And I don’t mean that you routinely avoid cleaning, routinely have someone else do it or routinely ignore it. I mean a real routine where everything in your house is cleaned at least once a quarter.
Just once every three months! I’m not talking about cleaning all the things every week or even every month. Just once a quarter.
In December each year I make up a calendar using THIS Google calendar for the next year and print it out. I use this calendar is only for the cleaning schedule. You can use it for more, print out multiples or change it to best fit your needs. Click the link and make a copy to edit as needed.
I fill in the trash days when they send out the schedule. The other days I fill in the month before. This way if something in the routine isn’t working or needs changed I can easily make that change the following month.
I use different colors for different frequencies of the chore being done. The quarterly chore is in purple, monthly chores in pink and weekly chores in orange. I have circled some of the weekly chores with pink, because while dusting is weekly, the room that is dusted is monthly and this helps me remember that when I think about not doing it for the week.
There is one quarterly chore per month. Put that chore on the day that best suites you. This might not be the same day every month depending on your month and what the chore is.
There are 3 months in each quarter so think of 3 or 6 things that you want done once a quarter. The 6 things should still be “bigger” but not huge undertakings so that you can easily do 2 in a month and maybe even on the same day.
Your quarterly chores might vary depending on your lifestyle and home. Here are mine.
Curtains
Ceiling fans
Baseboards
You can see my weekly chores in the photo above. I of course have daily chores that I don’t write on the calendar. Those instead go on my daily to-do lists for the week. I place these items on my list in the time frame I want to complete the chore. I don’t do all the chores first thing in the morning. My body isn’t a morning person. By the time my body is “with it” my brain is distracted and deep into projects. I work best with multiple activity changes and spacing my chores throughout the day gives me breaks to think and my brain space to solve problems in the background. I know that not everyone can work like this due to how your body and mind work or your life schedule. When I had children around this looked very different.
When the children were around we had a bigger house and more animals. Everyone had inside and outside chores and those chores rotated monthly. Again 3 months in a quarter and we have 3 children so that worked out nicely for us.
When we moved to the city, only the 2 youngest came with us, no animals and a smaller house. We tried rotated chores but one didn’t like how the other did those and so they both asked to have a certain set and leave it that way. We did.
Children having chores helps them learn life skills, responsibility and feel like they are part of team. I will do a future post on the chores the children owned and at what ages and share a bit with you about how they’re doing now.
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Happy Making!