Maintaining a clean neat house is no easy task especially if most of your time is occupied with school or work. Although cleaning the house and making sure that everything is in its right spot can be overwhelming, it is not entirely impossible with a good plan. In fact, housework should be listed among the things that are certain in life alongside taxes and change, because it is unavoidable.
To ensure that you have a proper home life balance, we recommend that you develop a cleaning schedule. The cleaning schedule will create a routine that will allow you to know which cleaning task needs to be done urgently at any given time. Plus, you get to plan a cleaning schedule around a time span that works best for you.
How to create a cleaning routine
Step 1: Identify what tasks need to be done
Before you create a realistic cleaning plan, you need to know the amount of work that awaits you so that you can break it down into small easy tasks. Failure to plan out your work will leave you feeling overwhelmed, tired, and stressed with a dirty, messy house. If there are areas in the house that need to be repaired in order to facilitate a smoothing cleaning schedule, make sure that they are fixed. You want your vanity faucets to sparkle in your bathrooms. Walk around each room in your home and identify any work that needs to be done, then note it down. Ensure that you also note down how often you will carry out the task.
Bathroom tasks
- Clean the toilet bowl twice every week
- Descale the head of the shower once a month
- Empty the bin once every week
- Wipe the surfaces daily
Step 2: Check your free time
Now that you have noted down the tasks and how frequently you want to do them, you need to make certain that you have the time to do so. For the daily tasks, you need to allocate a time of day when you are not busy. If you have kids and mornings are the only free time you have during the day, then check out these treats that will keep your kids occupied as you clean the house.
For the weekly tasks, you can select one day of the week when you are free and do all the tasks. If the weekly tasks are too much to handle for a day, you can choose two days of the week and distribute the tasks. The point is to plan the schedule around the time that works best for you.
Step 3: Put your cleaning schedule into practice
The best way to find out if the cleaning routine works for you is by putting it into practice. We recommend that you start immediately so that you can get used to it early on. Practicing the routine will assist you in answering the following questions:
- Did you encounter challenges you had not predicted when creating the cleaning schedule?
- Were you able to work around the challenges?
- Which tasks did you miss out on and why?
- Were you able to accomplish your tasks on time according to your schedule?
- Does the cleaning routine favor your lifestyle or is it overwhelming?
When you are able to know your answers to the above questions, you will determine if the schedule will function smoothly or whether you should adjust several things on the list.
Step 4: Stay on track
Once you create a cleaning schedule that fits your lifestyle, ensure that you make an effort to remain on track. You can print out the schedule and stick it to a strategic place such as your fridge so that it will always remind you of what needs to be done. You can also mark the cleaning schedules on your calendar for them to become a part of your routine. It will also be hard to miss a cleaning task if it is on your calendar.
Step 5: Cut yourself some slack
There may be days when you forget to accomplish your tasks. If that happens, don’t be so hard on yourself. After all, you are only human. Besides, it takes time to fully adjust to a change in routine. Either way, ensure that you reschedule so that your home can continue to be clean and organized.
