My Secret to Creating More Time by Using a Weekly Cleaning Schedule
Is anyone else guilty of spending your free time each weekend cleaning your home? Guilty. I’ve been there, too many times, only to feel frustrated every Sunday evening that I didn’t fully enjoy my free time. And that only made my Sunday Scaries that much worse.
That scenario happened to me enough times that I decided to make a change. A few years ago, I implemented a weekly cleaning schedule – to be done exclusively during the week – to free up more of my “free time” each weekend. My goal was to spend less time cleaning each weekend, and more time with family, reading, going out to events/restaurants, exercising, trying new recipes, and RELAXING! And I’m happy to say, after a few slow starts – it worked! We’ve been keeping the weekly cleaning schedule going for several years, and even though our work weeks can be busy, we do our best to make time to stick to the plan.
Do we sometimes miss a day of dusting? Yes. Do I always clean out my fridge every week? Nope. Do I sometimes find myself doing a load of laundry on the weekends or running the vacuum or dusting a room before company arrives? Heck yeah. Life happens and you’ve got to learn to go with the flow. You don’t want to miss out on awesome opportunities because of the cleaning schedule. But those scenarios happen pretty infrequently, and I’ve been able to commit 30 minutes or less nearly every day to keeping my weekends free.
How Does It Work?
I first made a list of all the chores I was doing on a regular basis. It was interesting to see how many redundant tasks I was doing weekly and WASTING TIME! Then I decided what needed to be done weekly and what could be done biweekly or even monthly. This also allowed me to identify regular home maintenance tasks I should be doing quarterly.
Then, I organized my week based on trash day. I know that sounds unusual but imagine how much trash you make cleaning out the fridge, cleaning your bathrooms and washing/vacuuming your floors. It’s more than you think. So, I front load the weeks with any chore that is going to make trash. That way it’s out of the house for nearly a week.
What Chores Are a Part of the Weekly Cleaning Schedule
All of the normal tasks you’d do to run a home – dusting, vacuuming, laundry, cleaning bathrooms – plus a few more.
I also try to clean out the fridge every week. By that I mean I go through any food we haven’t eaten timely and dispose of it, wipe down the shelves, throw out anything that’s past its prime and basically tidy up. This is NOT a deep clean. That I do quarterly. This simply allows me to make sure we are eating all the food before it goes bad, tackling any spills before they become a nightmare and honestly – get back all of the Pyrex containers to use again!
This process takes me about 15 minutes on a bad day. If you adopt this strategy, never again will you find a jar in the back of your fridge and say, “Wow, I forgot I had this!” Or stumble upon something fuzzy and wonder what it used to be! You’ll use everything you bought in a timely manner, and you’ll stop wasting loads of money when food goes bad.
I also file paperwork weekly – staying on top of that curse that is the mail, do laundry twice a week, & clean the kitchen properly. In addition to our weekly chores, I also have household maintenance tasks that occur biweekly, monthly or quarterly. By adopting this strategy, we’ve cut back on the amount of unnecessary time we’ve spent maintaining our home and rarely forget those crucial homecare activities the eventually cost a lot of money to repair once it’s too late. Stay tuned for more information on that.
• Kitchen
I clean the kitchen well every Monday to make up for whatever destruction I might have caused over the weekend testing recipes and cooking for loved ones, as well as on Fridays to tidy up from the busy week and get ready for the weekends. If you keep up with tasks like this weekly, then every time is much quicker to accomplish. For example, if I’m cooking a huge meal on Sunday and I spill something on the floor, I’m wiping that up right away. I’m certainly not waiting until my floor day to do that.
We clean our counter tops every day so that grime, bacteria and grossness don’t build up and contaminate our food. As a result, my Monday/Friday kitchen cleaning is super easy. I wipe any splatters from the cabinets and backsplashes, I wipe the window ledge, I clean knobs, kitchen faucet/handle, appliance fronts & handles, I even wipe down the trash bin and give my stovetop a sudsy bath. This takes me about 20 minutes. Never again will I be tearing up my kitchen on a Saturday AM to tackle the grime, grease and bacteria that have been settling over the past few weeks. It’s clean throughout the week – which means it’s SAFE and also company ready (perk!).
• File Papers
When I pick up the mail, I scan through for important bills and/or documents and handle those immediately. Otherwise, I’ll place the remaining items in the mail bin in our mudroom and formally go through each piece of mail every Wednesday (garbage is collected every Thursday AM). Everything that needs to be filed – statements, important documents, receipts, etc. I then place in a ‘To File’ folder that I tackle every Friday. I could certainly do that on mail day, but Wednesdays are super busy, and I would rather take the time to review our files properly. The mail process takes 10-ish minutes, maybe 15 on a heavy week and filing papers takes similar times. It might take longer to file if I’ve decided to remove older documents and shred them, or perhaps I’m looking for spending trends or reviewing charges.
• Laundry
I strive to avoid doing laundry on the weekends. First, it keeps me from having piles of clothing all over the house and it saves me from being tied to the laundry room during my free time.
Two exceptions – I always wash bedsheets when I change the beds. A new set goes directly on the beds and the dirty sets get washed and put away, right away. I also wash any grimy yardwork clothes the moment we strip them off. I don’t want that sitting around my house ripening until laundry day. One simple wash, then I’m done.
I do a few loads every Monday to clean up anything dirty from the weekend. Then I’ll do another few loads Thursday to get ready for the upcoming weekend. If I don’t have enough for a full load, then I just keep it in the laundry sorter until there’s enough for a full load.
• Dusting
Every other week, I’ll alternate between using a feather duster and a cloth with furniture polish. The furniture doesn’t need to be polished every week, so the duster keeps dust down in between polishings. I make sure to address any surface that collects dust – that includes furniture, window ledges, picture frames, decorations, baseboards and paneled doors. Again, once you are in a routine, this process is remarkably quick.
• Floors
I vacuum the carpeting weekly and either use my Swiffer for the hardwoods or even my Shark when I want a particularly good clean. I’ll also use the Shark to polish the floors quarterly. We get away with only weekly vacuuming and mopping because our home is a shoe-free environment. We avoid tracking all of the community dirt, grime and germs throughout our house by leaving our shoes in the mudroom. Have you ever read any of those stats on the number of bacteria found on the bottom of your shoes? It’s disgusting.
I’ll usually wipe down the baseboards every other week. Be sure to keep up with this – it’s a pain in the butt, but it you’d be surprised how quickly this area collects dust and dirt in high traffic areas. We inherited grimy baseboards when we purchased our home, and they were nearly impossible to clean properly. In fact, I had to repaint most of them to clear away the discoloration from being poorly cared-for.
• Cleaning Bathrooms
I’m fortunate that my husband takes lead on the bathrooms most weeks. He’ll clean and sanitize sinks, toilets, floors, tubs/showers, remove the trash, and shine the mirrors. Quarterly we’ll throw the guest shower liner in the wash and bleach/deep clean the grout in the primary shower.
The Benefit of Adopting a Weekly Cleaning Schedule
Every single one of these activities has been SO much easier to accomplish piece-meal versus spending hours every Saturday catching up. And the result of my weekday efforts means that I have more time Saturday and Sunday for leisure activities, writing, interesting home projects, cooking/baking, going to sporting events or taking day trips. And I never beat myself up if I miss a day or chore. I just get to it when I can. I also solicit the help of my spouse.
Everyone in your household needs to take ownership of all the tasks necessary to keep a home running smoothly. Give the kids something easy, yet crucial, like taking out the trash or putting away their laundry. Taking care of a home is A LOT of work! Especially if you also work outside of the home. I have found that breaking up my chores into smaller pieces has helped me get it all done timely and with minimal stress. Plus, my weekends are now free! Remember the old adage…How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
I hope my process can be helpful for anyone who might want to balance out the list of have-tos with the more enjoyable want-tos.
Good Luck!
