This Realistic All-in-One Cleaning Schedule Will Help You Take Back Your House

Cleaning Schedule header

I Never Thought I’d Need a Cleaning Schedule

But… cleaning with kids around is like brushing your teeth with Oreos. 
Before having kids I had a fairly clean house.

Most Fridays you could find me dancing to ’80s music with the vacuum and tackling my cleaning to-do list, on a mission to reveal sparkling results…in under an hour.

Back then, the clean house stayed clean all week!

But now, three kids, one husband, and a furry pet have changed my goal from ‘sparkling’ to ‘good enough.’

For a while I was ok with the change. After all, I was a mom and my dirty house was a just sign that it was well lived in. Right?

However, I soon discovered that I was either stressing out and wasting valuable time cleaning for hours on end every time someone was going to stop by or bouncing around in cleaning mode all day long, leaving my poor kids in ‘wait a minute’ mode indefinitely.

It was time for something new.

Dad-cleaning-house-with-daughter-vacuum

I Created My Own Cleaning Schedule

I searched online for cleaning schedules to conjure up something brilliant, but what I found only devastated me instead.

The list of ‘daily’ tasks completely overwhelmed me and made me feel like a failure before I even began.

In order to be successful in the cleaning game, I had to create my own plan.

My cleaning schedule incorporates all of the cleaning schedules (weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannually, and annually) into one simple form.

Below you’ll see a copy of my personal plan — I encourage you to modify this cleaning schedule to fit your own cleaning style.

If you don’t want to dust your living room every Thursday, make it a biweekly occurrence.

What matters in the end, is that you have a realistic, stress-relieving schedule for you.

I’m going to show you how I made my schedule and then give you tools to make your own with our free Cleaning Schedule Template.

How the Cleaning Schedule Works

STEP 1) Prioritize and Organize

Go room by room and figure out what should be cleaned in each, and how often. Put these on a list.

You don’t have to go crazy, but do include things that were a bit out of your regular habit (i.e. cleaning the blinds – the worst task ever.)

Break the list down into sections based on cleaning frequency: Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, and Seasonal

For this step, you need to create new lists from your larger list of cleaning tasks. I started with the weekly items.

I then broke the remaining chores down into bi-weekly, monthly and seasonal categories and divided them into a four-week rotation.

Doing this is much harder than the cleaning itself, so hang in there. (Going slow here will help you go fast later.)

Schedule WEEKLY Tasks

I assigned the tasks on my weekly list to separate days of the week. I included two tasks to tackle each day, in addition to one designated load of laundry, under a specific day of the week.

Although most of these chores don’t require daily work, they typically should be done once a week to keep the house visitor-friendly.

For me, those things included dusting, vacuuming, cleaning appliances, cleaning bathrooms, etc. I chose tasks that my husband typically assists with on the weekend and we usually bust these out first thing Saturday. These items are shown here (this is the top of my cleaning schedule.)

weekly cleaning schedule

Schedule BI-WEEKLY Tasks

The tasks I added to my bi-weekly list are things that show if I ignore them, but that aren’t crucial.

Included are such items as
– vacuuming the stairs
– washing slider windows
– cleaning hand-prints off entry walls

These were added to the schedule on alternating weeks – for example, if you look at the Monday schedule, d

biweekly cleaning schedule

Schedule MONTHLY Tasks

Here come the tough guys…the ones I really don’t like doing, but really need to be done every once in a while.

These tasks include:
– organizing the shoes
– organizing the refrigerator and pantry,
– cleaning the dreaded blinds.

You can see an example of these tasks assigned to Thursdays – the tasks repeat once every four weeks.

Schedule SEASONAL Tasks

There were some tasks left that I decided could be done once every few months (and that was being generous.)

Included are:
– washing windows
– organizing closets
– cleaning the oven
– vacuuming under cushions

I tried to mix in some easy ones, such as vacuuming under cushions and washing the inside of our garbage bin, so that every weekend I wasn’t taking on a major task.

In addition, I left openings in the first weekend of the month for things such as putting up and taking down the Christmas tree, weeding, raking, etc. These are labeled ‘SEASONAL’ tasks.

Although some months have five weeks, I left the schedule with four, leaving the fifth to catch up or simply relax.

Each column corresponds to a day of the week, with the last column dedicated to weekends.

monthly cleaning schedule

How the Cleaning Schedule Works

STEP 2) Start Using the Schedule

There are some things that I do daily (i.e. wiping down crumbs or sweeping up dog hair) but I chose not to add those to my schedule. Those undone items staring at me by the hour were reminder enough!

Group chores by area so that you aren’t running from the bedroom upstairs to the craft room downstairs.

Organize the schedule with the main floor placed toward the end of the week so that it’s was cleanest over the weekend when you tend to have the most guests.

Post the schedule on your refrigerator and refer to it daily.

If you’re looking at it now, you’ll see that on the fourth Thursday in January, I dusted the living room, vacuumed the main floor, washed towels, and washed my slider door windows.

How the Cleaning Schedule Works

STEP 3) Give Yourself Grace and the Freedom to Change it Up

If this has completely overwhelmed you, please know that although the initial set-up takes a little time, this has made my family’s life so much easier.

There is an expectation that comes every day. The kids know what has to be done. I know what has to be done.

It’s emotionally rewarding, and when it’s done consistently…it gets done so fast!

Download Cleaning Schedule

This is a look at the complete, personalized cleaning schedule.

You may download a PDF copy of this version, or you can EDIT and CREATE your own by making a copy of our free cleaning schedule template.

(To use the template, click here. This will open a file in Google Sheets. If you do not have a Google account, you will need to make one. If you do have a Google Account, log in. After that, make a COPY of the file. You may then edit/modify your own copy of the file.)
Good luck!

CLEANING SCHEDULE TEMPLATE
Click image to download PDF copy of this cleaning schedule

PRO TIPS for Your Cleaning Schedule

If you decide to make your own schedule, please remember these things:

– No one schedule will work perfectly for everyone. Make it work for you. This schedule is pretty type A, so if you’re not, try something else. Not everybody cares about the dust on their dark blinds.

– Be ok with skipping a day. Skip two. You’ll be starting over in a week; so if you don’t get it done, you can catch back up soon enough.

– Involve the whole family. Assign tasks, or let the kids pick their own. By doing so, you are instilling great habits and a sense of responsibility.

– Remember your goal – mine was to organize my time so that I didn’t pull away from my family all day long. The clean house was just a bonus.

Do you have a current cleaning schedule? 
What does it look like?

cleaning schedule template - pinterest

About The Author

9 thoughts on “This Realistic All-in-One Cleaning Schedule Will Help You Take Back Your House”

  1. I completely agree! As a busy parent, it’s hard to keep up with cleaning and organizing, especially when it feels like there’s always something else that needs attention. This schedule is so helpful in breaking down the tasks into manageable chunks and making it easy to fit them into my daily routine. Thanks for sharing!

  2. Hey! I love this system! I too started searching for a schedule and was totally overwhelmed! Perhaps this comment is old news as it seems you wrote this years ago 🙂 : your schedule seems to be missing MARCH JUNE SEPT and DEC. I realize they go at the bottom but just though I’d let you know as I think you did a fabulous job coming up with this and explaining it 🙂
    Happy cleaning!

  3. So helpful! I’ve been trying for YEARS to find a system that involves everyone, makes cleaning manageable, and hits all the right areas consistently. This is brilliant. Thank you.

  4. This is so helpful! I’m trying to download but it looks like the link is faulty. Can you please fix? Thank you!

  5. This is really helpful! I’ve been looking for a way to balance my days off with my toddler. And I love the laundry schedule! Thank you for the inspiration.

  6. Ok I’m obviously late to this, but I have a question about your schedule chart. I absolutely ADORE it and have adapted it to my own needs, I’ve just got one concern I’m hoping you can clear up for me. You’ve got it setup for 4 weeks in a month, and I’m just wondering how you use this day to day when months don’t often have four solid monday-sunday weeks? Do you just have free days at the beginning/end of the week? For some reason, I can’t wrap my mind around that aspect of it. I’d love to use this method, like I said, I’ve already made one of my own and can’t wait to use it.. I’m just afraid the months/weeks thing is confusing me too much for it to stick. Any advice would be helpful, thank you!

    1. Avatar photo

      Hi Lena! I’m glad you love the chart. I hope it proves a really useful tool for you. As for the “extra weeks,” Stephanie addressed it in the article but here it is for quick reference: “Although some months have five weeks, I left the schedule with four, leaving the fifth to catch up or simply relax.”

  7. WOW! I was trying to figure out how to incorporate all the schedules (weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannually and annually) all on one simple form. This captures exactly what I need! Thanks!!

  8. Great article! I have a cleaning schedule, too. It definitely decreases my stress levels, knowing when something was done last and when it will be done again. I also include a weekly night to pay bills, handle paperwork, etc. Today (Tuesday) was Tuesday Towels, which is switching all the towels and cleaning the bathrooms. Thanks again for the article!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *