My Weekly Cleaning Routine

Welcome to the first official day of Mommy, In Demand's Spring Cleaning Month! And what a perfect day to start it all off.

I awoke this morning to the birds chirping, the breeze blowing in through my windows, and (as usual) to the chorus of 'Mom, what's for breakfast?'.

Typical stuff. But really, only my children know exactly what to do to ruin a perfect waking moment...

ANYWAY,

I thought I would start off this great month of home freshening-up-ness with my weekly cleaning routine.

When I posted Presenting Casa de Larios back in March I was asked a few times (both here and on my personal Facebook account) how I keep my home looking so clean. Which is a pretty simple answer...

I am awesome.

The end.

But aside from that, since moving into our home I have done about a dozen things to help me keep my house clean. And, even though I'd love to tell you that I'm just good and one of those insanely clean people, it'd be a lie.

My house isn't always that clean.

As much I try to make it that way, there is always a pile of something, somewhere that needs to be tackled.

I have 2 children and a husband (which is pretty much a 3rd child on most days) so, around here, when something gets cleaned is only going to last about 10 minutes.

But I have been using a weekly cleaning schedule that has helped me to keep up on things a little better than usual, And really doesn't take a big chunk out of my day (which is great because my days are full enough as it is).

And again (because I'm awesome), I thought I'd share it with all of you!

Tada!

 

I originally found this list on Pinterest (surprise, surprise) a few months back and thought it was the best and most simple cleaning list I'd seen that still covered all areas of every room. 

So I copy and pasted it to a word document and hung it on my fridge. (You can take a look at the original list here, but mine is much prettier...I promise). 

But after a few months of using it on a daily basis I found that it didn't cover everything in each room of my house that needed to be done. And the different inks all over the document, from me writing those things in as I'd find them, was making the whole thing look a hot mess. 

So I jazzed it up a bit! And hit it with some Mommy, In Demand color magic!

(Yes. I might be a little obsessed).

I like this schedule for a few reasons:

1. It's only cleaning one room per day. I'm not overwhelmed with trying to get the whole house cleaned in the few hours that my son is in school and husband is at work. Of course that doesn't include the daily "pick-up" rule I have (where I basically make sure to take 15 minutes, 3 times a day to go through the house and pick up any items out of place, on the floor, or messy looking).

2. It's also really nice because I know ahead of time what I'm doing and when. Which helps me to plan the other areas of my life. I'm one of those people who has to have a time schedule and a plan for everything. If I don't I can't think straight and end up all over the place. (And, yes. This does result in lists coming out my ears and my whole family being briefed on times, events, and the like about 100 times a week).

3. As I mentioned above, it's also a great schedule because it doesn't take very long to complete. If I get everything done for that day in one shot it will take me between 1 and 1 1/2 hours until I'm done, depending on the room(s) we are in that day. But I don't always get it done that way, which leads me to the next reason I like this schedule...

4. It's flexible. I can do it all in one shot in the morning when Tyler is at school, I can spread the work through-out the day, or I can get it all done in the afternoon/evening with out it taking too much of my family time. It's also nice for the evenings if I've got a really busy day and can't get to it until then. Because I'm a SAHM I tend to spread the work through-out the day and get other things I need to do/want to do done as well.

Keeping a clean home is something I do pride myself on.

Both inside and out, I get bothered when things aren't the way I like them to be.

But it's also something I don't want to take over my life. I have other interests and would like to indulge them from time to time. And with some other cleaning schedules I've tried this just wasn't possible.

Which is why this one fits my life so great! I'm not stuck cleaning all stinking day!

The list is one of those "as long as you get it done before bed then the day was a success" lists.

And I find that laid back, go with the flow attitude refreshing and fabulous.

*What type of schedule works best in your home? To you follow a list like me, a memorized routine, or do you just get things done as they need to be?*