Easy Cleaning Schedule Options for Busy Moms

Easy Cleaning Schedule Options for Busy Moms. Cleaning Routines and schedules for moms.

I love to clean. I really do. I don't just love the result of cleaning, I enjoy actually cleaning. Even with that love, cleaning as a busy mom feels overwhelming and can at times be too much. As wonderful as children are, they make cleaning harder. They contribute to messes in a big way. They also take up your time in a big way. We only have so many hours in a day, so cleaning can be a big burden on our limited time to get anything done.

Over the years as a mother, I have changed up my cleaning schedule several times. What has worked in one stage of my parenting journey has not worked in another. My cleaning schedule has needed to shift to fit my current constraints and preferences. Below are the details of my different cleaning schedules, what worked with each one, and what I didn't like about each one.

Cleaning Schedule Ideas

All At Once Cleaning Schedule

There was a time when my cleaning could be done all at once. Naturally there are things that have to be done each day, like making a bed and doing dishes. Before I had kids and when I had one and even two kids, my all-at-once schedule worked. I had my typical daily tasks, but other than that, I did all of the major cleaning all in one day.

I loved this because it left the house feeling clean. It was spic and span all at the same time. I also loved that cleaning was my focus that one day of the week so I could focus on other things the other days of the week. 

At some point between one and two kids, I moved laundry to a different day of the week. Here is what my cleaning routine looked like:

• Monday: Laundry
• Friday: Bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning kitchen, picking up

A Daily Task Cleaning Schedule

Once I had three children, my cleaning schedule of all at once started falling apart on me. Cleaning everything on one day a week wasn't often enough to keep up with the number of young children messing up the house plus my time available for cleaning. It also was unreasonable for me to dedicate an entire day to one task, no matter what it was. Cleaning one day a week was also not often enough to keep things clean enough. I needed to spread things out more. This was my new weekly cleaning schedule:

• Monday: Laundry
• Tuesday: Put laundry away
• Wednesday: Pick up entire house very well and dust
• Thursday: Clean bathrooms
• Friday: Floors
• Saturday: Kitchen

This type of schedule worked well for me for many years. I was able to spend less time in one day to get the tasks done. I was able to do a bit of cleaning each day so things stayed in better shape. I was also able to easily teach my young children to do chores. On dusting day, I taught them how to dust. On bathroom day, I taught how to do the current bathroom task they were learning. 

I did not like that the house never had that "Ahhh...it is all clean" feeling. I also did not like that I cleaned every day. I felt like I was always cleaning. I also didn't like that if I missed one day for whatever reason, it put me behind and playing catch up. For more on this cleaning schedule and how I implemented it when I had young ones, see my post on how I did chores. 

Mostly All One Day with 10 Minute Cleaning Schedule

Now that my children are older, I am back to my all in one day plan. With my children being older, they have more chores they are in charge of. This is LIFE CHANGING! I can't encourage you enough as a mother to teach your child to do work and to give them chores. It is good for them to learn, good for you to lighten your load, and good for the family for mom to not spend all of her time cleaning. This is what my current cleaning schedule looks like:

• Monday: 10 minute cleaning, Laundry (note, some people really prefer to do one load of laundry a day rather than all of it in one day)
• Tuesday: 10 minute cleaning. Vacuum.
• Wednesday: 10 minute cleaning
• Thursday: 10 minute cleaning
• Friday: 10 minute cleaning. Pick up house well. Dust. Bathrooms. Floors. Kitchen.
• Saturday: Clean appliances. Declutter school papers. (Saturday tasks are things I am okay missing once in a while if Saturday gets too busy). 

For my ten minute cleaning, I literally set a timer for ten minutes and clean as much as I can in that time period. I focus on a room or on a certain task. It might be general pick up that day or a deep cleaning task. I am always amazed at how much I can get done in ten minutes. This concept works well for moms who love to clean and those who hate it. For those who love it, it makes it so you can't just clean all day. I have more opportunity to clean now that my kids are all in school, but I have much more than cleaning I need to get done each day. I can't let myself get swept up in the never-ending hole of cleaning. For the mom who hates to clean, ten minutes is easy to sacrifice to get some cleaning done (you easily spend 10 minutes a day on social media or some other time suck that doesn't need to be spent). That ten minutes can go a long way to get things in much better shape.

Involve the Family

As your children age, instill chores your child is responsible for. I have a series of posts detailing what chores children can reasonably do per age. Also, each night as part of our bedtime routine, we all work to pick up the house. The entire family does this. Kids pick up their rooms and all other messes in the home. We have an everybody cleans policy, so we all clean no matter who made the mess. This really helps me out so I am not cleaning up after 6 people each day (well...as much ;) ). 

Deep Cleaning

Deep cleaning is a whole other ball game. There was a time in my life when my time was free enough and my house small enough I could deep clean the entire hour every month. Every month! That meant my blinds were cleaned monthly. Now, frankly, I am happy to get that done once a year. I have deep cleaning tasks divided up by month so I have a few things to focus on each month. When I was in the thick of lots of young kids, a lot of times it really came down to just what seemed to need attention the most at the time. 

One of my favorite books for cleaning is How the Queen Cleans Everything Affiliate link. It is amazing! I can't recommend it enough. She has how she cleans and also when she cleans what.

Conclusion

In the end, you need to find what works for you. This might change as your family dynamics change. Do what feels good to you and what works for your time constraints right now. Make your cleaning routine something you can do now. Do not worry about it working in a year--just what works now. You can change it up in a year. Whether you love cleaning or hate cleaning, you can create something that fits you best.

Related Cleaning Posts:

How I Do It: Chores

5 Steps To Teaching Your Children to Do Chores

12 Chores Your Toddler Can Do

9 Chores Your Three Year Old Can Do

10 Chores for 4 Year Olds

10 Chores You Five Year Old Can Do

Balancing Household Responsibilities with Family Time

How to Organize Your Cleaning Schedule

Making Laundry Easier (and more tolerable!) 

Organizing Tip: Remove Everything

Quick Cleaning: Laundry Day

Quick Cleaning: The Bathroom

Tips for Organizing Your Bathroom

Cleaning the Baby's Room

Everyone Cleans

The ladies of the BFBN are all discussing cleaning topics today. Click to read their posts:

• Challenge Yourself to Not Clean Up For Your Child
• How To Encourage Your Children to Help with Household Chores
• How To Have A Clean Home When You Have Small Children 
• How to Keep Your House Clean in Ten Minutes a Day
• How To Use a Block Schedule to Prioritize Cleaning

Best Cleaning Purchase Ever

I want to start by saying that no one asked me to write this post. I have no reason for writing it other than to share the best cleaning purchase I have ever made. It was seriously a life-changing purchase for me.

One Sunday, I was sitting in the church nursery with two friends. They both got talking about steam mops. I mentioned how I had never owned one. I had thought about it, but heard it makes flooring look dull so I just hadn't bothered. They both told me I needed to try one out. A few days later that week, one of the friends was at my doorstep with her steam mop. I decided to give it a go. 

I was able to clean all of the floors in my house so quickly! It was amazing. I decided to go ahead and buy one.

And then came such a hard decision! I first thought of a Shark Steam Mop. I bought a Shark Rotator Professional Vacuum last January and have been very happy with it (I intend to tell all of you about this, also, but the steam mop is so much more amazing). When I got looking at reviews on Amazon, however, I saw that the Shark mops really had some polarizing reviews. I asked you readers on Facebook and polled my friends, and I found that about half of the people loved their mop and half hated it. I didn't like those odds, so I looked at other brands.

In my searching, I looked at the best seller on Amazon (BISSELL Powerfresh Steam Mop). I always consider Amazon's best seller. HOWEVER, best seller doesn't mean best steam mop. I have no idea why all of those mops have been purchased. Was price a factor? Was quality? I also always look at the number one rated. In this case, it happens to still be the BISSELL. I put a lot of stock in reviews, but I also realize that most of the time, people who love something don't necessarily write a review for it. 

In my searching, I came across HAAN steam mops. They rate well, but not as well as others. The price is comparable--most of the steam mops were in the same price range as each other. I hadn't ever heard a HAAN talked about, though. A couple of readers liked theirs. I also had a friend from high school rave over hers. I really felt drawn to it and decided to get the HAAN SI-70 Multi Multiple Purpose Floor Steamer.

Life changing!

I love this thing. I can clean my floors so much faster. Each week as I use the steam mop, the floors get a little cleaner than they were the week before. But that is probably safely true of any steam mop out there. This is what sets the HAAN apart.

This particular HAAN is able to transform into a handheld steam sanitizer. That means you can use it on counters, in tubs, furniture...

But that isn't just it. Here is the truly life-changing part for me. It comes with a grout attachment. I cleaned all of the grout in my house in under 30 minutes. Under 30 minutes! And it was amazingly clean. I just used water. I would happily pay this price for just the grout function. 

In the past, to clean grout was a huge event. I got out the water and baking soda and mixed it into a paste. I put it into the grout and then used a lot of elbow grease to clean the grout. Then I spent a lot of time cleaning the baking soda/water mixture off the floor--it is not a fast wipe-up. It took me hours to do one room. I did my whole house in under 30 minutes! Grout went from a once a year job to easily once a month--weekly if needed (but it isn't). 

Earlier this year, I wrote a post on how clean you should keep your house and how I like my house to be clean. I also wrote a post on balancing household responsibilities and I talked about this pull between the need to have a clean home and the need to spend time with children, and how those two needs often seem to interfere with each other.

The reason this mop is life changing for me is that I am able to take a couple of cleaning tasks that took a fair amount of time and cut that time WAY down. I don't lose clean quality (I think doing it consistently just makes it cleaner). I am also doing this amazing cleaning with nothing more than water (I usually do add a Tablespoon of vinegar to the water, though). 

If I had to return everything I had ever bought that was intended to make cleaning easier save one, I would keep this mop. That is how much I like it. I highly, highly recommend it. Oh- a side note, something nice about this mop is the cord length. The mop I tried of my friend's was had such a short cord I couldn't plug it in one spot and do my entire kitchen. With this one, I can. So if you have a large area to clean, be sure to consider cord length. Another thing to note, this comes with two pads. It is definitely enough. I bought the  extra pack of 4 pads. At first, I thought it was overkill. But I have found I like to use one pad for the bathrooms and one for the kitchen. So two is sufficient, but I have used 4 so far. A 2-pack would be perfect, though I don't think it will hurt to have a couple of new pads waiting to be used in the future. Another thing I like about this mop is that it doesn't leave my floors wet. Some steam mops leave so much water on the floor that you have to use a towel to dry it when you are done. 

In the end, I love it. I will caveat with I have had it for two months. The bad reviews often said after 3 months it stopped working, so hopefully that doesn't happen. I will definitely update you if it does! And maybe you would want to wait another month before deciding to get one :) 

Cleaning the Baby's Room

It gets hard to clean a baby's room when the baby is sleeping ALL THE TIME. When baby isn't sleeping, baby needs you to feed her, hold her, bathe her, dress her, and play with her. So it can be tricky. Baby's room seems to go one of two ways--it stays insanely organized because there isn't much activity going on in it, or it gets cluttered and messy because you can't find the time to get in there and clean it.

I have some strategies for keeping baby's room clean and organized even while baby is occupying it so often. 

1-Plan Ahead and Be Ready

If you are going to make the most of your 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there, you have to have a battle plan in place. Otherwise you will spend half of that time deciding what to do. I correlate what I am doing with the rest of the house that day. So if it is laundry day, then I plan to put the laundry away at my next chance. I put the basket of clean clothes right outside the door. Then when the baby is awake (or it is time to be awake), it is go time! Whether you plan to dust, vacuum, or organize, have a plan before it is time and have your supplies ready.

2-Think Through Schedule and Choose Cleaning Time

Think through your baby's routine and decide when it would make the most sense to try to work it in. If your baby is the type you have to wake up from naps, go in at the end of a nap and hurry and do some cleaning right before your baby is suppose to wake up. When Brinley was a young baby, I would start vacuuming my house a little before her morning nap was supposed to end. Her room was the last on my vacuuming tour. I would go in and vacuum. If it woke her up, she would just lay there watching me while I hurried and did the room.

Here are some times when I do cleaning--these are just examples. You can look at these and find something that works for you or it might spark and idea that works for you.

• Right at the end of a nap. You can talk to your baby if she wakes up while you are in there. A bonus of doing this is that the baby learns it is okay to wake up and stay in the bed for a bit.
• During Independent Playtime. With young babies, I do independent play at the floor gym with me in the room. The baby doesn't have good enough eye sight when young to be following you around. I would do some quick cleaning during this time.
• During Tummy Time. I have a hard time not interfering with my babies when they are struggling. If I give myself a task to do, then it allows the baby to work at rolling over and exercising those muscles before I swoop in and save the day. 
• During Free Play. No matter the age of your baby, you can lay or set your baby on the floor in the room and have your child play while you do something. 
• During Blanket Time. Blanket time is another great time that you have to do some cleaning. 
• At the end of playtime. Right now, I often go in the room at the end of Independent play and do some cleaning. We are both already there.
• Right before nap or bedtime. Go into the room 5-10 minutes early and do some cleaning right before the nap or bedtime. 
• During Naptime. When Kaitlyn was a baby, I had her take a couple of naps a day in my room each day. I could get some cleaning done in her room when she was napping in mine.
• In the Evening. You might find it works to have your spouse take the baby for some playtime while you do some cleaning in the room.

3-Clean Fast 

Once you start the cleaning, you need to move quickly. Move fast. 

4-Accept Cleaning in Chunks

You have to accept your opportunities you have. You might not get it all done in one chunk. I find this to be especially true when I am going through clothes. Babies outgrow clothes quickly, and when I am going through the closet to get out the clothes that are too small, it will take me several days of doing quick cleaning to get it done (by the way, a trick I have here is to just pull clothes that are too small as I am doing laundry. When I fold something too small for any of my kids, I set it aside and move it to the storage room later). 

5-Keep Things Simple

Some tasks can be make simpler just by how you organize it. Laundry is faster to put away the fewer clothes you have hanging on hangers. Fold what you can and put in drawers, on shelves, and in bins. This will enable you to put the laundry away in 5 minutes flat. 

6-Stay On Top of Things

Are you the type of cook who cleans as you go or who cleans when you are all done? I am a clean as you go type in everything. I have never had an issue with a baby's room getting messy, so it surprised me the first time I ever heard a mom talk about it. I have noticed over the years there are many who find it a challenge. If you clean things as you go, it will stay at least picked up and clutter free. It is like the tortoise. Slow and steady. If you get out the lotion, put the lotion right away. If you have some diapers to put away, do it. This works well for a baby's room because you only have a few minutes here and there. Use those minutes to keep things in order. 

Today is our BFBN Pinterest Day--check out the other ladies blogs in the BFBN today for more fun cleaning tips. Check out our joint Pinterest account for all of our favorite cleaning tips.

Quick Cleaning: Laundry Day

There is nothing "quick" about doing laundry, but I do think there are things you can do to make laundry day a bit easier on yourself. I have some tips, but would absolutely LOVE to hear your tips, as well. Laundry is about my least favorite chore, so anything to make life easier is great by me.

Let me start by saying I still have the old fashioned washer and dryer...

No, not that old fashioned!

You know, the top loading washer old fashioned...so some tips are with that in mind. Some day my friends, some day I will get front loaders. 

Have A Plan

Some people like having one laundry day each week. This is the day they focus on laundry. Others do one load each day. I personally like one day. 

Stay Home

Whether you do it all in one day or do one load a day, stay home while it is laundry time. This is both for safety reasons (you don't want any accidents--especially with a dryer) and  for efficiency. You can't promptly remove clothes if you aren't home to remove them.

If you do it one day a week, think through the average week and choose the day you are most often home all day.

Preparation

Things start best if I prepare the night before. Usually this just means I gather the dirty laundry from each room the night before. I like to start early in the morning and this way I won't be held up because I left dirty laundry in someone's room.

You could also sort the night before, but I don't do that.

Start Early

Since I do it all in one day, I find that starting earlier in the day makes it more likely that I can get it done that day. If I were doing one load, I would still start early. Otherwise I think I would forget about it as the hecticness of the day started.

Sort and Prep at Once

I sort the clothes and prep them all at the same time. While I am sorting, I turn things inside out that need to be and I check pockets. This way, I can just toss all of the clothes in the washer when it is time.

Jeans First

My first load of the day is always a load of jeans combined with any dark shirts I want to hang-dry. I also include light cotton clothes or socks to finish out the load.

My reason for this is because in my old-fashioned machines, the drying takes the longest. I hang dry at least half of my jeans, so this way my first load of the day dries quickly because by the time it makes it to the dryer, it is rather small.

Towels LastI do my towels last because they take the longest to dry. This way I don't have clothes in the washer waiting while my towels dry.

Remove from Dryer Promptly

I remove my clothes from the dryer as soon as I can after they are dry. I then fold and sort into laundry baskets. This makes it so I rarely need to iron clothes.

Start Next Load Immediately

Even though my dryer takes longer than my washer, I start washing the next load as soon as I am done starting the dryer load and/or folding the load that just came out of the dryer. When I wait, I often forget until the dryer is almost done.

Hang All At Once...Or As You Go

I am not sure what is more efficient--to hang as you go or to hang all at once. I do it all at once after all laundry is done. Mostly this is because of kids rooms and napping children. I just go in the evening some time and put all of the laundry away.

Detergents and Other Supplies

I would love to hear what your favorite detergents and other supplies are!

I love Consumer Reports. Years ago, the detergent they recommended was Cheer. They also said the powder cleaned better than liquid in all detergents. So we used that for years. 

A few months ago, I decided to try something new and tried the Arm and Hammer with Baking Soda and Oxiclean (linked is the liquid but I use the powder). I have been really happy with it.

For babies, I used All Baby detergent (in liquid) or Dreft (in liquid).

Now, I keep an All Free and Clear liquid detergent for use on delicates.

I love Oxiclean. I add a scoop to every white load and usually to my towels as well. One day, the stores was out of the powder so I tried the Oxiclean Max Force and I think I like those better, but it is more money overall I think, so I am still analyzing the whole situation. Another great booster is Borax. I keep Borax around at all times because you can use it in a lot of homemade cleaners (like for scrubbing grout).

For stain removers, I like the Oxiclean spray right now. I have also used Zout and Spray and Wash in the past and have liked those. Fels Naptha is a fabulous bar of soap for getting stains out on whites for sure. I haven't tried it on colored yet--just whites.

Another great stain remover and clothes freshener is plain old Baking Soda.

So far as bleach, I just get Clorox Splashless.

For dryer sheets, I use Bounce but have no good reason why.

Again, I would love to hear what you use and love! AND what you do to make laundry day easier.

RELATED BLOG LABELS

• Quick Cleaning

Quick Cleaning: The Bathroom

photo source

I have been contemplating how I get things done since I get asked about it so much, and a thought occurred to me. My husband often comments in amazement how I can get things done so quickly. I am a speedy mover when it comes to cleaning things. That obviously helps to be able to get things done faster.

So I had an idea to share how I clean things quickly to perhaps give you an idea of how you could get things done more quickly.

The first rule for quick cleaning is consistency. Take the bathroom. You can spend 15-20 minutes a week or 30-40 every two weeks. If you want it fast, it is easiest to attain that by not letting it get really dirty. 

So here is my quick cleaning guide for the bathroom. Note this is a quick guide, so I will include steps for cleaning the shower/tub/floor, but those things will add time to the quick cleaning. Things don't necessarily have to be in this exact order.

15-20 Minute Cleaning

Step One

Put your cleaner in the toilet. This way it can "soak" while you do other things.

Step Two

Pick up the bathroom. Put everything in its proper place.

Step Three

Clean the counter top. I like to move from the top down when cleaning. That way if something gets wiped onto the floor, you still get a chance to clean it. Move things on your counter so you can clean under them. Clean. Then put everything back.

Step Four

Clean the outside of the toilet. This is everything but the inside of the bowl.

Step Five

Clean mirror.

Step Six

Pick things up off of the floor. Get everything off the floor (rugs, garbage can, etc.)

Step Seven

Sweep the floor. You might also want to wet a sponge and run it round the edges of your floor. This will pick up loose hair and dust. Those things tend to get pushed to the edges of a floor. Spot clean any necessary areas. Replace everything back on the floor where it goes.

Step Eight

Clean the sink.

Step Nine

Empty the garbage can. I do this at the end so anything I might have thrown away in the process of cleaning the bathroom gets emptied.

Step Ten

Change the towels. I do this at the end, also. I do it then so that as I dry my hands off, I am drying them off on dirty towels rather than clean ones. You can also possibly use old towels to help clean the bathroom depending on what kind of cleaner you use. 

Step Eleven

Scrub the inside of the toilet. 

Adding the Floor and Shower

Obviously scrubbing the floor and shower are both going to add time to your process. I tend to do an official floor scrubbing once every other week. In a perfectly clean world, I would do it weekly, but in our bathrooms, we just don't need it weekly most of the time. The sweeping/wiping edges suffices. For weeks that you are cleaning the floor, the obvious step is to add it to step seven.

I also currently clean each tub about every other week. However, we have three tubs so they don't get that messy. When we had one tub, it needed to be washed weekly. 

A tip for cleaning the shower easily is to do so while you shower. I get in and scrub the walls, then wash my body. Then I scrub the floor once I am out. 

Multi-Tasking

I often clean with multi-tasking steps going on. For example, the cleaning the shower while I shower.

Another example is my kids' bathroom. Sometimes I clean it while a child is in the tub. I just have my cleaners in the room before we start the bath, then clean while they play. 

Make it Faster

Want to make this process even faster? Of course you do!

Involve your children. Yes, it will take a few years before they are old enough to truly contribute to the process, but I promise you it will be worth it. Brayden and Kaitlyn are both a bit help in cleaning. They both love to clean the floor, which happens to be a job I dislike, so we are basically matches made in heaven. 

While I clean the counter and such, I have them remove everything from the floor, sweep, then scrub the floor. It teaches them to work and it helps me out. 

Yes, there were years I went through with it being no help, but let me promise you it is worth going through those times to get a 3 and 5 year old helping make the cleaning process easier. 

You will also get better at thinking of ways to have them help. McKenna doesn't hinder too much. I can tell her to put things away and she does it. She can also hold a rag and think she is doing something major. Having the child present with you helps her learn how the job gets done. 

Conclusion

There you  have it! Hopefully this can help you be faster and more efficient in your cleaning time and give you time for things you enjoy more.

I would love your feedback on this post. Was it helpful? Old news? Do you want this type of post for other rooms, too?

Also, do you have tips for making cleaning the bathroom faster and easier? Please share!