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Being a Mum can be a tough gig (as if you didn’t know that already!), and managing the household chores whilst also attending to your family’s needs can be quite overwhelming- bordering on sanity testing- at times. Especially if you’re a busy Mum with a career, it can be challenging to keep your home clean and tidy, or even in a semi-tidy state that you can cope with!

However, having a cleaning schedule can be a lifesaver when it comes to organising your household chores and ensuring that everything remains clean and tidy. It just takes the “thinking” out of another aspect of life, freeing you up to just get on with things, and creating time out for your own things during nap times of after the kids have gone to bed in the evening.

In this post, we’ll explore the benefits of having a cleaning schedule and how it can help you manage your household as a busy Mum.

First things first, what is a cleaning schedule?

Think of it as a calendar or to-do list that outlines your daily, weekly, monthly or even seasonal cleaning tasks. A cleaning schedule takes the stress out of home cleaning and helps you prioritise your household chores by determining which cleaning duties need to be accomplished daily, weekly, monthly or seasonally.

It is a convenient and effective way to plan and manage your household cleaning activities so you can stay on top of things and make the most of your time.

Now lets take a look at the benefits of having a cleaning schedule:

1. Better Time Management

As a busy Mum, time management is critical (it allows for more time to put your feet up during nap time or gin-drinking time in the evening). A cleaning schedule helps you plan your cleaning tasks so that you’re not wasting your time.

You can plan and prioritise tasks based on how much time they take, how often they need to be done, and what needs to be accomplished each day, week, month or season.

2. Establish a Routine

When you have a cleaning schedule you develop a regular routine for your cleaning tasks. Having a routine helps you establish good habits and ensures that your home stays cleaner and tidier. When something is a habit we do it mostly without thinking about it; we just know what needs to be done and we get on and do it.

With a routine, your cleaning tasks become a part of your daily, weekly or monthly activities, making it easier to accomplish them consistently. If every Sunday you clean the bathroom and this becomes a habit, you will soon find that this becomes something that you “just do”.

Top tip from me: building self-care habits into your cleaning habits can make the world of difference. Two examples from my own habits:

—> I clean the bathroom on a Sunday and then have a bath in the late afternoon with a book and a nice candle. This way I get to appreciate the clean bathroom after my cleaning efforts, before the kids have a chance to come in a throw water and bath toys everywhere (which makes for a far less stressful bath environment, I’m sure you’ll agree).

—> I listen to a podcast or audiobook whilst I do other big cleaning tasks like cleaning the windows, decluttering, cleaning the oven etc. I love listening to Podcasts and audiobooks but rarely get the chance, so this feels like I get something back for myself whilst cleaning.

3. Better Organisation

When you have a regular routine for cleaning, it becomes easier to organise your household. You can develop a system for cleaning, such as cleaning one room completely one day before moving onto the next, or splitting the days up into tasks such as ‘cleaning the bathrooms’, ‘vacuuming’ or ‘dusting’ on a different day.

Having a cleaning schedule also helps you prioritise cleaning tasks based on what’s most important, such as bathrooms and kitchens, which tend to get dirtier more quickly. It also gives you a chance to stay on top of the things that don’t need cleaning as often.

I know that in March and September I declutter the house, and in April and October I clean the blinds and windows. Another benefit of this for me is that I can spend the whole month getting the job done. For each week in April I will choose a couple of windows to clean and work my way around the house over the month. Since each window only takes around 15 minutes to properly clean, this means that it doesn’t feel like a huge overwhelming task to do all at once!

Having the motivation to clean one window at a time over the course of a month is far easier for me than spending all morning cleaning all 11 windows! I don’t know about you, but as a Mum, I don’t have time to clean 11 windows, yet I have time to clean one window on three different days of the week (it takes about the same amount of time as one episode of Bluey, so if the kids are not in the right mood to help me clean then I can sit them down with one episode whilst I clean a window. I also don’t feel like the worst Mum in the world for letting them watch a screen for just 15 minutes whilst I achieve a task.)

4. Reduced Stress & Anxiety

You’re a Mum. You have enough to worry about, and having a cleaning schedule can help reduce the stress and anxiety that comes with managing a household. By developing a routine that works for you and your family, you can ensure that your home remains clean and organised.

With a clean home, you can feel calmer and more relaxed knowing that everything is in order and that your family is living in a clean environment, and a calm and relaxed Mum is the maker of a better household! We hold the keys to the ambiance in our homes. Lets take the stress away from ourselves so we can give back more happiness to our families.

5. Increased Productivity

When your home is clean and organised, it increases your productivity. You can work more efficiently and concentrate better when your living space is tidy.

Having a cleaning schedule ensures that your home remains clean and organised, reducing distractions that can hinder productivity. Have you ever set out to hang out the laundry to dry, and on the way to the washing machine found yourself tidying up school bags and other trip hazards from the hallway, sweeping crumbs off the sofa and replenishing the food in the cats bowl before forgetting what you were going to do and walking past the washing machine entirely?

Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this?

When you have a cleaning schedule you know what needs to be done today. All those trip hazards and crumbs still need clearing away and the cat certainly always needs feeding, but you are easily able to remind yourself of the tasks in hand for the day because you have a plan, a routine and a habit,

6. Encourages Family Participation

Having a cleaning schedule can encourage children to participate in keeping the home clean. By assigning age-appropriate chores, children can learn the value of a clean and tidy environment while also developing a sense of responsibility. When children feel responsible for maintaining the cleanliness of their home, it can create a sense of pride and ownership over their living space and they are more likely to keep it clean day-to-day.

It’s also helpful for kids when they have a routine. If they know they always need to empty the recycling bin on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, then they can anticipate this and it will become part of their routine and habits too.

I also always encourage getting children involved in your cleaning tasks from the get-go as well. My toddlers have always loved following me around the house with their own cloth for dusting, or using an empty spray bottle refilled with pure water in whilst I clean the bathroom or the kitchen. My two year olds most favourite thing ever is to empty the dishwasher! In the morning she will pester me to let her help me to empty it until I give in! (I really appreciate this extra encouragement from her because emptying the dishwasher every day is just one of those tasks that I find SO TEDIOUS and usually want to avoid until after I have flooded my brain with caffeine).

7. More Time for Fun Activities

When you have a cleaning schedule, you can spend less time worrying about household chores and more time having fun with your family or pursuing your own hobbies or dreams.

By organising your cleaning tasks and planning your time accordingly, you’ll be able to free up time to do things that you enjoy. Whether it’s going out for a day trip, visiting friends or just relaxing together as a family, having a cleaning schedule can give you the peace of mind that your household is taken care of, so you can spend more time doing what you love.

This whole website of mine was built and blog posts written during nap times, because I used the rest of the day to get my children involved in helping around the house and getting basic chores done.

NAPTIMES ARE SACRED!

If there is one thing I can assure you, then its that having a cleaning schedule is a fantastic way to manage your busy life as a Mum. By planning and prioritising your cleaning tasks, you can establish a routine that works for you and your family, reducing stress, and creating a more organized and productive home.

Whether you choose to set up a daily, weekly or monthly cleaning schedule, the benefits are clear: increased time management, reduced stress, better organisation, and more time for fun family activities or your own goals.

So, start crafting your own cleaning schedule today, tweak it until you find what works for you and your family, and start experiencing the many benefits of a clean and organised home… at last!

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