The approach I take to cleaning our home is based on a (mostly) weekly routine. I like this system as it means I don’t continually look around the house for jobs that need doing—they have their set days—and because I can cap the number of hours I spend cleaning.
However, not every task needs to be done weekly. For example, I’m overdoing the mending if I do it every week, but I’m underdoing it if I leave it to once a month.
The solution I came up with is to rotate these jobs within my weekly routine across a fortnight or a month.
Here are the cleaning chores I apply the rotation principle to:
Floors and bathrooms: I alternate quick and deep cleans. One week, the bathrooms get a quick wipe-over, and the floors are thoroughly vacuumed and mopped. The next week, I buzz the handheld vac over the floors and only mop the wet areas, while the bathrooms get a good scrub.
Sheets: I change pillowcases every week; but in cooler weather, one weekend I change our sheets, and the next weekend I change the kids’ sheets, and so on.
Other jobs (see photo above):
Week 1: Garden
Week 2: Iron
Week 3: Mend
Week 4: Window sills
Week 5: Skirting boards
The key is to find the right balance between over-eagerness and procrastination.
Do you use a similar, or different method to manage those jobs that don’t need to be done each week? Are there other tasks you like to alternate?
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