in every room? If you have a friend coming over right away, you can just corral everything in the basket super fast and no one’s the wiser.
Once the house has been de-cluttered, I do my chore of the day (today was cleaning the mirrors and windows), and then I’m done! It might sound like a lot, but I promise it isn’t. When I’m consistent with this schedule, I never have to do one of those marathon cleaning days to get back to ground zero. The house never has a chance to get really dirty, so the cleaning never feels like a true chore. It feels easy and, dare I say it? Pleasant?
So that’s my approach to cleaning in a nutshell. I know we all have our special tricks, and I’d LOVE to hear yours!
Today’s super-sized give away is $350 to Target AND $150 to the Container Store and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment sharing your favorite cleaning or organization tip. I can’t wait to see what you guys do to keep your spaces sparkling! Any other crazies out there with a chore chart? :)
Contest ends March 22. Winner will be announced on the 23rd. Contest rules can be read in full here. Good luck!!
My dad always taught me : a place for everything and everything in it's place. I think half the battle is won, when you have a home to pick up and return things to. Organizational bins/baskets is a must. Now if I could just get my kids to cooperate… :)
As a full time student, my house can get crazy! My rule is to clean/pick up five things in the morning, and five things before I go to bed. It sounds silly, but it's the only way I can keep myself on track!
I love the chart… we don't have kids, so our house never really gets messy…
I love the organization and methodology – you hit all bases and the result is a lovely home :)
Keep up the good work!
Living in an apartment with a super tiny washer and dryer, I find it helpful to break up laundry and do some every other day. It saves me from being overwhelmed at the end of the week. Thanks for the great giveaway!
Baskets! I have them all over the house so I can throw my daughters toys & books or blankets in them.
My cleaning/organization tip has more to do with the week than with my house. My husband and I both work; we have two kids; our lives are busy, busy, busy. So every Sunday I spend several hours cooking, chopping vegetables for salad, roasting veg and potatoes for the week, making a big pot of rice to dip into, a pot of soup, etc. Makes me feel a lot more together, knowing we've got delicious healthy food in the house and we can have a hot meal 20 minutes after we hit the door!
I make sure the floors stay clean every day. It's funny how a dirty floor makes everything feel dirty but with a clean floor I can deal with everything else.
My biggest challenge has been piles that mysteriously appear on flat surfaces, so once a day, I make sure that I play good music for a bit, to do my general tidying, and focus on one flat surface. It's not done until it's really done – mail filed or recycled, earrings put away, coasters back in their keepers.
We have a busy household with four little ones ages 2 to 11. The kids are old enough to help with a lot of the chores now, including cleaning their own bathroom. I keep a carton of Clorox wipes under each bathroom sink for quick clean up of the bathrooms between the deep cleanings on Saturday.
Favorite cleaning tip: energize! I will put on an upbeat, energetic song and challenge myself to clean FURIOUSLY until it is over. It's amazing what you can get done in three minutes. I also do the same thing during commercial breaks of my favorite shows.
We have a Saturday basket. At night, whatever hasn't been put away goes into the basket and stays there until Saturday – doesn't matter if it is Sunday or Friday. It only takes a couple of times for a favorite toy or pair of shoes to be left on the floor and then placed in the Saturday basket before everyone picks up their own things at bedtime!
I do similar and straighten up every night. I need to add in an additional task a night. I do the w-end cleaning.
I'm a container person, every toy, lego set, game, etc, has a place and the kids know it. When I feel like I can declutter/organize, I can get to the bottom of the dirt and do my heavy cleaning. Would love to win!
Oh I so need to do a chore chart! I find that getting up 30 minutes earlier and doing a quick pass before I leave for the office works better for me. I'm more motivated in the morning.
I am in love with your chore chart! That's so wonderful and seems like a good way not to get overwhelmed. I feel I don't have any special tips right now…I'm afraid I need to come up with some. Or just make my own chore chart. :)
I love this idea. Right now I live in a dormitory at college where I share a room (smaller then mine at home) with another girl. For us it works best to understand who is responsible for what-she cleans the bathroom and I clean the room. Playing to the strengths of the team! Also, PURGE! Getting rid of stuff once monthly has helped me manage my clutter and cleaning!
I use a weekly list, with Laundry, Kitchen, Bath, deep cleaning, and organizing each on different days and I check off my list when I'm done with a task to stay focused.
Love the chart idea, I really need to incorporate this into my life as I always feel like I spend the majority of my time at home cleaning.
One thing I do to keep things tidy is to make sure that dirty dishes go immediately into the dishwasher. Once it's full, I run the dishwasher and empty it when it's done. Keeping on top of this really helps to prevent clutter in the kitchen.
Entertain…..often….also frequent goodwill runs mean less stuff to worry about keeping tidy.
This is a front load washing machine tip. I have 5 kids so we do A LOT of laundry. I noticed that my laundry after a year and a half started having a terrible smell. It's from the rubber gasket on the front loaders!!! I had to scrub it down with soft scrub with bleach to get rid of the mildew. Now everytime I use it I either wipe down the gasket with a towel (or leave the door open to air dry) AND I spray it with Lysol. It works!
Jenny, I'm pretty sure I took the same Interior Design class at BYU since I also only remember her crazy vacuuming habits and still think about it almost every time I vacuum.
I am similar to you, I try to do a quick walk through the house before bed to clean up all the random stuff that has accumulated, as well as doing the dishes and giving the bathroom a quick wipe down. It makes a huge difference to wake up to a clean house – makes the day much more manageable.
My big cleaning trick is to host a weekly Tuesday gathering at my place. Sure enough, every Monday, the apartment gets cleaned ;)
I have a front load washer and 5 kids, so we do a lot of laundry! After 18 months it developed a terrible smell and so did my clothes!! I had to scrub down the rubber gasket with Soft Scrub with bleach (inside and out) & run some white vinegar washes to get rid of the smell. Now every time I do a load, when I empty it I wipe down the gasket with a towel (or let it air dry) and spray it with Lysol. It works! No more mildew:)
Love the chart – thanks for sharing! I always clean the kitchen immediately after dinner. I can't relax for the evening if I know a sink of dirty dishes is waiting for me.
I try to build in an extra five minutes during breakfast to throw a load of laundry in the wash, so that by the time we are home from the bus stop it can go into the dryer. By 10 o'clock a load of laundry is done.
Last summer we purcahased a large bookcase from IKEA. I put large canvas bins in a few of the slots to store all my girls toys, i.e. barbies, dolls etc. It helps that they all have a home to go to when they are finished playing. It makes clean up much easier.
Kids toys are the hardest thing to keep clean in my house. We use clear plastic bins to store lego sets with the instructions. Lego pieces are now where they should be! Wish the rest of my house was that organized!
woah… i'm in my 9th year of marriage & i'm STILL striving to get a system in place that works… consistantly, for my hubby & me. i love being organized but i 9apparently) have a short attention span so i end up flitting from one thing to another, sometimes, not completing enoght to substanciate the disorder i create in my attempt achieve some symblance of order. i adore cute containers and have been trying to symplify our life & home to = order b/c we want to be able to do more in our volunteer ministry, but a "couple" of years has turned into 5 or 6. i'm still trying though. i think i really will create one of those chore charts – i had one as an kid & i suppose i still need one! thanks for that great reminder! & this awesome opportunity for the give-away!!! :)
I am a huge fan of magic erasers for EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING! They are amazing. My favorite is using them for cleaning the white plastic on little guys' converse.
I love this cleaning chart idea! My favorite way to organize is baskets though. Easy to hide unsightly things, but I can group miscellaneous items quickly.
Maybe I'm crazy but I loved reading your process! My process is rather similar. Each week my to do list contains half the cleaning chores that are needed on a more frequent basis. This way no week contains all the boring cleaning. I do one task each day so I don't lose an entire evening to cleaning. Then on a rotating monthly scehdule I do the less frequent things like oiling the cutting board or scrubbing the fridge shelves. It works nicely!
Well I don't have an amazing system like you, Jenny. But I am on board with the doing dishes and wiping down the counters before I go to bed each night. It's so much more pleasant to wake up to a clean kitchen!
I keep a spray bottle filled w a half and half mix of vinegar and water under the kitchen sink. I use it to spray down the counters which I then wipe with a clean rag- no streaks! I also use this w a crumpled newspaper to wash mirrors, works like a charm!
I love your ideas! I keep a basketat the bottom of the stairs for everything that needs to go back up stairs throughout the day. Then whenever I take a trip upstairs, I grab something and put it away. That way I'm not going up and down the stairs all day long. I also have someone come and deep clean for us every other week :) I hate cleaning and using up my weekend to do it! Awesome giveaway- hope I win.
Vinegar and baking soda for unclogging sink drains. Last week I almost called a plumber, but this worked and completely unclogged my sink! I have been using both everywhere. Also Clorox disinfecting wipes! I use those once or twice a week on every thing we touch often.
I schedule in chores as well. It really does help not letting things go too far. My biggest tip is that for light cleaning hot water will handle most messes. It won't handle bacon grease but for the remnents of pb&j on the counter hot water will clean it just fine.
I've been using coffee filters (and Windex) to clean my mirrors. No streaks or lint!
marciaannsmith@gmail.com
This is such a great chart, i'll be using it for sure. I keep some cleaning supplies in the bathroom, and when i'm in there using the facilities I'll quickly wipe down the sink or toilet after i'm done for a quick clean. I also find it useful when you have surprise guests, to say you have to use the bathroom quickly (and then clean while you're in there). Nothing bothers me more than a dirty sink.
I try to do little stuff along the way so that it's not a giant project all at once. So…I love your post! I am totally going to incorporate this. Thank you! :)
Wet wipes for wiping down everything, every day!
I might try the chore chart. The marathon weekend cleaning is a terrible way to spend a day off, in my opinion and right now that's what happens. I love baskets for all the little pieces/parts of kids toys that end up everywhere.
I really like the chore chart, and I am halfway there already. I do laundry,and spot clean kitchen daily already. With a little more organization from the chart,guilt free days off here I come!
Thanks!
cyn1968@hotmail.com
I like your approach very much. Things have somewhat fallen apart here (due to illness). So I'm going to adapt your schedule to mine. But I have maintained something for 3 years which helps a lot. It's Fly Lady's 'kitchen sink rule.' Which is:
Before you go to bed, make sure the kitchen sink is empty. No dirty dishes in it, etc. Wipe it dry & go to bed. In the a.m., the first thing you see (or shortly after you wake up:) is this: nothing. No dirty dishes stacked high, no gross pet dishes w/icky dirty water, etc. Clean. You can make your coffee (or tea), etc. starting from scratch. Even if everything else is a mess.
Believe me, this really helps.
Thanks so much for the giveaway chance. Wow. xo
The chore chart seems like a great idea. We'll have to try it. My other suggestion, which isn't anything new, is just to get the kids to help. Have them do as much as they can do for their age. Even 18 month olds can help pick up toys.
I hate, I mean hate, cleaning the shower. My little tip: make my husband do it :) It's the only household cleaning thing I request him to do and he gladly does it :)
I love the chore chart idea! I'm totally going to try it. My tip is to have basic cleaning supplies in each bathroom (we only have 2). That way, if I have a few spare moments in the bathroom during the baby's nap or something, I can just wip out the cleaning stuff and just clean it right there. Before I found that just the thought of having to round up all the cleaning supplies was enough to deter me from cleaning at all!
I am making it my goal to do one load of laundry every day. Other than that, Wednesday mornings are cleaning days. The cleaning ladies come Wednesday afternoons & do the DEEP clean :)
Edging! Vaccuming the corners and crevices in your house regularly really makes a difference in how clean it looks.
Also, vinegar in the laundry to disinfect…and get rid of mildew smells .
I tidy the kitchen or empty the dishwasher first thing in the morning while I'm waiting for the coffee to brew. My brain is too fuzzy to do much else and the activity helps wake me up.