How to Create A Housekeeping Checklist

Like most other activities, housekeeping becomes easier when you have a ready list of things-to-do. With a house cleaning list handy, you can make sure no cleaning activity gets left undone, and your home remains a pleasure to live in! You also become ultimately much more efficient. Read on to see how to create a house cleaning list.

Step #1 - List Down Every Single Cleaning Activity In Your House

Creating a house cleaning list is fairly simple -- all you have to do is to spend 5 minutes in each room of your house, jotting down on a piece of paper every single cleaning activity that's ever going to be done in that room.

The key to following a housekeeping checklist is routine and repetition, so after listing down all the cleaning activities in your home, SCHEDULE each and every activity.

Step #2 - Decide How Often Your Tasks Need To Be Done

Take a good look at the cleaning activities you've listed down. Beside each activity, mark how often you need to do each activity. Do you need to do them daily? Weekly? Monthly? Or will they be okay if you did them once every season? Decide!

"Daily" cleaning tasks may include making your beds, washing the dishes, wiping down your sinks and stoves, and clearing clutter from the living room. Cleaning the bathroom, on the other hand, may be a "weekly" task, and mucking out your closets may be a "seasonal" task.

Here's a tip -- don't get tempted to list everything as a "daily" task. Cleaning DOES have its fun side, but it's still possible to "overclean" a portion of your house. It's a waste of time and energy, and may even be bad. For instance, if you wash your curtains every month, you'll soon find that you're buying more new curtains per year!

Overall, a good house cleaning list will make sure that no corner of your house gets neglected over time, and ends up gathering dust, clutter, mildew, and other things that may breed disease and vermin.

Step #3 - Decide WHEN Your Tasks Need To Be Done

The third step is to schedule the days when your tasks need to be done. You may, for instance want to do certain things on Mondays when everyone's out of the house, such as changing and washing bed linen and cleaning the bathroom. You may also want to clean the back porch on Fridays before the folks come over for the weekend.

But here's another important tip -- don't forget to schedule frequent "off-days," where you don't do any cleaning besides the usual daily tasks. That way you'll have the time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the spotlessness of your home. You are, after all, entitled to enjoy the fruits of your cleaning efforts!

For an effective and enjoyable house cleaning list, make sure to make it reasonable. Make sure that you don't burn out just by doing your usual cleaning tasks! Just do the amount of cleaning you can reasonably handle, and cleaning starts to become fun.

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