Realistic Cleaning Schedule For Busy Moms {Free Printable!}

by: Elizabeth Kaiser 29 comments updated: December 1, 2022

Having this realistic general house cleaning schedule that tells me exactly what to do each day, but also gives me the freedom to leave some messes for another day, has been a life saver! Each task is quick and doable in about 15 minutes. Make sure you grab your free printable house cleaning checklist PDF while you’re here!

free printable house cleaning routine checklists

Everybody loves the feeling of a clean house, but not many of us actually like to clean. I sure would rather be doing something else most days. But I sure don’t like how overwhelmed I get when I let things go and fall behind! No Bueno!

The solution is to have a realistic house cleaning schedule. That way everything gets clean in a reasonable amount of time in a way that doesn’t stress me out or eat up too much of my time.

Now a “reasonable amount of time” doesn’t look like it did when I had one or two kids and a small house. Now that we are a family of 8, and live in a large house, my house is not going to be clean as often as it used to be.

Would I like to clean my whole house every 2 weeks? Yes! But I also want to keep my sanity! So I’m ok with it taking 6 weeks to get through the whole house, since I at least know it will get completely cleaned in that time.

I’m the type of person who has a really hard time relaxing if its a mess. Its not that I enjoy cleaning, I just want it cleaned! So having a limited amount of work I’m “allowed” to do, really does help me to not worry as much about the mess. I’m sort of giving myself permission to do just the cleaning I’ve set for the day and no more.

What Makes a realistic House Cleaning Schedule?

A good house cleaning routine is:

easy to remember and keep track of
doesn’t take too long to get through
flexible
doesn’t eat up too much of your day
thorough, so that you don’t have to do a Spring cleaning each year.
doable even on the rough days

Tips For Making general House Cleaning easier:

1. Know What all you are planning to get Done at the Beginning of Each Day BEFORE You Start!

The goal is to eliminate that time you waste stopping to think about what you need to do next. Having a clear plan in your head that you can tackle smoothly is extremely helpful.

Read more about night time routines to get set for a good day

2. Number the Tasks You Plan to Accomplish

This is where having a house cleaning checklist really helps to keep me focused on what needs to be done this day and to be able to let go of what can wait till another day.

Think of it as taking a set amount of steps forward to counter any set backs that might be thrown at you throughout the day. If I plan to get 8 things done, that’s 8 positive steps forward each day!

3. Give Yourself a Limited Amount of Time to Clean Each Day

Yes please! Unless you like cleaning, this should be a relief to most of us! There are a few reasons I like to limit my house cleaning to 15-20 minutes per task:

It helps mentally to know you only have to clean for a small amount of time. Its easier to jump into a cleaning job when you know its only going to be for 15 minutes.

It limits how much of your day you can spend cleaning and gives you the “ok” to relax when that 15 minutes is up. If you are a bit of a compulsive cleaner, its hard to relax when there is more cleaning to do. Having that limited amount of time allotted to cleaning, you are basically “allowing” yourself to stop cleaning when your daily work is done and enjoy your free time.

Having small amounts of time dedicated to each cleaning task makes time to get to other areas of your housework instead of spending all of your time on one chore. As homemakers, we have so many responsibilities, that it can feel hard to juggle all of them. In order to balance my energy among all of these areas of my housekeeping, I spend the same amount of time on each one. Baking, cleaning, laundry, organizing, deep cleaning and repairs all need my attention. So I only spend 15-20 minutes on each so that I have time to do each of them.

a mom holding a cleaning caddy with a green glove and spray bottle in it

4. Have one Place for All of Your Cleaning Supplies

Walking down the cleaning supplies aisle in Walmart, its amazing how there is a different product for every single item in your home! Keeping cleaning supplies to a limited amount and in one spot in your house helps to save time hunting for the product you need and eliminates a lot of wasted cabinet space.

Most household appliances can be cleaned with the same few multi purpose cleaners.

I found this cleaning caddy that holds every one of my spray bottles and supplies making it easy to carry all of them around the house as I clean.

5. Clean Room by Room

Its easy to skip parts of the house that need cleaning if you jump around from room to room and it just feel s so satisfying to have a room that is cleaned from top to bottom. (even if it doesn’t last long)

6. Don’t Just Clean the Dirtiest Parts of the House on Repeat

It can be tempting to look for the dirtiest areas of the house and tackle them. The problem with this method is that those areas will just get dirty again before you ever get to the less dirty areas of the house like cabinet doors or ceiling fans.

Its better to let the dirty areas stay dirty a bit longer and make time for the smaller things. Having a printable whole house cleaning checklist helps with this!

7. Use a Timer

This tip could change the way you think about getting chores done. Setting a timer for a small amount of time while you focus on a very specific task, helps you to hustle, stay on track and boost your motivation to keep trying each day. Something you think will take 40 minutes, could really only take 15, but you’ll never know until you try!

So set that timer for 15 minutes or less and challenge yourself to see just how many windows or doors you can wipe down before the time runs out. Ready, Set, Go!

8. Use a Printable House Cleaning schedule Checklist

This is the most helpful of all these cleaning tips. To make sure the whole house is getting cleaned without spending too much time each day, there needs to be a system to keep you on track. I’ve worked on perfecting this realistic house cleaning schedule for the last two years, and I’m so excited to share it with you!

If you’re looking for even MORE structure, check out my full homemaking planner!

What House Cleaning Should be Done Daily?

In order to keep the afloat when it comes to house cleaning, its important to keep up with the mess that happens daily just from living in your home:

Making your bed and tidying your bedroom. Having the master bedroom picked up really helps start and end the day on a good note.
Washing and putting away all dishes.
Making some kind of progress on your laundry.
Cleaning out your kitchen sink and stove top. Not deep cleaning but just a quick wiping down.
Wiping off the kitchen counters, high chair and dining table.
Sweeping the floors in the main living areas. Mopping or using a Swiffer if you have time. As a mom of 6, I generally don’t get to this.
Tidying up what is on the floor before bed. If you have kids, they can help by picking up their toys at the end of the day.

Read more about how to keep up with your housework here.

If you are starting from a place where you have no idea where to start with your house cleaning, this is a good place. Being consistent with these daily things is the first big step to staying on top of your housekeeping.

Read more about how to keep up on your laundry here.

How to Keep Up with general House Cleaning with a realistic schedule:

As a busy mom with a large house to keep up on, I have to come to terms with the fact that my whole house is not going to be clean at once. I wish it could, but I would kill myself trying!

The best solution I could come up with is to make sure my whole house does get clean, in a certain period of time. I’ve made this realistic cleaning schedule that takes me 15 minutes a day for about 6 weeks.

Kitchen:

sink
countertops
cabinet fronts
floors and baseboards
walls
windows and doors
appliances
dusting all surfaces including furniture and light fixtures

Dining Room:

dusting all surfaces including furniture and light fixtures
windows and doors
floors and baseboards
walls
table and chairs

Living Room / Playroom / Family Room / Office:

dusting all surfaces including furniture and light fixtures
windows and doors
floors and baseboards
walls

Bedrooms:

dusting all surfaces including furniture and light fixtures
windows and doors
floors and baseboards
walls

Bathrooms:

dusting all surfaces including furniture and light fixtures
windows, doors and mirrors
floors and baseboards
walls
toilet
sink
cabinet fronts
tub / shower

Laundry Room:

dusting all surfaces including furniture and light fixtures
windows and doors
walls
floors and baseboards

I work room by room, going through the checklist for each room. I try to spend only 15-20 minutes each day. It takes me a few days to get through the bigger rooms. Once I completely finish one, I move on to the next.

For bedrooms, I work on all of them at once: dusting in all of them one day, then doing all of the floors and baseboards the next. I clean all the bathrooms once a week on Fridays.

So what about inside closets and cabinets?

That is not what I consider basic general cleaning so that is a separate chore. Each weekday, I deep clean one thing that is not on the general house cleaning list above. Sticking to under 15 minutes each day.

This way by the end of the year I have tackled deep cleaning and organizing almost 300 spaces in my home!

a white kitchen sink full of dirty dishes

How stick With this realistic Cleaning schedule:

House cleaning is one of those never ending things. Its just never going to go away. Which can feel very discouraging and get old fast. Its so easy to give up and give in to the mess and dirt when we just aren’t feeling it. I get it!

Those days when the baby kept you up all night, or your toddler won’t nap, again. The dog ran through the house with muddy paws and it just feels like too much.

But let me tell you, those are the days to really stick to your house cleaning checklist. Don’t give in! If you let those rough days get the better of you, you will end the day feeling defeated and lose your focus. It will be even harder to feel motivated the next day.

Consistency is key! If keeping up on your house cleaning is something that is important to you and makes you feel happy, you have to put in the effort every day. On those rough days, instead of dusting all of the bedrooms, just dust for 5 minutes.

You can get much more done in 5 minutes than you might think and it will give you the feeling that you stuck to your plan for the day.

free printable house cleaning routine checklist

Just remember, if you can stick it out and stick to your house cleaning checklist for two months straight, it will get easier and easier. I promise! That’s the beauty of a routine, it becomes second nature and requires very little thought or planning. Push through that beginning phase and just remind yourself, it just gets better.

Find a different way to look at house cleaning than just a chore. Think of what a cleaned house means to your family. How it makes everyone feel better and happier when things are in order. Its beautiful, and a lost art that you are practicing.

For more ways to stay on top of your housework with toddlers, check out this post

Don’t forget your Free printable realistic House Cleaning schedule!

You can get started with a cleaning routine today! This routine is being used by women around the world, so why not give it a try yourself? Its free to download this printable house cleaning checklist that you can customize to fit your lifestyle. What are you waiting for? You’ve got this!

How To Use This realistic Cleaning schedule:

On your printable checklist PDF, you’re going to see a list of all of the house cleaning tasks it will take to completely clean your house from top to bottom. There are also some blank spots to fill in if you have extra rooms in your house that aren’t included in this list.

For example, I have a playroom in my house, so I fill in “playroom” in the blank spots for all of the tasks that it will take to clean my playroom completely.

On the next sheet of the printable are squares with the days of the week listed on them. You’ll see that Fridays are already filled out for you. Each week, you will pick 4 tasks from the long list of house cleaning tasks on the right. Fill them in to the week you’re currently in.

I’ve designed this printable house cleaning checklist to be very flexible so that if you’re going to be extra busy on a certain day of the week, you can choose a quick task to write in for that day.

For example, if I know I’m going to be extra busy on Wednesday this week, I’ll fill in the quickest task for that day. Cleaning windows in the kitchen is a fast one (we only have two small windows), so I’ll choose to mark that down for Wednesday so I have time to get it done.

Realistic Cleaning Schedule For Busy Moms {Free Printable!}