I just thought I would post how I schedule my housecleaning, in case it would be of help to anyone. If I were a writer, I would have had a much more clever intro to this post, but since I'm not, I'll just have to jump right in. :-)
First of all, I do take a week or so once a year to declutter and "spring clean," whether it is spring or not. I do constantly get rid of stuff, but it still somehow accumulates. Once that is done, it is just a matter of maintenance. I have chores that I do every day, some that I do weekly, and others that I do on a rotating schedule. First, I determined how often various chores need to be done. For example, the bedrooms do not get very dusty since there is no traffic in there and the dogs do not go in there, so they only need dusted once a month. However, the rest of the house needs it several times a week. This is where having two daughters comes in handy. :-) So besides what is listed here, the girls do a quick dusting on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Every Day:
Make beds
Do dishes
Wipe table, stove, counters
Sweep
Do a load of laundry (if there is enough to make a load)
Every Weekend:
Clean bathroom
Do laundry
Then, each week, I take the whole week to focus on one room or section of the house and do a thorough cleaning. This is where the rotating schedule comes in. I have them in a certain order, and simply do what comes next. If I miss a week, I do what was next on the list when I start back.
Week 1: Bedrooms (girls do their own)
Week 2: Porches (both since they are small)
Week 3: Kitchen
Week 4: Living Room
I simply clean a bit of the particular room or rooms each day, moving around the room, dusting, washing, removing clutter, organizing, until it is done. The last day, I wash the floor in that particular section. (We do not have any carpet.) This keeps the house basically clean so it doesn't end up overwhelmingly dirty and make me want to move out and start over elsewhere.
I have a very small house, so this doesn't take long at all. If you keep the clutter down, cleaning is much faster, no matter the size of your house. If you don't use something, get rid of it. Have a place for everything, and make sure to put things away as soon as you finish with them. Also, if you have things relatively neat and organized, people will exclaim how clean your house is, in spite of the dirt on the floor that you could plant a garden in. :-)
