Creating a House Cleaning Checklist that Works

Do you have trouble keeping up with your house cleaning? I work at home and have a busy schedule. Between family, friends, and working as a writer, it really is a challenge keeping up with my basic chores.

To help, I've learned that creating a house cleaning checklist is the key to keeping my home clean. Without the checklist, I let the house get messy as I do other things. The house cleaning checklist helps me identify the important chores and ignore the rest.

If you are wondering how to create your own house cleaning checklist, read on. This is the approach I use.

House cleaning tasks. Take some time to figure out exactly what needs to get done each week. Make a list of everything you think is important. It is important to include everything.

Make another list of what needs to get done each day. These will be tasks such as doing the dishes and sweeping the kitchen floor. However, every family will have different items on each list. For example, families that have a lot of laundry may find that they need to do at least one load a day. This will not be true of everyone.

Make several lists. After you make your two lists, one for weekly chores and the other for daily chores, you will need to make two more lists. Make one list that includes the bare essentials for weekly chores and daily chores.

This is the list you will use if you are busy and can't spend a lot of time cleaning. On the other days, you can use the longer list.

Post it somewhere visible. Once you make your four lists, post it on the refrigerator or other place where you can see it. If your family helps with the chores, you can take this one step further and use the list to assign people different tasks.

I like to use a white board so I can keep the list up and check things off as I go. At the end of the day or the end of the week all I need to do is erase the check marks.

Evaluate your progress. It may take several tries to come up with a set of lists that will keep your house clean and shiny. If you feel like an item that you list as "daily" is actually more of a weekly chore, for example, feel free to move it.

That is why it is important to continually evaluating your progress. You want to come up with a house cleaning checklist that will work with your lifestyle. If your house is still messy, something on that list needs to change.