Cleaning Schedule, Part 1

 

I don't know about you, but the older I get, the less motivated I am to clean the house every day.  Or every week.  Or every month.  Or whenever.

I can find time for all sorts of things, including sitting on my porch swing for hours just staring out at my backyard, but I seem to run short on time to clean.

Since I've re-committed to menu planning, I also decided to make time each day for cleaning.  Now, my house is an empty nest house.  We still live in the same house we raised our family in, but the kids are grown and it's just us chickens left here.  The house doesn't get dirty and messy the way it did when our kids were little.  But it still gets messy and dirty, it just takes a little longer.  It still needs to be clean, and I need to commit to keeping it that way.  Laziness is a habit that I can form very quickly!

So, what I've done, and what I'm still working on, is a planning calendar for a cleaning routine.  I've looked at lots and lots of ideas on Pinterest, and looked at a lot of cleaning checklists.  Before I retired, I used the Fly Lady system a lot.  But these days, I need a routine for completing chores and for keeping the house uncluttered.  The routine I've come up with is specific to my needs, so if you look at it and think you want to do something similar, you will have to tweak it.  

Here is what I have come up with so far.  It has taken me a lot of time to come up with something I really like, and I think I can do!

First off, I started with a list of things I need to do daily.  Then, I divided my house into zones, and am making a chart for each zone.  Each week I will work mainly on a certain zone.  I made a calendar for August labeled with the zones.  I am keeping these sheets in a folder with clear plastic sleeves, so I can just pick up the folder and start my chores. 

Here is my Dailies list:

This list is what I start off with first thing in the morning, after I get home from getting my youngest granddaughter on the bus.  I don't do these in the order listed, I just have my routine down and make sure the first 9 things get done before I start in on #10, the zone work.  The first 9 items take me about an hour, and about 20 minutes of that is doing my exercises.  

Here is my August calendar with the weeks labeled with the zone I am working on:

So, you can see this week I am focusing on the Living Room and Dining Room.  What I do is, I set my timer for 30 minutes, and just go down the list and complete as much as I can.  If the timer goes off before I'm finished, I just complete what I'm doing or come to a good stopping point.  That way I can pick it up where I left off!  The last week of August, Zone 5, goes over into the first 4 days of September.  Then, I'll make a new calendar and continue on with Zone 1.  I hope that makes sense!

What list, you ask?  Here is my cleaning list for the Living and Dining Rooms:

I still feel like I'm forgetting something on this list, but I can just add to it if I think of something.  If I change the list, I will post the update the next time I am in this zone.

I don't have all my charts ready, I am still working on those.  But now that I have the major plan in place, I think I can finish those up in a day or two.

So that's it!  That's what I'm using to keep myself in a cleaning routine.  By setting the timer for 30 minutes, I get some work done, but still have most of my afternoons for cooking, baking, and sewing!  So I get the least favorite part of the day over with first, which gives me something to look forward to the rest of the day.  My granddaughter calls it "Eating a Frog."  She read something somewhere that if you do the most unpleasant thing of the day first, like if you had to eat a frog, the rest of the day will be great compared to that!  So whenever she has something she doesn't want to do, she says, "Well, I guess I better go eat the frog," and she gets it over with.  Good plan!  

So far, I've followed my cleaning routine to a T.  But it's just the first week, so I don't want to be overly optimistic.  But I'm determined to keep trying!

Hope your week is going well!  Take care!