Housecleaning on a rotation

There are things we all need to do in life that we would rather skim over — taking out the garbage, sweeping the floor, scrubbing the toilet.  However, if we didn’t do these things, the consequences of not doing them would be even worse than doing them in the first place — once we neglect these tasks for too long the task of actually doing them becomes monumental because your house is now so dirty that it will take you two or three times longer to do it now than if you had been doing it each week as you had originally intended.  So, these tasks often get relegated to the weekends, usually taking up an entire day of your blessed and holy two-day weekly vacation from the daily grind.

I discovered fairly quickly after starting a full-time job that the last thing I wanted to do on the weekend was spend an entire day cleaning and doing laundry — but what was I to do?  How could I possibly have the time or energy to do any of these tasks during the week?  The answer I came up with was simple — you’ve just go to have a plan.

I broke up the cleaning tasks in our house into major categories:

dusting/vacuuming
cleaning the kitchen
cleaning my bathroom
cleaning husband’s bathroom
vacuuming stairway/cleaning front entry

After making the list, I realized that I had five major cleaning tasks that I would like to do each week.  Doing all of these tasks at once would likely take me three hours or so, leaving me feeling sweaty and agitated.  However, doing just one of these tasks would only take 20 or so minutes, and wouldn’t leave me feeling drained — in fact, it would leave me with a feeling of accomplishment because I would be able to focus on doing just that one cleaning task and doing it very thoroughly.

Now, I do one of these tasks each day during the week, and when the weekend rolls around, I don’t feel the need or pressure to do any cleaning, leaving me time to enjoy time with my husband, my friends, or just time with myself doing an activity that I enjoy.  And if I have a crazy week at work and am not able to do one of these tasks that day — it’s not a major catastrophe because the tasks are done often enough that the mess never really builds up to be that terrible, and waiting a few days won’t make much of a difference.  Likewise, if I have extra time on the weekends and there was a task I didn’t get to, doing one of these items on a Saturday or Sunday doesn’t interrupt my weekend too much.

Although this list does a good job cover the major cleaning tasks that need to be done each week, it is not an exhaustive list of housecleaning chores, to be sure.  I also keep a list of other cleaning tasks that don’t need to be done each week, but should be done each month or so — this list includes:

cleaning out refrigerator
cleaning out laundry closet
de-cluttering and putting out-of-place items away
cleaning out drawers or cupboards
washing windows
sweeping out the garage
tidying up the basement (which is unfinished and used for storage only)

This way, when I turn to my regular list of cleaning tasks to do and feel that the kitchen or bathroom isn’t really that dirty or in need of a cleaning just yet, I substitute a task on my “every so often” list and put off the regular cleaning until the next day.  This way, I break up deep cleaning projects into smaller, bite-size chunks that can be sprinkled throughout the year and are never able to grow into monstrous tasks.

You get the idea — these lists are specific to our family and our house (and my own standards of what is “clean”).  You’ll have to make your own list.  Try to keep your “regular tasks” list to five or so major tasks — if you have a larger house and need to break it up into seven or more tasks, then assign each person in your household to do a cleaning task each night, so that each day two or three tasks are accomplished.  By the weekend, you’ll be so happy you took 20-30 minutes each night to do a small cleaning task that leaves you with a clean and organized home, ready for fun or unexpected visitors on the weekend.

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