Just a few steps towards a clean house...

Hello all! I just wanted to stop in and share a little tip on how I am starting to have a cleaner house, bit by bit! And I am very excited about it! When the new year started, I put together an "organization binder" to help me become more organized as well as keep up our house. I added several tabs including one for a day by day cleaning calendar. It assigned every day one or two cleaning tasks so I could keep the house clean (or looking clean) all the time as well as fit in those not so fun tasks that seem to be forgotten about and never get done. I soon realized that it wasn't working...for whatever reason it just was not working for me. Probably because the day I had scheduled to clean the outside windows I was totally exhausted and just plain didn't feel like it so I didn't do it.

Recently I was reading some old posts from my absolute favorite blog of all time I Heart Organizing and she had a a post on a cleaning list. Instantly I knew it was brilliant. Here is a link to that post: http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-asked-squeeky-clean.html 

So I put my own spin on the project for our home. Being just two of us, we have a small apartment with only two main rooms - bedroom and living room. So our cleaning is minimal when it comes to every day. It's the other things that were bugging me! So I created my own cleaning checklist:

 There are 7 categories for cleaning: Daily, Weekly, Every Other Week, Monthly, Every Pther Month, Quarterly, and Annually. I added tasks to each list...I am sure there are things that I forgot but these are the most common/basic tasks that I wanted to be sure we get done. As you can see I have written on it...why would I do when I need to check off tasks every day?? Because I can erase it. I printed the list on a piece of white cardstock and put  it in a frame I got a Walmart for $1.97. The glass works just like a dry erase board so I can write and erase as much as I need to.

I check off the daily jobs when they are completed and erase them the next morning when I get up. I check off weekly jobs and write the day of the week so I don't repeat the tasks close together. As for the other categories, the date they were complete is written next to them. My checklist is located on the side of our fridge above the Shopping List. 

So far this system has worked incredibly well for us. When one of us finishes a task we simply check it off and it helps me stay clean and organized without feeling the stress of having to make sure every day gets a huge task done. And on days I am feeling productive is when I complete a task that is much larger than the others...such as the windows or dusting the ceiling fans. I don't miss deadlines, get behind on my calendar, or feel guilty when I have a day when I simply don't feel like doing a large task. I love my new cleaning checklist and maybe this will give you an idea of something that will work for your family. Maybe you have a much larger house and need a much more extensive checklist like Jen's or maybe you need a checklist for each member of your household. Whatever the case may be, this is a terrific idea and I am so glad I came across it! Hope you like it!

Love,
the Lisics