Cleaning Schedule

Cleaning is absolutely my achilles heel. I LOVE having a clean house, yet keeping it that way? Impossible.

I was that kid in school who the teachers didn't necessarily have anything bad to say about me, but my desk was always messy. I remember an occasion or two being totally embarrassed when parent/teacher conference time came around and my desk was looking less than stellar.

It's a joke around here too that I don't like to clean until things look messy. I like to see the mess get better. If stuff stays clean all the time, then you never see it change. Know what I mean? So I wait until I can't stand it anymore, and then I clean. Only problem is I  find myself not being able to stand the mess more and more.

It doesn't help that we have a bigger house now. We added almost 600 square feet and although that doesn't seem like much I can feel it. We have 2 extra sinks, a extra tub and shower, and one more toilet. Not to mention two extra rooms and tons more carpet (2 stair cases worth). Also add granite, real hardwood floors, tile, and stainless steel which all is a little high maintenance. Phew.

Surely I'm not the only one who has a house that looks like this:
Or this...
I really thought I'd love having a laundry closet upstairs. And I do. I love how convenient it is since all our dirty clothes get taken off upstairs (no need to haul a basket up and down stairs), but I also forget about it too often. I forget stuff is in the washer. Clean dry clothes stay in the dryer too long. And then I end up getting frustrated by ALL the laundry I've neglected and it turns into a 2 hour laundry doing marathon.

I decided to poke around on pinterest and find cleaning schedules. See how other people clean and how often those other people clean certain areas. Obs I'm not going to clean the whole house every week. I wouldn't have time to do anything else. But I liked all the great ideas of what to do every day, chores to do once each week on particular days, and then what to do once per month. I scribbled out a bunch of different ideas and worked it into a schedule that would work for us.
Before I make it pretty I want to be sure we could live with it. I'm making corrections as needed for our days. Tuesday/Wednesday tend to be our busiest days (Josh is working and I have to take Luke to school) so I went easy on what to accomplish. I can easily throw a load of laundry in before we leave and empty the trash when we get home. Thursday/Friday is our weekend with Josh's off days, so I tried to put bigger items on those day since he can help with the kids. I have since added going through my coupons on Sunday since that's what I get my paper and the mess on the desk seems to peak. As Josh's schedule changes my chart will most likely change since his off days tend to float around the week. 

So far I am LOVING it. My sink has stayed empty and I feel like I always have something to do (instead of feeling guilty that I'm not doing anything yet having no idea where to start). I also love that when I come across something that needs to be done, I can procrastinate it until cleaning day. I noticed that our bathrooms could stand to be mopped since it's been nearly a month (see why I needed a schedule?). Since that's Monday's project (today!) I let it slide over the weekend. 

I also didn't put huge things like hardwood floor care, wiping the blinds, cleaning out closets, etc. because I tend to do those as needed. I don't want to do them if they don't need it, but it is something I notice when it gets bad enough. 

Will I be able to follow this schedule every day? Probably not. But it's a good guide of what needs to get done so I can stay on top of things. If I'm feeling particularly energetic I will go ahead and do the next day's chore so it's one less thing to do the next day. On the flip side if I'm just plain out of energy I'm not going to beat myself up for not accomplishing them. Heck I would love to just stay on top of dishes! 

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