I've never been the type of person to follow a schedule. People with day planners, checking off boxes, making concise, organized lists in places other than the palms of their hands make me a little nervous. They stress me out! I simply, am not wired that way. I am very aware of my random nature. Have you ever seen a random person try to keep a house clean? You see where the problem is don't you? I've been known to smell something odd in the refrigerator so I begin to clean it out, then I spot an item that is hidden in the back, which causes me to think of a recipe, which leads to a mad search through my many cookbooks and scraps of paper piled in several corners and before you know it we have a completely out of place side dish cooked and there is still an odd smell coming from the fridge. No kidding! My husband is a saint! Pssst.... deep down he's a box checker, but I've gotten to him.
After studying it for quite awhile I took a deep breath and decided I that I MIGHT be able to actually do this. I tweaked it a bit to fit our family and our house a little better. So here is what I decided that I could pull off if I would rely on every ounce of organizational skill that I have been hoarding back all of these years:
Anyway, I saw this thing on Pinterest. Funny how so many of my conversations lately begin with those very words. The thing I saw was a cleaning schedule. At first I was put off by both of those words so I hesitated to look at it. Really, when there's SO many things to look at on Pinterest, why bother with a cleaning schedule? BUT, it made promises that I could not resist researching. Salesmen see me coming from MILES away. It said something along the lines of being able to keep a house clean and uncluttered with about 30 minutes/day of effort. I figured I could spare 30 minutes a day so I checked it out. This is what I found:
I am happy to report that I have been successfully following the schedule for a full month and I have yet to break out in hives. While my house is still not what you'd call pristine, it is no longer a complete mess. The thing I like best about this routine is that if we are expecting company we can easily get the house clean enough for guests in just a few minutes of combined effort. I really hope that this will help some of you out there who suffer from schedule anxiety and randomly clean house syndrome. Feel free to take it and make it your own. I'd love to hear some success stories.
* I accidently left "and clean out vehicles" on the 4th Swing Day. We do not clean the cars out twice a month, but that's not to say that we shouldn't! ;-)