My Cleaning Routine & Schedule

I used to be the type of person who would just spend one day per week cleaning my home. And it took alllll day long. After I was 50% done, I’d be tired, annoyed and not in the mood to do any more cleaning. I would finish the remaining 50% of my cleaning tasks with depleted energy and it would be more of a “lazy” clean. That’s when I realized something had to change because spending an entire day cleaning was not going to help me pursue my loveliest life.

This led me to create a cleaning routine schedule for my home that has helped me live more aligned with my goals. Of course, I’ve tweaked the schedule along the way based on what was not working and still continue to tweak it based on the seasons of my life. I thought I’d start 2022 sharing it with you in case you are looking to create a cleaning routine so that you can live out the year(s) ahead in the most optimal way for you.

Let’s discuss this now. Keep in mind, my home is relatively small and what works for me may not work for you.

The weekly tasks are self explanatory (I think).

But what makes the biggest difference for me is my daily “Tidy Time”. On an ideal day, I set aside 15 mins in the morning for my Morning Chores (put away dry/clean dishes, lint roll cat hair off furniture, put a load of laundry in the washer) and another 15 mins in the evening for my Tidy Time (fold laundry, vacuum, wash/put away dishes). Some days are ideal, some days are busy, some days I am lazy 😉

On the non-ideal days, I’ll have only one 15 min Tidy Time session where I at least prioritize vacuuming (the cat hair accumulates so fast!), washing dishes, and lint rolling furniture (again, cat hair). With just these 15 mins, it makes a huge difference in making my home look clean to the naked eye.

On top of that, I really try to take another 15ish minutes daily to do other cleaning tasks in my home so that all the tasks don’t accumulate for one long day at the end of the week. These tasks are listed under “Weekly” in my cleaning schedule. I find that breaking the tasks down into smaller bite-sized 15ish minute sessions just makes the load so much lighter to carry.

On Sundays, I love doing my Weekly Reset, which you can read all about in this blog post.

Then of course, there’s the monthly and quarterly tasks. These I try to do either on the 1st of the month/quarter, or within the first week if my schedule is a bit busier (or if I’m feeling lazier LOL).

A great rule of thumb that I try to also practice is “Don’t put it down, put it away.” I can’t remember where or who I heard this from, but I thought it was genius. When you get home, put your shoes straight in the closet, don’t just leave them in the entryway. When you get home from Target after shopping for some household items, don’t just put them down on your kitchen island. Instead, take them out of the bag and put them directly where they belong in your home. There’s definitely been times where I haven’t followed this rule and regretted it (i.e. my guest bedroom fiasco, if you caught my instagram stories).

I hope you found this post helpful. If you’d like to create for yourself the same cleaning routine template as I’ve shared above, feel free to download my blank template here. I can also customize it for you with your preferred daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly tasks.

I’d love to know: what does your cleaning routine look like? Do you prefer doing everything all at once or breaking it down too?

💗 Alena