Schedule | Cup of Tea

I have always been a schedule-driven person. Schedules keep me on task and it ensures that I keep productive throughout the day, because while I may be a schedule-driven person, I am also a closet Lazy Person.

So, when I transitioned to my new life as a Stay at Home Mom, I decided to make myself a schedule to make sure I didn’t forget any day to day tasks. Besides being a mom and keeping a home, I also have blog responsibilities and work for clients (I’m a marketing consultant, doing work from home).

Sharing my schedule with you isn’t meant to be braggy. I enjoy reading how other people schedule their days, and then I try do a little tweaking! My schedule also isn’t to make it seem like I have it all together. Trust me – this schedule doesn’t happen like this every single day. This is what I HOPE happens every day.

Here’s an example of my typical day:

5:00am – Wake up and quiet time; Work on blog
6:30am – Breakfast with husband, clean up, then start to get ready for day
7:00am – Baby wakes up; Fix baby breakfast; Play time
8:30am – Bath time
9:00am – Baby’s first nap, then tackle more computer work
10:30am – Baby wakes up, do some housework with her
11:00am – Snack, then run errands
12:00pm – Lunch & Play time
1:00pm – Baby’s afternoon nap, tackle blog/work items
3:00pm – Baby wakes up & have snack; Tackle more housework
4:00pm – Prep dinner, husband comes home
4:30pm – Dinner time, then clean up
5:00pm – Baby play time
6:00pm – Get baby ready for bed
6:30pm – Baby in bed. Go downstairs and pick up toys
7:00pm – Watch TV with husband
8:00pm – Shower
8:30pm – Tackle more client work (if needed)
9:30pm – Bed time!

It looks intense all written out. I promise it’s not! Basically, when Elizabeth is up, I try to stay away from the computer and phone, and tackle housework only. She loves coming around the house with me, starting laundry, vacuuming, and so on. When she’s asleep, that’s when I work on the computer and finish either blog work or work for my clients.

I find that when I stick to the same routine every day, it flows well! And by tackling a little housework each day, I don’t have one day where it feels overwhelming.

Do you stick to a schedule? Even if you don’t stay at home like me, do you find that a schedule helps you stay on track? Or are you a to-do list person instead? Tell me all about it!

One of the hardest things for me, each week, is keeping up with housekeeping. It’s one of those things that I put off if there are other things that have to get done.

Please tell me I’m not the only one?

So to help me stay motivated and not overwhelmed each week, I divide out all the household tasks and try to spread them out, so one day isn’t a massive cleaning day. Cleaning tasks are also something I can do when Elizabeth is awake and playing. I save blogging and other computer work for when she is naps.

I found this really cool Day-of-the-Week notepad in the dollar section of Target. It has a magnet on the back, and lives on the side of my refrigerator. As you can see, it’s got a mix of housekeeping items on there, as well as weekly, repeating to-dos.

Every Sunday, I do my Menu Planning/Grocery List, Blog Planning and Cleaning Planning for the coming week. I sit down with this little notepad and write in the cleaning schedule. I put the cleaning/repeat tasks in each daily square, and write from the bottom up.

Then I add, from the top down, in each daily square, any errands or appointments that are coming up. Sorry you don’t get to see that. (Nosey Nancy!)

So here’s my weekly cleaning schedule, in a little more detail!

Monday
Laundry – Load of Darks
Vacuum Downstairs
Iron

Tuesday
Dust Upstairs (Includes all shutters and baseboards)
Vacuum Upstairs (Includes under dressers and beds)
Laundry – Load of Lights/Whites

Wednesday
Laundry – Load of Towels
Clean Bathrooms (Toilet, Shower, Sinks/Counters, Mop Floor)
Empty Trashcans (Includes mini trash cans in bathrooms & the diaper pail)
Laundry – Baby Stuff

Thursday
Dust Downstairs (Includes all shutters and baseboards)
Kitchen Clean (Wipe cabinets, spot clean refrigerator/microwave/oven, scrub sink, polish stainless steel)
Laundry – Load of Darks

Friday
Vacuum Downstairs
Mop High-Traffic Areas
Quick Clean (Just general tidying before the weekend)

Saturday
Nothing – day off of cleaning!

Sunday
Tidy, nothing major
Plan out cleaning for next week

It seems intense, but, honestly, if you tackle a little bit each day, it’s not so overwhelming.

Here are the things that I do every day:

Unload the dishwasher in the AM
Make the bed
Put away any items left on our bathroom counter once I’m done getting ready
Then, wipe down our bathroom counter/sink
Pick up any clothes my husband left on the floor in our bedroom
Pick up any shoes, ties, coats, etc downstairs and take them upstairs
Pick up any toys and put away
Stack magazines in one spot
Go through mail as soon as it comes inside and sort
Clean up after every meal
Wipe counters after every meal
Load dishwasher with dirty dishes as I go throughout the day
If the dishwasher gets full in the middle of the day, I run it! Dirty dishes waiting to go in the dishwasher go in the sink, out of sight
Start the dishwasher every night before bed

This Daily List looks like a lot, but, honestly, from start to finish this takes me NO MORE than an hour. And this is spread out throughout the day. This ensures that, even if I did NOTHING from the weekly cleaning schedule, the house at least looks tidy, and we could have people over spontaneously for dinner without me panicking! (That’s my usual benchmark for how the house looks – if a friend popped over, right now, for a cup of tea, would I be ok with that?)

If you work outside of the home every day (been there, done that! I understand!), this is completely manageable. Tackle the first half in the morning before you leave, then the second half in the evening, right after dinner. Then after that’s done, curl up with a cup of tea and watch Breaking Bad (our fav show right now).

I hope this is helpful for you! There are a ton of resources out there for a master cleaning schedule, with daily/weekly/monthly cleaning tasks so major dirt doesn’t pile up. I’ve pinned some of my favorite schedules, as well as other cleaning/organization tips in Pinterest. Follow the board if you need a little inspiration. (It’s nice to look at other people’s clean spaces instead of actually cleaning, right??)