A simple cleaning schedule for people who hate cleaning!

I’ve been trying to come up with a consistent simple cleaning schedule for years. I’ve tried all of the popular ones and nothing ever seems to stick. Honestly? I’m not someone who likes to clean so I don’t want to have a huge list of cleaning tasks every.single.day.

After trying out so many different ideas, I have finally come up with a system that works for me. Just a warning: this system is SIMPLE and the goal isn’t to have a sparkling clean, perfectly pristine house. In this stage of my life, I would rather prioritize spending time with my kids than cleaning all day long. My goal is to have a house that is clean and guest worthy, but not one that I need to spend hours cleaning a day, you know?

So if you are looking for a quick, low stress, simple cleaning schedule that you can adapt for yourself keep on reading- if a perfectly clean house is your goal, you might want to skip this one 😉

Daily cleaning:

Establishing daily routines has been the BIGGEST game changer for me. Again, mine are simple, but you can easily adjust them to fit your home and family. My advice? Don’t put too much pressure to add a ton to your plate each day. Simple is best here because it’s much more attainable. If you don’t have any sort of cleaning routine currently, start here and get in the habit of doing these few things before you add more to your plate. Here are the three simple things that I do daily:

As you can see it isn’t a lot-but these three things make a big difference! I start the dishwasher every night and unload the dishwasher every morning. Sometime throughout the day and at night I spend 15 minutes or less “resetting” the house. Resetting simply means doing a quick tidy and getting the room back to where it should be. When I consistently do this every day, it usually only takes a few minutes! Giving myself a time limit pushes me to get it done, but also makes it feel not as overwhelming because I’m giving myself “permission” to stop after 15 minutes (knowing that 15 minutes is sure better than nothing!)

Weekly cleaning:

Weekly cleaning is how I get the bulk of my cleaning done. Each week I write down 5-6 areas in my home to focus on. Things like bathrooms and floors repeat every week, but I don’t do a major clean of every room, every week. For example, some weeks I might deep clean the playroom, whereas the next week I might do Henry’s room instead!

What has made my cleaning schedule different than others that I’ve seen is that I do NOT assign a specific task to each day. Instead, I do what needs to be done (or I feel like doing that day!) Somedays I might do one task off my list, whereas others I might knock of three! This flexibility has been so great because I don’t feel like I’ve gotten off track if I miss a day (anyone else have an all or nothing personality?!)

As for what I do in each room-I simply do what is needed. If no one has entered the office all week, then I probably wont spend a ton of time vacuuming in there. I also like to give myself a 30 minute time limit per area (with the exception being laundry!) Again, I remind myself that something is better than nothing and this helps me from getting overwhelmed. This also means that I rarely spend more than an hour a day cleaning!

Monthly cleaning:

Because my cleaning system is so flexible, I also don’t do the same monthly tasks every single month. Similarly to how to do weekly cleaning, each month I write down a few extra things that I’ve noticed need to be done soon. As I have time throughout the month I complete an area or two.

As needed:

There are certain tasks that I don’t include on my lists because they just need to be done, like I said…as needed 😉 I don’t necessarily make a list for these simple tasks, but wrote them down so you can see an example!

And that’s that! I know it was simple, but I hope it helps someone that has a similar attitude towards cleaning 😉 Please let me know if I missed something or you have any questions!

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