Here you will find my daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly check lists. Yours will differ given your particular needs and living space, but this will give you a place to start. Also, I have OCD so any little thing out of place makes me uncomfortable (to put it mildly) so your mileage may vary as well.
What my daily list looks like
What my weekly list looks like
What my monthly, quarterly and seasonal lists look like
With three littles I am constantly cleaning, picking up, organizing, wiping down. I was going crazy and needed a better system of staying on top of things without always feeling like I was putting out dumpster fires. I’ve tried several things over the years, but one thing was for sure, I could not get the whole house clean in 2 days on the weekend without killing myself and spending no time with my kiddos (except to yell at them to pick up their stuff). It was stressful on the whole family and I was over it.
I love lists. I can make them in pretty colors, they are a visual reminder of what needs doing and most importantly I can physically mark things off when completed and that is very satisfying. Even with my lists I was struggling, but breaking that elephant down into bite sized chunks help me get him down (or clean).
Every house and every family is different. They have different schedules, different needs, different make-ups. If your kids are old enough to help, by all means make sure that they do! With kids, you have to change it up on occasion or they get bored and complacent. There is no reward in my house for doing regular chores. The reward is a clean place to live, clean clothes to wear and prepared food to eat. I’m a mean mommy. If the kids want to step up their game and do things not on the list then, yes, I can part ways with some coins or small toys (they are really young, don’t judge).
How does it work?
There is no magic here. The key is to know what needs to be done and when. Every day you will run through your daily list. If the trash doesn’t need to go out, just leave it for tomorrow. That’s ok. When your daily list is complete pick one or two things off the weekly list to tackle that day. I like to pick a focus room (or 2) each day. I’ll do all my daily items (skipping that room), then circle back around and do all the daily and weekly items and 1 or 2 of the monthly+ things as well.
This way you will keep the majority of the house pretty clean, but you’ll be attacking those bigger tasks a little every day. Remember, you do have people living in your home and its OK for it to look lived in. It took me a LONG time to embrace that and once I did 90% of my cleaning stress just melted away. It was amazing.
The other key is to recreate the spaces that receive the most clutter! Here was our list:
| Problem | Solution |
| Coats, shoes, backpacks | Built a unit to store items |
| Toys everywhere | Toys only allowed in one area |
| Laundry everywhere | Individual laundry bins |
The trick is to get everyone on board in utilizing the new ideas. It’s still a struggle some days, but as a general rule they are pretty good about it and it has helped.