Creating a Cleaning Schedule

I've always taken pride in having a clean house. Though it's not really much about pride - it's more about a slight compulsion to have to have a clean house. I feel so much better and more focused when everything has a place and is in it's place. Over the last few months, however, I've noticed that I've felt more and more stress about the cleanliness of the house. With both the Mister and I working full-time, him in school, me working on the blog/business, and our other activities - keeping up on the cleaning is just not happening. While I'm satisfied that we have clean clothes to wear to work each day and you can safely walk across most of the floors in our house, the detail things are just not getting done and this is driving. me. crazy. Instead of having a crazy breakdown, I sat down to think about how to tackle this problem. That's when I decided to make a cleaning schedule.

I make multiple lists everyday. Lists of what I need to accomplish at my 9-to-5 job, what I need to do when I get home, lists of blog post ideas, lists of items I need at the store, etc. I make lists because I'm motivated by lists. So I figure a cleaning list might help motivate me to clean. It's worth a try!

I did some extensive research online for ideas, designs, formats, etc. I decided to go with a dry erase option - putting the list/schedule in a picture frame. I found a nice square frame in a box downstairs that hadn't been used since we moved into our house. It works perfectly. 

To start this project, I made a list of every possible cleaning chore I could think of. I mentally walked through every room in the house and thought about what surfaces needed to be cleaned. Then I divided this list up into tasks that I wanted to complete daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, and annually. I had to guess on some things. For example, I'm not sure monthly is often enough to scrub the stove top, but I'm willing to try it. 

Then I went through each section and determined the best time to complete a task. So for our annual cleaning jobs, I chose May to give the garage a good cleaning because cleaning the garage in January in Michigan just doesn't sound fun. Again, I tried to determine the best possible time to do each task, but this schedule is flexible. If something doesn't work, I can rearrange things instead of getting down on myself. 

Then came the hard part. I debated over how to organize this list. First, I considered having just one sheet that listed each category and the tasks in that category. I'd keep it similar to my draft above, noting which month to complete which task. But then I thought back to that whole motivation factor. Knowing me, I'd find a reason to put off each monthly task until the end of the month, leaving me with a few very stressful days at the end of the month cleaning like a maniac and that's what I'm hoping to avoid. So I settled on making a calendar. I used Excel and made a separate tab for each month. I created a basic layout and copied it on each tab and then just started filling in tasks according to my original list. It took a bit of tweaking and, for a moment, seemed like way too much work. But I found myself anxious to get it done so that I could start with it right away. That was encouraging. 

Once I had it the way I thought would work best, I printed the current month. I figured I'd only print one month to start in case I found something that really didn't work for me. That way I wouldn't have to reprint 12 sheets when I changed something. I hung the frame in our kitchen closet and have a spot there for a clipboard that will hold the other months when they're not in use. 

I'm hoping this schedule will allow me to keep the house clean to my high standards. And, maybe it will even encourage the Mister to help out. He tends to be motivated by lists too!

So I'm curious - are you a neat freak like me? How do you keep your cleaning on track?