For years, I thought the answer to keeping a clean home was finding the right cleaning schedule.
I honestly believed there had to be a perfect system somewhere that would finally help me stay on top of everything.
So I did what many of us have done. I searched Pinterest for cleaning schedules, printed out pretty checklists, and put them on the fridge.
And for a few days, I would follow them faithfully but then life would happen.
One of my kids would get sick. We’d have somewhere we needed to be. My husband’s schedule would change.
Or sometimes I simply wouldn’t have the energy to do everything on the list.
I’d miss Tuesday’s bathroom cleaning, and suddenly I felt like I was behind.
Then Wednesday would come, and I’d be trying to catch up on Tuesday’s chores while also doing Wednesday’s chores.
Eventually, I’d give up on the schedule altogether. And before long, I’d be searching for another one.
For years, I thought the problem was that I hadn’t found the right cleaning schedule.
But eventually I realized something that completely changed the way I approach homemaking: The problem wasn’t that I needed a better cleaning schedule. I needed a system that could work with real life.
I don’t use a cleaning schedule anymore.
Real Life Doesn’t Follow a Schedule
One of the biggest problems I had with cleaning schedules was that they assumed every day would go according to plan.
But that’s not how life works.
Some days are busy and some are quiet. Some mornings I have plenty of energy, and other mornings I don’t.
A schedule might tell me that Tuesday is the day I’m supposed to clean the bathrooms, but what happens if Tuesday is particularly busy?
Now I have two choices.
I can ignore the schedule and feel guilty about it, or I can try to squeeze that task into an already busy day and feel stressed.
Neither one is very helpful.
I eventually realized that I wanted more flexibility in my homemaking. I didn’t want cleaning to dictate how my day had to go.
I wanted to be able to care for my home while still having the freedom to respond to what was happening in our family.
So instead of asking myself, “What am I supposed to clean today?”
I started asking, “What actually needs to be done?”
That was a small change in wording, but it made a huge difference.
What Actually Needs Cleaned
One of the things that made homemaking feel overwhelming to me was trying to remember everything in my head.
I’d be walking through the house thinking:
When was the last time I dusted?
Do the windows need cleaned?
When did I last clean the bathrooms?
Am I forgetting something?
When you’re trying to keep track of everything mentally, it can feel overwhelming.
So I made one master list of the things that need to be cleaned in my home on a regular basis.
Now I don’t have to remember everything. I can simply look at my list.
Not Everything Has the Same Priority
The next thing I learned was that not every cleaning task is equally important.
There are some things that make a huge difference in how our home functions every day.
For me, the kitchen is one of those things.
I love waking up to a clean kitchen. A clean kitchen makes the entire day feel a little easier.
Laundry is another priority for our family.
We need clean clothes to wear, so keeping laundry moving is one of those things that I make a priority.
These are the things that really help our household function. So those became my daily habits.
And there’s an important distinction here. They’re habits not a schedule.
Habits Give Me Flexibility
I don’t start laundry at exactly the same time every morning.
Some days I start it right before breakfast other days I start it after breakfast.
The important thing isn’t what time I start the load. It’s that I make it a habit to get it started.
The same is true for my kitchen.
I make it a habit to go to bed with a clean kitchen, but I don’t necessarily clean it at the exact same time every night.
Most nights I’ll clean up after dinner, but during baseball season sometimes I cleaned the kitchen later in the evening when we got home.
The time I clean the kitchen changes, but the habit doesn’t.
That distinction has made such a difference for me.
Weekly Cleaning
There are certain things that don’t need cleaned every single day, but I do need to keep on top of them regulalry.
These include:
- Dust the house
- Clean the bathrooms
- Mop the floors
- Change the bed sheets
- Clean the mirrors and windows
- Wipe down appliances
- Deep vacuum
- Clean out the vehicles
- Scrub the kitchen sink
These things matter, but I’ve learned that they don’t have to happen on one particular day.
If I don’t dust on Tuesday, my family is going to survive.
If I don’t mop on Wednesday, the world isn’t going to end.
The important thing is that I don’t allow those tasks to disappear completely.
Instead of assigning each task to a specific day, I write my weekly cleaning tasks in my planner at the beginning of the week.
Then I work through that list throughout the week.
I don’t have to think, “It’s Wednesday, so I have to clean the bathrooms.”
Instead, I look at what still needs to be done and decide what makes sense for the time I have available.
I Match the Cleaning Task to the Time I Have
This is another part of my system that has made homemaking feel much more manageable.
I don’t always have an hour to clean, but sometimes I have ten minutes.
If I only have a few minutes, I might mop the kitchen and dining room, clean the glass on the back door, or wipe down the appliances.
Those little pockets of time really do add up.
But if I happen to have an hour at home, that’s when I tackle something that takes longer, like dusting the house or cleaning the bathrooms.
Instead of trying to make my day fit the cleaning task, I match the cleaning task to the time I have.
The goal isn’t to follow the plan perfectly. The goal is to take care of my home.
Once I’ve finished something, I cross it off.
I don’t have to wonder if it still needs to be done, and I don’t need to think about it again until next week.
This has helped me tremendously with the mental load of homemaking.
I’m not constantly walking around my house wondering what I’m forgetting.
Want a Simple List of What Needs to Be Cleaned?
If one of the hardest parts of homemaking is simply remembering what needs to be done, I’ve created a free Homemaking Checklist to help.
It’s a simple way to get those household tasks out of your head and onto paper so you don’t have to constantly wonder what you’re forgetting.