I love having a clean home. Cluttered, messy floors and countertops just stress me out, so keeping things tidy is a big priority for me. Plus, having a generally clean home means that my family can live and play safely, and that’s important to me too.
But I also have five children, so keeping my house clean is a constant and uphill battle. I read once that cleaning your house when you have kids is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos. Testify!
But wanting a clean home and keeping a clean home are two very different things.
Over the years I have tried countless different cleaning systems and schedules. But the problem is that none of those online checklists or routines ever worked long-term for me. With any life change (moving, having a new baby, starting a new homeschooling year, going on vacation, etc.), my whole routine would get off, I’d get overwhelmed, the messes would pile up, and I’d be back online searching for the “perfect” cleaning system that would finally work for me.
Good news! I’ve found it at last! I have finally found something that works LONG TERM, because it’s flexible enough to handle big and little life changes. I can ease up in the summer time when I want to prioritize more time for outdoor adventures, and I can be flexible and forgiving when I’m readjusting to life with a new baby.
What I Used To Do
Most every cleaning routine and printable I found online was a variation on this same basic formula: assign one chore per day, like this:
- Monday = Clean Bathrooms
- Tuesday = Mop Floors
- Wednesday = Wash Sheets
- Thursday = Vacuum
- Friday = Dust Furniture
But no matter how I scheduled it or what chore I assigned to each day, I always fell into either or both of these two problems:
Problem Number 1: I’d inevitably have to skip days, and then that chore just piled up and piled up.
If anything ever came up on Bathroom Cleaning Day, (a doctor’s appointment, a holiday, I got sick, etc.) then the bathroom didn’t get cleaned, and I’d have to endure a messy bathroom for another whole week before Bathroom Cleaning Day came around again.
And, heaven forbid, if something else happened on the second or even the third Bathroom Cleaning Day in a row, then the bathroom just got more and more gross for longer and longer.
But life happens–the kids get sick, emergencies pop up, and sometimes things just don’t go as planned, including this strict cleaning routine. But I hated that my house suffered with every big or small bump in the road that is my life…and then we all suffered by having to use a dirty bathroom. Yuck!
Problem Number 2: I’d lose steam by the end of the week.
Yes, I’ll admit that sometimes I just get tired, plain and simple. I have five small children, three of whom I homeschool, and all five of whom I feed, clothe, bathe, and put to bed. And, believe it or not, I also like to do fun things with my sweet kiddos like playing card games, reading books, and going to the park. Raising kids is an all-consuming endeavor and sometimes I just get plain tired!
Household chores, while they are super important, unfortunately tend to fall by the wayside when I’m tired or overwhelmed. Come Thursday or Friday, sometimes I just feel a little burned out and ready for a nice, peaceful weekend. And household chores are always the first thing to go when I’m feeling like this.
Every Sunday evening I’d look forward at my upcoming week and think to myself, “Well dang, I really dropped the ball and I didn’t do all my weekly chores. I’ll work really hard and I’ll get it this week for sure!” Then I’d jump into Monday and Tuesday with a new, fresh, gusto, all excited and determined to be awesome!
And then I’d be so awesome that I’d burn myself out, and come Thursday and Friday I’d skip those household chores out of plain old exhaustion. And then I’d repeat the entire cycle again the next week.
This problem became painfully apparent about two years ago. I was rearranging my schedule for the summer, including my cleaning schedule right along with it. I have a weekly play group with my two best friends and their kids, and when I marked all my Fridays as Playgroup days, I found myself automatically thinking, “Hmm, that means I’ll put dusting for my daily chore on Fridays too, because I know I’ll never actually do it; I just never have time for anything else on Playgroup days, and dusting is the easiest chore to skip.”
Hold on! I caught myself. What was wrong with me? I was making my cleaning schedule with FULL EXPECTATIONS to fail. What on earth was I possibly thinking?
That was quite the wakeup call, but no matter what online article I read or organizing video tutorial I watched, I still couldn’t seem to make it work for me.
I thought the problem was just me: I was too lazy, too unorganized, too bad at being a housekeeper to make it work. If only I tried more and worked harder and pushed myself. If only I was capable of managing my life like a freaking adult, you stupid girl, then this online printable checklist would finally work for me!
I was wrong. It wasn’t that I was broken, but the system itself was the problem. It just took a little time for me to realize it.
A Completely New Idea
I ultimately found the answer in the place I least expected it: from the world of homeschooling.
I’ve been homeschooling for three years and I’m fairly active in the online homeschooling community. I regularly read other homeschool moms’ ideas and opinions about all kinds of homeschool-related topics. As I was researching some ideas for scheduling kids’ school topics, I came upon this new idea that I’d never heard of: Loop Scheduling.
Imagine if you were homeschooling your children, you might automatically think to schedule your school week something like this:
- Monday = Science
- Tuesday = History
- Wednesday = Music
- Thursday = Spanish
- Friday = Art
Yes, that is the exact type of schedule I myself would be naturally inclined to do.
But this particular article I read proposed the EXACT SAME problems with this homeschool schedule as I constantly found with my cleaning schedule.
Imagine that on a Monday you have dentist appointments scheduled, so Science gets skipped that week. Then the next Monday is President’s Day and your husband has the day off work, and Science gets skipped again. Then the next Monday everyone has a stomach bug and no one is up to doing school at all, so Science gets skipped yet again!
Suddenly you’re up to date on all your other subjects except for Science, and now you’re in a real pickle.
Sound familiar? It was the exact same problem with me skipping the occasional Bathroom Cleaning Day and then having to live with a yucky bathroom.
The answer? Loop Scheduling!
How a Loop Schedule works:
First, make list of the subjects you want to study, for example: Science, History, Music, Spanish, and Art. Start at the top of your list and every day when you’re homeschooling, simply move down the list and do the next subject. So if your week goes exactly as planned, you’ll indeed do Science on Monday, History on Tuesday, Music on Wednesday, and so on. Once you finish the list, LOOP back to the top and start over, no matter where in the week you are.
However, if your week gets off, say you have an appointment on Monday, simply move that subject to the next day, Tuesday. That bumps everything on the list down and you’ll then do History on Wednesday and Music on Thursday. This way, Science and everything else is still covered on a regular basis and nothing gets skipped.
Here are four potential weeks as an example with these subjects Looped in this order: Science, History, Music, Spanish, Art.
| WEEK 1 | WEEK 2 | WEEK 3 | WEEK 4 |
| Mon: Science | Mon: HOLIDAY – no school | Mon: Spanish | Mon: Music |
| Tue: History | Tue: Science | Tue: Art | Tue: Spanish |
| Wed: Music | Wed: History | Wed: SICK KIDS – no school | Wed: Art |
| Thu: Spanish | Thu: DOCTOR APPT – no school | Thu: Science | Thu: EMERGENCY BABYSIT for the neighbor – no school |
| Fri: Art | Fri: Music | Fri: History | Fri: Science |
Notice that the first week was simple with no interruptions. But as later interruptions happened through the other weeks, the Loop Schedule of subjects stayed the same: Science, History, Music, Spanish, Art. Even when planned or unplanned events disrupted life, this school schedule was flexible enough to pick back up right where it left off and nothing was thrown off course.
This idea was genius to me, but not only for homeschooling. Immediately it clicked in my brain that this is what I needed to clean my home, something flexible enough to accommodate for when life gets unpredictable, but also regular enough that the dusting actually gets done instead of getting skipped every week.
So I decided to try this same principle, this Loop Schedule, as part of my cleaning routine. And I’m thrilled to say that it works for me! I’ve been doing this Loop idea with my house cleaning for over a year now and I’m still going strong! Let me fill you in on some details:
“Math and Reading” Core Subjects = Daily Cleaning Essentials
First, notice in the homeschooling example I didn’t list Math and Reading as school subjects to Loop around. Those two core subjects are such an important foundation for all education that kids need to study them every single day. The Loop Schedule subjects are extra subjects on top of those two basics.
I do indeed follow a Loop Schedule for my homeschooled kids for school subjects, but we always start the day with our Math and Reading and then do our extra subjects last. That way, even if life gets crazy and we have to skip something or end school early, at least I’m confident that we’ve done those basics first.
In translating that idea into a Cleaning Loop Schedule, note that there are some general tidying chores that need to be done every single day; they are the “Math and Reading” foundation for my other house cleaning.
So the first thing I did was make a list of the things that need to be done daily. These are my four “Math and “Reading” foundational daily chores:
- Tidy the House with the Timer Method
- Wash One Load of Laundry
- Fold One Load of Laundry
- Vacuum One Room
Let’s break each one down:
The Timer Method for Daily Tidying
I’ve detailed all about how I do my Timer Method in this post HERE, so you can read it for more specific details. But for right now, I’ll do a quick sum-up.
Every day I do a quick tidy through the whole house using a timer. I set the timer for just two minutes and sweep through one room, cleaning up as much as possible. Then I reset the timer and do the next room for two minutes, and then the next room for two minutes, and so on. No matter how much (or how little) I’ve accomplished, I STOP after two minutes and move on to the next room. This is supposed to be a fast, easy sweep through the house mainly focusing on cleaning off big surfaces, making the beds, and picking up the floors. It is easy, flexible, and it doesn’t feel overwhelming because it’s just two little minutes. Best of all, I’ve found that it is monumental in keeping my home generally tidy and picked up.
I wrote that blog post about the Timer Method when my third baby was still small, and I wrote how easy this method is to maintain even through big life changes, like having a new baby, because it’s so flexible. And I still stand by that! I’ve since had two more babies and I STILL keep up with my Daily Timer Method. It’s the foundation for keeping my home cleaned up and keeping me from drowning when trying to keep up with five children and their messes.
Laundry
Laundry is perhaps my least favorite chore ever because it NEVER ENDS! But it’s still necessary, even if I hate it.
I’ve tried cleaning systems that suggest doing a big laundry day once a week (which I hated because it took ALL FREAKING DAY LONG!) and other systems that say do one load every day, but the load isn’t done until it’s also folded and put away. Neither worked for me.
It’s the folding and putting away that kills me every time. Again, it’s more a time issue. I’m great at putting in a load to wash first thing after breakfast, but after that I’ve got things to do and places to go. Between homeschooling, preparing meals, and running errands, my load wouldn’t be dried until the evening when I was busy cleaning up dinner, bathing my kids, putting everyone to bed, and then enjoying a late movie with my husband. And guess what I never felt like doing during these final moments of the day? Folding laundry!
Furthermore, I sometimes didn’t get to the folding part until after my kids were asleep, and so I couldn’t actually put anything away in the dressers because, you know, kids are sleeping in that room!
Long story short, that never worked for me, the whole wash-dry-fold in one day idea. So I changed it to this: I put one load of laundry in to wash every day and I fold a different load of laundry every day. If I fold the same load that I washed, great. If I fold the load that I washed the day before, still great!
I prefer to do my chores first thing in the morning right after breakfast. This means that I can put in a load to wash and then immediately turn around and fold a different load of laundry and put it away without having to wait hours and hours for the washer and dryer to finish.
So for me those are two separate items on my chore list. I wash and dry a load, and separately I fold a load. Done and done!
Vacuuming
Once upon a time I used to set aside one big vacuuming day assigned to a specific weekday. But I found this Vacuum Everything Day super exhausting. Vacuuming my entire house in one single day meant that I had to *perfectly* pick up the floors in every single room. Yes, when I do my Timer Method of tidying I try to pick up the floors, but it doesn’t necessarily get done as thoroughly as it needs to be for vacuuming.
Further, I have to deal with lots of interruptions while I’m cleaning (five kids, remember?) and vacuuming the entire house isn’t an optimal chore to allow for such interruptions. I’d often find that I could vacuum one room and then stop to change a diaper, vacuum one room and then stop to make lunch, vacuum one room and then stop for naptime, so on and so on. I have nine carpeted rooms in my house (six bedrooms, two family rooms, and one playroom), and so vacuuming them all in a single day is quite a feat.
On and on until this seemingly-simple chore was suddenly taking ten hours and I’d regularly go to bed on Vacuuming Day both exhausted and frustrated because even though I’d been working my butt off all day, I still rarely finished the entire job.
So I tried simplifying with two tools: First, I only vacuum only one room per day.
Second, I bought and use a Roomba automatic vacuum. And yes, I couldn’t recommend this enough. It’s such a time saver! I know they are expensive, but if buying one is an option for you, please do it for your own sake! One day I hope to buy a second Roomba exclusively for my basement, which would mean that I could vacuum two rooms at a time and every room would be vacuumed twice as often, but as for now that’s just a dream.
Now that I only vacuum one room a day with my Roomba, I only have to focus on *perfectly* picking up a single room, instead of nine. And I try to match my vacuuming with my Loop Schedule room as much as possible; when I clean the toy room, I also vacuum the toy room on the same day, and so on. On other days, I rotate through the carpeted rooms regularly, or sometimes I’ll choose a specific room based on need (our main family room is the most trafficked in the house and so it gets vacuumed more often). All I do is pick up the floor, turn on the Roomba, walk out, and cross “vacuum one room” off my daily list.
Questions About the Kitchen
What about cleaning the kitchen? Yes, the kitchen indeed has to be cleaned every single day, but I don’t include it here on my daily list because I consider it a chore in its own realm entirely.
Because the kitchen is used and messed up at least three times a day, it also needs to be cleaned at least three times a day. These other four daily chores, however, only get done once a day. I prefer to do them first thing in the morning to get them out of the way so I can enjoy the rest of my day, but the kitchen is cleaned differently because it’s used differently.
If you’re curious, my ideal kitchen cleaning routine looks like this: I empty the clean dishwasher first thing after breakfast, leaving the dishwasher empty and available all day. I clean up each meal immediately after we’re done eating and load the dirty dishes directly into the dishwasher. I keep counters wiped and cleaned off as necessary throughout the day. After dinner I clean the entire kitchen, wash hand-wash dishes, and turn on the dirty dishwasher for the night. This routine is ideal and I’m not perfect at it, not by a long shot, but it’s how things go on my best days.
The Loop Cleaning Chores
After I do those four basic “Math and Reading” daily chores, I then focus on two Loop Schedule Chores.
Yes two: one family chore and one personal chore.
Like the example of the homeschool schedule, the Loop Chores are rotated through every weekday. On my best weeks, everything will get done almost once a week (I have six Loop chores but only five days a week, as I don’t follow this schedule on the weekends). On busy or chaotic weeks, I might only move through roughly three Loop chores per week.
But the point of the Loop Schedule is this: I don’t skip Loop chores. If it doesn’t happen on Monday, then I do it on Tuesday. If it doesn’t happen on Tuesday, I do it on Wednesday. I really truly hold myself to it, even if it’s something I don’t particularly enjoy, like mopping the floors. I can wait until the next day, but I can’t skip the chore entirely just because I’m tired.
Kids’ Loop Schedule for Chores
I coincidentally was pondering how to implement some chores for my kids at almost the exact same time that I found this Loop Schedule idea. I’d also tried a daily chore chart for my kids but ultimately failed at it (for the same reasons I myself failed with that system), and so I decided to try this Loop Schedule for them as well.
My kids are still quite young (my oldest is 6), so they still need constant supervision when doing most chores. In the future I absolutely plan on leaving them to accomplish chores like these all on their own, but for now I not only supervise their chores, but teach them exactly how their chores should be done by working directly with them. Therefore, we all do one chore every day together as a family.
I sat down with my kids and together we brainstormed 7 chores that they could do. (This includes just my three oldest, as my youngest two are only a young toddler and a baby.)
The first three chores I picked myself because they are basic skills that I wanted to teach my kids:
1. Unload the Dishwasher — typically one of my boys stands on a stool to reach the cupboard while the other hands him dishes out of the dishwasher to put away, while the third boy puts the silverware away in the drawer. While they do this, I help in general and also put away odd or fragile dishes, stuff like that.
2. Wipe the Bathroom — this isn’t a full deep-clean, but a basic wipe down (again, we’re building some foundational skills and we can work up to teaching them how to do a full deep-clean on their own). I give all three of my boys a Chlorox wipe. One of them wipes the counter and sink, one wipes the toilet, and one wipes the bathtub. I also help/supervise with this one, usually with the toilet.
3. Fold the Laundry — I fold and put away the laundry daily (as discussed above), but when this chore comes up on the kids’ Loop Schedule, we do it all as a family. We sit together and empty the laundry basket on the floor. Everyone is in charge of sorting and putting their own pants and underwear away in the drawers while I hang all the shirts in the closet (which is easiest for me as I’m the tallest), and finally we match all the socks.
The other four kids’ Loop chores, my boys picked themselves. These are things that they were familiar with and knew they were capable of doing. They are:
4. Clean the Lego Room — we are lucky enough to have an entire spare bedroom that we’ve devoted to a Lego room. Most of the time I let this room get as messy as they want because it’s easy to close the door and hide the mess. But when this chore comes up on our Loop Schedule, we all get on our hands and knees and pick up all the Legos off the floor and put them back in the bins. It doesn’t mean that the Lego room is clean all the time, but this regular pickup helps keep the chaos at bay.
5. Clean out the Car — we all go out to the car together with both a garbage bag and a bin for collecting indoor items. Everyone goes to their own seat in the car and gathers anything and everything from their space, either trash or other items. (I’m always shocked at the insane amount of loose socks that end up in our car. How, children, how!?) This chore is super fast and easy, but it is so worth it to keep the car tidy, and to keep from losing unfathomable amounts of socks.
6. Dust the Piano — I already said above that I’m not great at dusting, but encouraging my boys to do it helps to make sure that it actually gets done. Just like when we wipe the bathroom, all three boys get a dusting rag and one boy dusts the top, one dusts the keys and cover, and one dusts the legs and base. I myself grab a dusting cloth and go over the other furniture in the room while they work on the piano.
7. Clean the Boys’ Bedroom — this one also goes fairly quickly, as long as my boys are willing and not complaining. Because we keep the toys and clothes in other rooms, the boys’ bedroom only has a few personal possessions that get messy and out of place. When it’s time to clean their room, everyone is responsible for picking their own things up off the floor and putting them away into their correct bins. Then we all gather garbage and extra items that belong elsewhere in the house. I always find that I need to bring a bin for collecting Legos to return to the Lego room, because my boys are bound to carry their Lego creations all around the house and especially into their own bedroom.
Those are our seven family chores. Every day after we finish our homeschooling, we rotate through these chores. (I said earlier that I prefer to do my chores first thing in the morning, but this is exception because my kids prefer to do their schoolwork first and then usually have a break before we do our family chore together and this is something I let them choose.)
Since we only do these on weekdays, everything mostly gets done once a week, but at least every other week. Typically my boys aren’t allowed to watch movies in the afternoon until the family chore is done.
The best part of this is how flexible it is. If school maybe took longer than planned and we run out of time, or if we’re leaving to visit Grandma, or whatever life throws at us, we can simply skip the family chore and pick it up tomorrow instead.
My Loop Schedule Cleaning Chores
Those are the chores my boys rotate through. Now I will tell you the six chores I rotate through on my own Loop Schedule:
1. Clean the Bathrooms — while the boys just do a basic wipe of their own bathroom, I use this day to actually scrub and clean both bathrooms. Between both of these Loop Schedules, at least the kids’ bathroom is being thoroughly wiped twice a week, so that’s a plus. I also try to wipe down the toilet seat every day as part of my Timer Method tidying routine, but that’s a very fast wipe, where this day I pull out the big guns and clean and sanitize the whole bathroom, top to bottom.
2. Change all the Sheets — I used to be notoriously bad at remembering to change our sheets, but now it’s not a problem because it’s right there on my Loop Schedule and I can’t skip it. I use this day to strip every single bed in the house. I only have one set of sheets for my own bed, so those get washed and dried that same day, but all my kids’ beds have multiple sheet sets, so it’s super fast and easy to strip all the beds, toss the sheets into the laundry basket, and throw new ones on lickety split.
3. Mop the Hard Floors — this is perhaps my least favorite chore, but the most necessary in keeping a clean house. Regardless of how I feel about it, at least I sleep well knowing it gets done regularly as part of my Loop Schedule.
4. Sanitize the Kitchen Counters — I wipe my kitchen counters every single day, over and over and over all day. But those daily wipes are typically just with a wet rag. On this Loop day, I pull out the heavy duty sanitizer and spray everything. But this chore also works as double duty: in order to sanitize my kitchen counters, I first have to clean them off entirely. We have one small counter space next to our fridge that unfortunately serves as a catch-all in our house. Because the fridge mostly blocks it from view, it’s easy to ignore and so sometimes it piles up with random junk until it gets entirely out of hand. So roughly once a week when it’s time to sanitize the counters, I clean off that entire space, put everything back where it belongs, and then I spray and sanitize the countertop. It definitely helps keep that space from filling up.
5. Clean the Basement Family Room — while tidying this area is part of my daily Timer Method tidying routine, it tends to get extra messy extra fast and a small tidy isn’t enough to hold the mess at bay. This family room is our homeschool room, game room, and movie room, so it’s always drowning in school papers, crayons and pencils, and movie-snuggling blankets. Its also next to both my boys’ bedroom and the Lego room, so we tend to get a lot of extra things drifting out of those rooms. When I clean this family room, I always bring a few bins with me: one for my boys’ belongings, one for stray Legos, and one for things that belong upstairs (my kids have a special gift for leaving socks ALL over the house. Seriously, HOW!?). Then, after I’ve cleaned the room, I can take all those bins and put everything away fairly easily.
6. Clean the Play Room — we are lucky to have a bonus room over our garage which serves as a toy room (Legos not included). Being the toy room, it easily becomes the messiest in our entire home. But I tackle this mess slowly for most of the week: firstly, it’s part of my Timer Method tidying routine, so I always go up and spend just two little minutes picking up toys off the floor. Secondly, my boys have to “earn” movie time by first picking up 10 toys in the toy room. It sounds small, but between the three of them picking up a little bit every day, it adds up and helps keep the toy mess from overwhelming us. That being said, like our basement, those small tidying efforts are not usually enough to keep the entire room totally clean. I find it super helpful to go up there, when it’s on my Loop Schedule, and do a solid cleanup of the whole room.
So that’s the entire schedule. Every single day I focus on my four daily chores and two Loop schedule chores. It might sound like a lot, but each of those six is actually a fairly small item. In total it only takes me roughly 60-90 minutes, start to finish, and then my entire house is cleaned for the day.
| Tidy House with Timer Method | 20 minutes |
| Wash Laundry | 5 minutes to put in the washer, 5 to switch to the dryer |
| Fold Laundry | 10 minutes |
| Vacuum One Room | 5-10 minutes (depending on how much I have to clean up the floor) |
| Family Loop Schedule Chore | 5-20 minutes (some are really fast, some take a little longer) |
| My Loop Schedule Chore | 10-30 minutes |
The Loop Schedule is So Flexible!
This schedule works perfectly on perfect days. Give me an uninterrupted hour after breakfast, and I’ll have my whole house spotless! Hooray, hooray, hooray!
But not every day is perfect, obviously. Only on my best days I accomplish all six items on that list, but on an average day I expect to realistically finish four or five. On really hard or busy days, I only get two or three.
Likewise, I don’t always have an uninterrupted hour to do all my chores–in fact, I rarely have an uninterrupted hour! But because my chore list is broken into six parts, it is really easy to do a few in the morning, a few more after lunch, and then finish up the last item or two after dinner. And that flexibility is exactly what I need for lasting success.
When I was seven months pregnant with Baby #5, I had a bad fall and severely injured myself. Luckily my baby was safe and sound, but I spent the rest of my pregnancy in a considerable amount of constant pain that was only exacerbated by regular pregnancy pains. As you can imagine, I was drastically limited in the amount of housework I could do.
But this Loop Schedule saved me. For a good long while I could barely mange to cross one item off my daily list, let alone six. But I still kept up on my Loop. If I wasn’t able to mop the floors for even an entire week at a time, then so be it–I still got to it when I was recovered and well enough to do it, and that was good enough for me.
When my baby was finally born and essentially all my pain went away (hallelujah!), I still used my Loop Schedule. Life with a newborn is a beautiful, chaotic mess of snuggles, kisses, and naps, but like before I could still follow my Loop Schedule with no stress and no guilt; I still got to my Loop chores when I was recovered and available, even if that was only once every week or so.
Now that my baby is getting older and falling into a more consistent sleep schedule, I’m also getting back into a more normal cleaning routine. If I’m lucky, I can finish my entire list, including my Loop chores, during Baby’s first nap, leaving the rest of my day open for homeschooling, playing with my kids, and snuggling my sweet new little baby.
The point is this: the Loop Schedule is easy to back off of when life gets really hard, like when you have a bad injury during your third trimester, or when you have a newborn and need to focus solely on nursing and sleeping. It’s also easy to get back into your Loop Schedule when life finds a new normal again; you can pick up right back where you left off without missing a beat and without having to re-plan your entire cleaning system. It’s so flexible and so easy! And that’s why it’s sustainable long-term.
But the best part about this system is that I don’t have to beat myself up when things do go well. On those hard days when I only have the time and energy to do maybe two items on my list, I don’t have the stress and worry about falling behind. It’s impossible to fall behind with this schedule, because anything that didn’t get done simply gets bumped to the next day.
If I don’t get to it today, I can always do it tomorrow. I won’t have to live with a dirty bathroom for another whole week, and I won’t have to feel like I’m a lousy housekeeper. When Friday rolls around, I won’t be looking back at the week kicking myself because I only did three of my five weekly chores. Nope, all of that stress is completely gone. I do what I can, and then I don’t have to worry about it any more.
It’s also a good reminder to focus on what’s most important: my family. Before, when I was trying to do a specific chore every day to mark off that online checklist, I’d find myself constantly brushing my kids off. “No, I can’t read to you right now; I have to clean the bathroom.” “No, I don’t have time for a game; I have to mop the floors today.”
I hated when I heard those sentences come out of my mouth. I never wanted my kids to grow up with countless memories of their mom telling them that she doesn’t have time for them. That’s not the life I wanted to live and it’s not the home I wanted to create.
So I’m really trying to be better. I really try to remind myself that my kids come first. It’s so much more important that I spend just five little minutes reading a story than sticking to a strict cleaning schedule. The floors can stay dirty for one extra day, the toy room can be picked up tomorrow. I want to be the kind of mom who, when her kids say, “Will you play with me?” I can smile and say, “Yes! I would love to play with you!” That’s my goal.
So if you’re looking for a cleaning system that will both keep your house clean but also still work with your ups and downs of life, try out a Cleaning Loop Schedule.
Good luck!
