How To Set A Weekly Cleaning Schedule

Learn why you need a weekly cleaning schedule and how to get it started.

For my cleaning around the house I follow both a daily and weekly schedule. There are some things, such as making the bed, that I do daily. Other things, like cleaning the bathrooms, I take care of on a weekly basis.

Weekly Cleaning Schedule

In this post I am focusing on the weekly cleaning schedule. I shared my weekly schedule in a past YouTube video you can find here and in this post I am going to talk more about how you can establish you own weekly cleaning schedule. 

When I was first getting more organized in my homemaking I started by trying to copy the cleaning schedules of other people that I knew or from templates that I found on Pinterest. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach as it was a great jumping off point for me but I quickly found that many of my pain points were caused from trying to follow a schedule that was tailored for a different sized family in a different sized home.

That is why I wanted to address the idea of creating a weekly cleaning schedule that is suited to the needs of your personal family and home.

Learn From My Cleaning Schedule Mistakes

To illustrate this point a bit more I will give a specific example that I was struggling with.

I followed a blogger who had shared her cleaning routine and I was attempting to follow it. One of the tasks for her daily cleaning routine was to mop all of her floors every night after dinner.

I worked hard to make this a reality in my home but kept missing the mark. Later I saw where this same blogger shared that her entire home was the approximate square footage of just the downstairs portion of my house! In addition the only part of her floors that was not carpeted was the kitchen.

So while she had a small kitchen that was very manageable to mop every night I was trying to mop the entire downstairs area of my home which is all tile floors and was equivalent in size to her mopping her entire home. Talk about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Having said that I want to encourage you to download my free ebook that will walk you through how to create a personalized cleaning routine.

Making Your Weekly Cleaning Schedule

Step 1: Determine what tasks need to be accomplished weekly

In my home the tasks I complete every week are:

• Dusting
  
• Sweep/Mop/Vacuum Floors
  
• Bathrooms
  
• One Day of Zone Cleaning
  

I create my schedule to follow a Monday-Friday schedule. On Saturday and Sunday I still do my typical daily chores but I do not have other specific cleaning tasks assigned to those days.

The first thing you need to do is figure out what chores in your home need to be completed every single week.

For example, in my home I need to dust every week because we currently have several construction projects in progress and my husband has terrible allergies. However, you may not see dust piling up as quickly and this could be a monthly chore for you.

Deciding what is best could take some trial and error so be patient with yourself and be flexible. Even now when I have my tasks well established I will frequently mix things up and change which days I do which task just to add a little variety.

Step 2: Assign One Weekly Task Per Day

I recommend that in addition to your daily chores you add one weekly chore each day.

So if I clean the bathrooms on Monday then maybe I do the floors on Tuesday. This keeps me from having one day where I have to devote an entire day to cleaning.

I don’t know about you but I have a lot of things that I need to accomplish each day and spending several hours cleaning hinders that greatly. Also, having two small children does not really lend itself to knocking out 4-5 hours of cleaning in one day. 

By spreading things out you are only devoting a small pocket of time each day to cleaning. This means you will be set up for success even on the most hectic days.

I have found that this makes it far more likely that my home will stay clean, my routines will be maintained, and my days will be freed up for the things I would rather be doing like playing with my kids or snuggling up on the couch with my husband.

Step 3: Commit

Establish your schedule and STICK TO IT for two weeks. After two weeks take some time to evaluate and see what worked and what did not. Make adjustments if you need to but do not throw in the towel. 

The beauty of having routines in place is that your home stays clean and orderly. That does not mean that my kids never spread toys all across the room or that my kitchen never gets dirty. It means that when those things happen it is not a big deal. More importantly it is not a big stressor because I know I have systems in place to keep things going.

I have a post about home management that really illustrates this point. It is a must read for keeping your sanity while keeping up with your home.

I have a free ebook that will guide you through establishing a cleaning routine that best fits your family.