House Cleaning Schedule

If you thought nothing could be more boring than my Tupperware post title, you might be wrong.  Because today I am inspired to tell you about a new house cleaning schedule I've put myself on.  I've mentioned I'm a natural organizer, right?

Two years ago I found kindred spirits in the blog world.  I was inspired by Sarah at Clover Lane and her great Spring Cleaning notebook & process.  You can read how I followed Sarah's great advice here and here.  It really helped me get organized and thoroughly clean out spaces that I neglect or those that have needed a good cleaning for awhile.

The problem I found is that it's really overwhelming and I certainly don't want to be inside in the spring, cleaning for days on end.  This year I decided to take on the task in January and got through a lot.  But who am I kidding?  Once I finally get through our house, it's time to start back over.

I've also been inspired by Bonnie @ House of Grace and many, many, many others who try to stay on top of the clutter and cleaning, sharing their home schedules and processes that work for them. 

When our house is straightened up, it's much easier to focus on the right things. 

Right now it's great at my house - it's so much easier to maintain that, than neglect it and have to start over.

So what I've been doing instead for the last two months is focusing on one area of the house each day in addition to the normal everyday clean-ups that happen.  I split up all the rooms/closets/halls in our house and added other areas like my car, our screened in porch and our front porch to the list.  Then I put them in my Google Calendar - one for every day of the month.  Now, it's like a mini spring cleaning every month and I feel a lot more in control of the house.

click or double click if it's too small to read

For February and March it's really working.  I just focus on one room each day - usually about 15-45 minutes, depending on the room.

My goal - never have to Spring Clean again because it will be taken care of throughout the year.

And goal 2 - spend time having fun with my family rather than cleaning.

Finally, I'm joining many bloggers like Sarah who are participating in the 40 Bags, 40 Days clean-out, starting tomorrow, Ash Wednesday.  I may or may not get to 40 bags since I did quite a bit of cleaning out back in January, but there's still plenty of opportunity and it makes me happy!