Put your home on a cleaning schedule.

If you find yourself constantly missing areas of cleaning when trying to keep up your home consider making an appointment with each room in your house. Put your home on a schedule.

Housekeeping schedules are nothing new. Historically housekeeping tasks took much more time than they do today and women had to have a systematic order to when to do things like laundry, baking, and shopping in order to assure things got done.

In addition to making sure you don't miss cleaning under the bed...

1. A regular housekeeping cleaning schedule will keep you from wasting precious time trying to figure out what needs to be done in a room and when was the last time you saw to a certain task.

2. A housekeeping cleaning schedule should be flexible enough to allow for such pleasant interruptions as your children needing attention, personal time with your spouse, or a visit from company.

What is put on your housekeeping schedule depends on your individual household but here is a basic list to tweak to meet your needs.

Daily:

Beds made

Floors swept or vacuumed

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Kitchen put in order after each meal

Bedrooms straightened

Bathrooms touched up

Toss garbage and junk mail

Straighten hectic spots such as dining tables and kitchen counters

laundry

pet areas neatened up

Weekly:

Dust

Vacuum

Purge fridge of leftovers

Clean bathrooms

Make weekly menu

Clean kitchen cabinets

Monthly:

Vacuum under furniture

Clean oven

Clean fridge

Seasonally:

Have rugs / carpet professionally cleaned

dry clean seasonal clothing

Turn mattresses

Have furnace / air conditioner tuned

So now you have your list, how do you keep track of it? Well it is a good idea to have in writing when you will be cleaning. From daily to weekly to monthly lists write down in your Planner , wall calendar, Bulletin Board what time is set aside for you to keep your home in order.

Think of how the professionals do it. Have you ever noticed the sheet on public restrooms that gets marked and dated when it has been cleaned? Of course you don't need to post your list for all to see but put it in a place where you can refer to it.

Cleaning your home will take time and effort. Organizing your cleaning efforts can help to to keep from making you a slave to your home and from abandoning the housekeeping schedule altogether and letting chaos reign.

Consider starting a Homekeeping Journal to keep these lists in.

For complete checklists for home and life visit Household Notes

• Preventative Measures - Keeping That Home Clean
• Molly’s Money-Saving Digest – Let’s Get Organized for Fiscal Fitness
• January 2009 Home Organizing Checklist
• Home Walk Through
• December 2008 Home Organizing Checklist