Easy cleaning schedule
Aka the only way I keep our house from looking like a [total] train wreck.
Hey hey friends! Sorry about the later posting today! The time I’d spend writing a blog post last night was eaten by a spider. All of the panic is up on my IG stories. It a nutshell, I was driving home from Target and I saw a creepy crawly out of the corner of my eye. Turns out, it was an enormous spider! I made it to our driveway and the Pilot came out to take it outside…and it crawled under my passenger seat. It took him quite a while to find and destroy it. RIP spider. (I’m not usually afraid of bugs, but I was FREAKING OUT.) *shudders* Oh Georgia and your enormous insects.
So today, let’s talk about cleaning! When I mentioned that I follow a cleaning schedule during last week’s post, a few people wanted to know the details. This is something I started doing years ago, because I realized that it’s SO much easier to do small blocks each day than let it pile up to an unsurmountable mess. For the most part, there are chores I do every day no matter what. Then each day also has a focus, and I’ll only working on cleaning that one extra thing each day. The extra thing usually takes 30 minutes or less, and this way our house stays pretty clean for the most part.
Here’s what my weekly cleaning schedule looks like:
For the wild card day, I just do whatever needs to be done. This is usually a day when I’m caught up on blog stuff for the week, so I’ll spend P’s naptime getting in a quick workout and cleaning.
Some notes:
-We have professional cleaners that come every two weeks. It’s some of the best money I could spend because they do a lot of the nitty gritty deep cleaning. It also makes it so much easier to maintain when it starts out spotless.
-We try to use nontoxic products whenever possible, but there have also been some duds in there. (Sometimes natural means “doesn’t work.” Thankfully, I discovered the Method and Honest products and LOVE them.)
Here are some of my faves:
Method granite, antibacterial multi-pupose and daily shower spray
Wood floors: Bona spray (not nontoxic but makes them so shiny and pretty) and Honest mopping pads (to use more on a regular basis)
All Method bathroom-cleaning products
Method wood cleaning spray and wood polish (it smells amazing)
Meyer’s cream cleaner (perfect for stoves; it gets all the grime out) and cleaning powder (for sinks and tubs)
Homemade spray: a mix of pure Castille soap, vinegar, and lavender essential oil. I keep a bottle of this in the bathrooms and under the counter top for quick clean-up
Soap and water! I use pure castille soap and water a LOT. It’s perfect for scrubbing base boards and stainless steel. This is the only thing I’ve found to get stainless steel streak-free. Clean with soap and water, rinse, and dry.
Reusable cleaning towels. I love these ones from Amazon. These ones are the best I’ve found and they’re really inexpensive.
Tools:
Dyson cordless for everyday
Shark Navigator (for floor day. This gets up EVERYTHING)
Shark steam mop (for bathroom tiles)
Swiffer with mopping pad for wood floors or this thing with Bona spray depending on how I’m feeling
Swiffer dusters for dusting and blinds
I think that’s pretty much it! A little bit each day makes such a huge difference.
So, tell me friends: do you follow a cleaning schedule? What are some cleaning hacks/products you use and love?
xo
Gina
![Right [not] on schedule](https://fitnessista.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/06/photo4-150x150.jpg)
24 Comments
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Thanks for this! My daughter is 8 weeks and I’m still trying to get the hang of things. I’ve been searching Pinterest for inspiration on cleaning schedules. Yours doesn’t look too time consuming though 🙂
I have to do the same thing. Right now it’s monday… clean toilets and vanities, Tuesday vacuum playroom and wipe down kitchen counters, Wednesday dust and vacuum bedrooms, thursday clean showers and bath toys and dust and vacuum living room, friday change sheets, towels, etc. I try to work I’m the other things as needed but I seem to never find time for actually cleaning the fridge or microwave.
Thanks for writing about this!! I really need to work on a cleaning schedule. I wish I had the time to do a deep clean of the whole house regularly because I love the results, but that’s just not going to happen too often! So I definitely agree that keeping up every day is the way to go. I just need to have a regular schedule so that I don’t have to think about it. I love Method and Mrs. Meyers! I’m definitely going to try out that cream cleaner – I haven’t used that before but I think I need that for my stove. And I love the Method daily shower spray (I think it really helps) and yes, their wood cleaner smells so good. Thanks for the recommendations for the tools – I added a few to my Amazon wish list, haha. Although I don’t think it’s nontoxic, unfortunately, I do love using Magic Erasers to clean the shower – I find it gets soap scum off really well.
3 cheers for professional cleaning every other week! Best household decision I’ve ever made. I follow a schedule similar to yours as well. I have a built-in “free day” in case I get behind or have a busy week. Bathroom day is my very least favorite 🙁
I have a schedule that I really try to follow, buuuut not all the time! Monday – Mop it up Monday (floors & vacuuming); Tuesdays – Toilets; Wednesday – Wipe it down Wednesday (counters, mirrors); Thursday – Throw it out Thursday (all that random stuff that shows up the kitchen table, etc), Friday – Fold it Friday (the laundry that hasn’t been folded yet!); Saturday & Sunday – general tidying up and/or what I didn’t get to during the week. It does help me stay on track and keep a relatively cleaner house!
*And the spider was massive! I would have been paralyzed with fear!
I love all of your alliteration! Except, I don’t know that I want to spend my Fridays folding laundry, but I don’t want to do that any day lol
I always end up doing everything all in one day, usually a monday, and while it feels great at the end its probably not going to happen now that i have two kids! I was barely eeking it out with just my toddler! I need to think about implementing this type of schedule. Thanks for your natural cleaning recommendations!
Thanks for the product recommendations! 🙂
Ok- so besides doing dishes and laundry, wiping down counters and doing a quick swiffer in between professional cleaning sessions I don’t do a thing! I’m thinking now maybe if I did it would help keep things even more clean!
You know you’re getting old when … you get excited to read a blog post about cleaning! My husband and I also have a professional come in every other week and it seriously saves our marriage. Thanks for sharing all of these tips and products, now I gotta go clean up a bit!
I’m all about the hired help. LOL. I do try to do organizing/clear out that clutter that seems to accumulate during the week on Sundays, and I wash dishes (or at least put them in the dishwasher) as I use them. The rest is the domain of the housekeeper.
Thanks so much for sharing your schedule, and for the product recommendations. It is so much easier to keep our home in shape when I tackle something every day. Like another commenter mentioned, I was hooked for years on Magic Erasers for bathtub cleaning (seriously magic) but recently switched to using Skoy Scrubs. These are washable, don’t scratch, and work almost as brilliantly as Magic Erasers. Plus, I feel like I’m being more kind to the environment.
I have been trying to decide if we can justify having someone come 1-2 times a month for cleaning, it seems like it would free up so much time!
This post was WAYYYYYY needed for me! Thanks!
Omg I NEEDED this! Thank you so much for this suggestion!!!!
no prob! so happy you liked it 🙂
Awesome post! Right now my husband does most of the cleaning all day on Friday after work! He is a crazy man, but I have enough keeping up with the dishes and cooking!
um that sounds amazing.
Thank you for this post! Do you use Bona Free & Simple or the regular one?
ohhh i didn’t know they made a free and simple! off to google it
I’m thinking about ordering it after going down the rabbit hole of floor cleaner Googling. The regular Bona gets an F on EWG and the Free & Simple gets a C.
wow that’s WAY better. ok, i’m going to order some
i really like the honest mopping pads, but the bona makes the floors so much more shiny… not great if they’re an F though!
It’s such a hard balance with cleaning products between really disinfecting/not leaving things dirty but also being safe for us & kiddos. Really appreciate this post!