Cleaning Schedule for SAHMs

Staying on top of household cleaning can feel like climbing a never ending mountain. When picking up my house, I often feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day: Didn't I just pick up this toy yesterday… and the day before? After years of attempts to streamline my cleaning routine, I finally discovered two game changers.

The first is timing chores. Yep, that's right. It's time to set the timer on your phone and see how long chores actually take. Before I timed myself, I was overestimating how much time cleaning and straightening would take. This would cause me to push them back to a day when I thought I would have more time to get things done. What I learned was many tasks did not take as long as I thought and I could actually save time by doing a few things every day to keep the house up. For instance, I learned that I could make three beds and wipe down two bathroom counters in 10 minutes or less. Once I had a time frame for each chore, I could work tasks in according to how much time I had that day.

The second change I made was creating a weekly cleaning schedule. Spreading the chores out over the span of a week makes cleaning the whole house feel less labor intensive. It may take a few weeks to get into a groove, but once you find what works you will fall into your schedule with ease. I break my schedule into a few small daily tasks along with one bigger task each day. I created my schedule after timing my chores for a week, then figuring out how to spend only about one hour (or less) a day on cleaning. For a jumping off point, view my schedule below but customize according to your household needs.