A post on cleaning rotations

We've been in our new house for almost 6 months now.  Already.

Cleaning has never made it very high on my list of to-dos, and it is my belief that there are plenty more important and enjoyable ways to spend my time and energy. Still, in a house as small (and old) as the one we currently live in, the messes just seem messier and lately we've been feeling that we'll never be able to keep ahead of the floor crumbs, and piles of dishes. The wood floors in the dining room see the most abuse (thanks to two fickle eaters) and the daily sweeping and scrubbing required is unreal at times.

I have a higher tolerance than Andy for general messes but even I have a limit.  We had a cleaning plan in place at our old house, and I had written an updated one a few months ago for our new place but never committed to implementing it. Feeling a little overwhelmed and in need of a restart, I hired a cleaning service to usher our home into Spring.

It was well worth the money and if I cared more, I might hire someone to come on a regular basis.

Instead I printed off the cleaning schedule that I made a while back and put a copy in my kitchen folio for easy reference.

I learned this system from Tsh at Steady Mom, who has blogged about the two different methods of cleaning just once a month, and cleaning rotations (completing one chore a day so that over the course of a month everything gets clean).

When it comes to chores, I favor taking one small step every day. To begin, I considered every room in the house and made a list of the essential elements to be cleaned on a regular basis.  Then I figured out how frequently each chore needed to be completed in order to keep the house in a "clean-enough-for-me" state.

Next, I divvied up all the items so that the heavy stuff was well distributed across the four weeks (I don't want to clean the stove, the microwave, and the fridge in the same week!), and so that the schedule made sense (if a chore needs to be done twice a month, I schedule it in complimentary weeks 1 and 3, not 3 and 4).

There are some chores that we do on an as needed basis, like sweeping the wood floors, which we left off the list altogether. We usually sweep more than once a day, and I can't wait for the chore list to tell me it's time. When there are crumbs and table food underfoot, it's time to sweep!

Also, I think it's nice if each week's list can be kept to 5 items so that the weekend is chore-less, but for now our chore rotation looks like this:

Week One:
Wash floors in dining room
Vacuum living room area rug and kid's carpet
Bathroom mirrors and glass in front and back doors
Stove top
Kid laundry
Kitchen countertops and appliances
Bed sheets

Week Two:
Wash floors in dining room
Vacuum living room area rug and kid's carpet
Bathroom sinks and floors
Stove top
Kid laundry
Microwave
Organize the kid's rooms

Week Three:
Wash floors in dining room
Vacuum living room area rug and kid's carpet
Bathroom mirrors and glass in front and back doors
Stove top
Kid laundry
Fridge surfaces
Bed sheets

Week Four:
Wash floors in dining room
Vacuum living room area rug and kid's carpet
Bathroom sinks and floors
Stove top
Kid laundry
Microwave
Wipe down furniture surfaces

Andy's responsible for changing the cat litter every week, and for washing the dishes every night.  Once a month he scrubs the tubs--or at least that is how this whole rotation thing is supposed to work!

I really need to be better about cleaning as I go, but that's a goal for another day!

How do you keep your house clean? Do you have a routine that works?