Home Organisation and house cleaning, is a never ending chore. Not all cleaning tasks are created equally. This is the final post in the 5 part series, focusing on, the less frequently needed to-do tasks. Every organized home needs house cleaning routines for keeping organized and clean.
This is a part of the home organisation series and you will find that by following the posts for organizing your home, the links for the previous five posts are in order at the end of the post. By following the cleaning tasks and home organization ideas. By establishing the recommended daily cleaning and weekly cleaning routines and forming habits, in small steps, you will eventually have the clean and organized home of your dreams.
Home Organisation Routines and Habits
In previous posts in this series, we’ve been focusing on home organization by setting up routines and habits for having a clean house and an organized home.
We’ve worked on a morning routine checklist, a daily home cleaning list and organizational skills, of a good housekeeper. The underlying principals that governs having an easy time with housekeeping, is by developing routines and habits for all of our daily home organization and cleaning.
The routine habit monthly cleaning schedule
This is the Routine Habit Monthly Cleaning Schedule. It will give you some time estimates on how long you should spend on each area.
If you are already doing your, daily home cleaning list sorted into your morning, evening and other routines.
If you have begun your weekly house cleaning routine habit, this is the last step in the equation.
How long will the house cleaning tasks take?
Take a look at the list and the approximate time for the home organization or house cleaning tasks. You also should note the re-occurrence time. If you want to spend for example 20 minutes on some extra house work and you know your fridge really needs a good clean out, the day before shopping day, Mark the job off your list as done for the month, and carry it over again to do the following month.
Always, always, clean up spills as they happen. It reduces your cleaning time by soooo much. Don’t walk over things, pick them up. It will catch on with the family eventually. For now, you keep on top of you, and always, keep an eye open, for ways you can lighten your load, with your cleaning, by getting into the habit, of doing things as they happen.
You leave the mess till later. It becomes a bigger mess. Marks and spills are harder to remove when they set. Not putting things away, leads to double the amount of things to put away, once you get around to it.
Remember: Only ever clean what is dirty. If it’s not dirty, untidy. There are no finger marks, streaks, messes, in general. Don’t clean unless it’s dirty. We all have better things to do than becoming obsessed with cleaning. If your cleaning, to fill in time, or boredom, email me, I have tons of work I need help with.
Monthly cleaning routines
Step One: Choose a day and time each:
- 1Month
- 3 Months
- 6 Months
Put it up on the wall on your planner, in your diary or digital organizer. What ever way, your keeping track of your cleaning and organizing routines, do it right now. If you haven’t made appointments with yourself, for the other cleaning routines in the earlier posts, go back and start with them first.
Each post has approximate time guides added to each task, to help with your scheduling. You have to start somewhere and by beginning with your planner, is a step in the right direction. Ok, so grab your planner now, start filling in the major tasks, times, and make certain to have the equipment needed to do the job ready.
cleaning caddy
Storage Areas
For all household store areas including inside drawers, on shelves, inside cupboards
Try and do it quickly as possible. No more than 5 minutes per drawer. Sort through drawers, cabinets and closets, tipping out items and drawers, and making piles of things to donate give or throw. Don’t spend more than (30–45 minutes per room)
General Area’s:
*Wood care: Dust and wax floors or wood surfaces. 30minutes (monthly)
*Furniture: dust 30 seconds, wax 10 minutes. (monthly)
*Floors: 1 hour (monthly)
*Polishing: Polish silver and breakables keep up the pace and don’t fuss. (30 minutes) (6 monthly)
Inventory:
While opening all the drawers in your home is a good time to take note of all valuables. Make a list and store in a secure place or photograph and store on your computer. (2minutes per valuable) (update as new items enter your home)
Mirrors and windows:
Wipe them down with the spray and wipe. Don’t fuss or waste too much time. (5 minutes each) (3 monthly inside 6 monthly outside)
Light cleaning:
Clean light fittings, light switches and lamp shades. (5 minutes per item) (monthly)
Upholstery and rug cleaning:
*Have your carpets and upholstery cleaned by a professional. (every 6-12 months)
*They are quick and have good carpet cleaning machines. Look out for special deals. Otherwise hire a carpet cleaner and do the job yourself. (2minutes for an appointment or 3 hours to diy)
Hard-to-reach cleaning:
*Dust all high to reach places including ceiling fans. (8 minutes per room) (monthly)
*This is the type of task that if left, get’s more difficult to do.
Window coverings:
*Clean blinds and curtains with the upholstery fitting of your vacuum (15minutes each) (monthly, wash or have dry cleaned fabric curtains every 6 months)
Household laundry :
*Wash mattress protectors, pillows, throw pillows, blankets, duvets, either 1 load per day or 6 loads all day on the same day while cleaning the rest of the house. (3 monthly)
Bedrooms
*Turning mattresses: Flip the mattresses or rotate them. Vac with a upholstery piece. (8 minutes per mattress) (3 monthly)
Clothing storage:
*Pull out all the cloths. Sort by making a pile for goodwill, throw out things that don’t fit or you haven’t worn for 12months.
*Toss anything that’s stained or pilled.
*Place on the bed and sort back into the cupboard putting in season stuff towards the front and out of season to the back or into storage if not a lot of room.
*Hang as much stuff as possible as it’s easier to see. Sort by item eg: skirts, dresses or colours eg :black skirts, black shirts, red shirts, red dresses. (90minutes per person) (every 3 months)
Kids’ stuff organizing:
*Collect up all the toys that they have outgrown. Make another pile for broken or lost parts to items. Be strong when clearing out this stuff.
*Pack stuff in the car to donate.
*With whats left, place back on their shelves. Put small things in clear plastic bins, make sure they can reach their favorites easily. (90minutes) (every 3 months)
Garbage cans:
Use the outside hose to give them a thorough wash and a squirt with some disinfectant. (15 minutes) (monthly)
Oven cleaning:
Spray with your favorite cleaner then try cleaning in two 15minute segments. (3 monthly and after spills while still warm)
Refrigerator:
*Toss out of date food, pay special attention to dates on jars and sauces.
*Clean inside shelves and drawers with a sponge dipped in some water and vanilla essence. (20minutes monthly)
*After spills(10 seconds)
*Weekly for normal food throw out, Bin night is the best night for this job. Wipe the refrigerator out the night before shopping night. (weekly or fortnightly)
“organizing your home and paper work”
Paperwork review:
*Go over all annual papers including insurance, registration, major services for maintenance. Make sure everything is up to date. 90minutes. (6 monthly and update diary with information of account, due dates, amounts and contact numbers as papers come in)
Paper toss:
*Collect up all paper that you can find. Bundle it up into piles and start sorting. Toss as much as you can and pile up the rest ready to file or scan. (10minutes per pile)(monthly for piles)
What to keep:
See article: what papers are really important in upcoming post or follow this reliable source. *Back sort papers 10 minutes per pile and (update information in your planner when new accounts come in.)
*How Long Do I Need to Keep This? – A Guide to Receipts, Statements and Financial Clutter at home. This article from Jill Chongva at ezinearticles will have you on the right track. A simple list of which papers you need to keep and for how long.
Clean out files:
*When re-filing the above papers make certain to throw away any papers that don’t need to be in your files.
*Make certain your files are clearly marked pref by a printed label and in alphabetical order.
File electronically with Evernote
*This link will take you to a video which will show you how to file with evernote. I’m using Evernote and I love it.
* Digitwirl.comis the weekly web show that offers simple solutions to modern day problems. In 3-minutes, Digitwirl brings busy women the very best time, money, and sanity-saving technology, and then teaches them how to use it, step-by-step.
Series: Housekeeping and home organization with routines and habits.
This was Part 5 of the series.
Part 1 : A morning routine for home organization
Part 2 : Housekeeper routines for organizing your home and keeping a clean house
Part 3 : Daily cleaning routine for an organized home
Part 4: Housekeepers secret guide to weekly cleaning
Part 5: Home organisation and monthly home cleaning list
In Summary
So there it is, The housekeeping schedule for monthly cleaning and home organisation, list for your home cleaning tasks. They only need to be done in either monthly, three monthly or six monthly intervals. Some tasks should be executed as the work happens but the majority of tasks are only a few times a year. As you do the house cleaning list make a note in your diary or planner for the next advised time to do the cleaning tasks again.
Please leave a comment
Are there any cleaning tasks that you think should be on this list that I have left out? Each of our homes and situations are different and there are obviously certain cleaning tasks that don’t fall into the general category for cleaning a home or organizing a home. Any unique ones for you, just slot into the list and remember to update them in your planner the same way.
Share and Follow
If you enjoyed this series, please share on Twitter or Facebook. As you can imagine, a series of five posts, like these take lot’s of time to write, and sharing the word is the best way, to help me build a great community at RHB.
As always, thanks for reading,
By: Sharon Thoms
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