I’m on a journey.
Although in my 36 years, I have awakened many, many times with a resolve to change my slobbish ways . . . that resolve did little to clean my house.
I had to clean it myself.
And keep it clean.
Learning skills and letting them build on one another is what has made the difference. For the first six months or so of this deslobification process, I only worked on developing daily habits. My goal was to recognize what things needed to be done daily (that I wasn’t doing) and force myself to do them until they felt natural. It made a huge difference and my house was more livable than it had been in years.
But once I started to feel like the house was somewhat under control, I realized that I needed to be more consistent with my real cleaning tasks. Y’know, pesky things like scrubbing toilets and mopping kitchens and other things that were ever-so-easy to put off.
So, building on the success of my Laundry Day, I started trying to clean bathrooms every Tuesday. Once that felt more natural and I saw how much of a difference it made, I designated Thursday as Mopping Day and Friday as Dust and Vacuum Day.
This is not some crazy new-fangled idea of mine. I’m pretty sure it’s what normal people have been doing for . . . umm . . . forever. But when my home was ruled by stuff, and cleaning a bathroom meant digging a path to its door and unearthing all of the things needed to clean it, the thought of doing all of that EVERY SINGLE WEEK was overwhelming.
So, what’s my point? It’s been a process. Waking up one day and saying I was going to start cleaning showers, dusting, vacuuming, mopping, and washing every last item of dirty clothing in this house every single week would have been just that . . . saying it. I wouldn’t have gotten much farther than that.
But, just in case you’re to the point where you might be ready for weekly tasks, I thought I’d share a printable version of my schedule. Please don’t take it as an “I have to do this exactly this way” or even as advice. It’s just an example for you to look at if you feel like you’re ready. And even if you do want to create a weekly task list for yourself, your days will almost certainly be different from mine. I do laundry on Monday because it is the day when I’m most likely to be home. I have grocery shopping on Wed because I’m out that day anyway. Maybe doing one load of laundry a day works better for you, and you don’t need a day designated for laundry. It’s your home, and you’re the only one who can figure out what will work for you.
Before I share my printable list, let me try to explain my slob-logic. Remember, I have no “cleaning intuition” like normal people have. If I wait until I notice the need, have the time, and feel the urge to clean all at the same time, I end up waiting for a very long time. Knowing that I clean bathrooms on Tuesdays means that I plan my day around getting that done. Otherwise, I plan my day and cleaning the bathroom never enters my mind. (Ok, I plan my month and cleaning the bathroom never enters my mind.) And if something comes up and I can’t clean bathrooms on Tuesday, all is not lost. When the next Tuesday rolls around, the bathrooms get cleaned. Get it? It’s on the list. Not on the never-ending-to-do-list that gets shoved in the corner and forgotten and never ever finished, but on the oh-it’s-Tuesday-and-so-it’s-been-at-least-a-week-since-I-cleaned-the-bathroom list.
If you’d like, you can go here to print a weekly house cleaning task list. (The printable version includes my list and a somewhat customizable list for you.)
P.S. If you happen to be normal, and see a big glaring omission on my list, something that every decent and self-respecting person should do weekly, please don’t share. My house is so much better than it was pre-blog, and I’d rather live in this present state of cluelessness than be overwhelmed with something else to add right now.
P.P.S. Six years later, I wrote a book. After figuring out what works in my home and for my unique brain, I wrote the guide for you to manage your home without losing your mind. Check it out here: How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind.
