Household Cleaning Schedule
For Busy Bodies

How can you manage the challenge of getting the kids off to school, working a full-time job, cooking dinner, and squeeze in cleaning the house in your spare time?

Start by rethinking your household cleaning schedule. These tips for creating a household cleaning schedule can help.

Cleaning in Spurts

To get the freedom to enjoy your leisure time truly, do your cleaning in spurts during the week instead of all on the weekend.

Break down big jobs, such as cleaning the bathroom, into smaller tasks: Wipe down the sink now; clean the bathtub, and mop the floor later.

When it is time to tackle the room's other surfaces, you'll be ahead of the cleaning game.

Any job seems overwhelming if you can't compartmentalize it - and a household cleaning routine is no exception. But you can maintain your home and your composure. 

Add Preventive Action to Your Household Cleaning Schedule

When it comes to keeping your home tidy, a little preventive action goes a long way. These house cleaning tips can help: 

• Stop dirt at the door by having people remove their shoes before entering. 

• Invest in a good doormat.

• Indoors, place washable rugs in high-traffic areas to prevent dirt from being tracked from room to room.
  

• Confine eating to the kitchen or dining room so you won't be chasing crumbs in the rest of the house. 
  

Head Off Clutter

Few people will ever notice dust on top of the refrigerator, but they'll immediately register items that are strewn around the living room. If you have only a minute, opt for put-away duty instead of a cleaning task.

Return everything to its proper place the minute you've finished using it, rather than waiting until the end of the day, by which time the pickup job will likely be overwhelming.

Tackle the small jobs in your home before they turn into big ones: Sweep up crumbs before they get ground into kitchen floors or the family room carpeting.

Don't Get Sidetracked

And when you finally snatch a magic cleaning moment, make sure you don't get sidetracked. If you're only partway through organizing the refrigerator shelves, let voicemail take that call. 

If you're shopping online for a new kitchen mixer and Aunt Agnes sends an e-mail, add her communique to the others to be answered when your transaction is complete.

Finally, having the troops pitch in is an essential part of getting it all done in the allotted time. Give every member of your family cleaning tasks to accomplish.

And if the results aren't perfect, well, that's just the way things are. Let them be.