This cleaning schedule for working moms will ensure you clean your house as quickly and as easily as possible.
Developing a cleaning schedule for working moms is like all other things in life. You need to find what works for you and your family.
We all have different needs and priorities, and I have learned that ‘clean’ is very subjective and different for everyone. Some people prefer their house to be tidy while others prefer it clean.
Some moms are happy to let their home go to rack and ruin and invest time building their career and raising their children. As a full time working mom with twins who runs a blog, is a co-parent and has her passions outside of work and kids, I have tried and tested a few methods and found what works for me.
The ultimate goal is a good balance between a clean and tidy house while still having time to enjoy life and your family. That’s where the cleaning schedule for working moms will help you set a realistic and achievable timetable. It’s all about finding a balance to enjoy life.
Working and managing children is complex, and there are occasions when you might need to lower your expectations as you realise you can’t do it all.
We have provided a free printable weekend and weekly cleaning schedule for working moms to help you get started. Once you have set and implemented your schedule, we recommend you review it regularly, tweaking and fine-tuning it until you have the perfect schedule for you and your family.
“Both of us can’t look good at the same time; it’s either me or the house.”
Expectations
As a working mom, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by everything there is to do. If you previously kept a spotless house, lowering your expectations and working out what you are willing to let go of in the name of your sanity will help you adjust.
Along with working full time and running my blog, I also need to exercise and get enough sleep. I have sacrificed other things, including a perfectly tidy house, to ensure I have time for these two priorities because they make me a good mom and a better person.
Self-care is one of the characteristics of being a good mother and is a critical element in making you a better person, a better mother and ensuring you enjoy your parenting journey.
It is challenging to acknowledge our limitations when working and being a mom. Although you no longer feel like you can be the best employee or have the cleanest house, recognise why you had your children.
It was not so you could spend your life feeling guilty and inadequate, it was to enrich your life. The ultimate goal is to get to a place where you feel happy at home and work.
So permit yourself to do what works best for you and your family without the guilt. Often this entails accepting you are only human and that there will be periods the house takes a back seat due to other commitments.
I clean my house for a few hours and then tell my guests, “Sorry about the mess”.
Priorities
Being a working mom is a time-consuming task, so achieving everything we want can take compromise, sacrifice and trade-offs. You don’t want to spend your whole life working, so our cleaning schedule for working moms will eliminate stress and ensure you get some downtime.
Concerning how you prioritise, it will depend on what is important to you and your family; however, it’s good to focus on what you know you need to feel good. You need to spend a lot of time in your house, and you want it to be pleasant enough to enjoy.
Note: If you need some ideas on reconnecting to yourself, mind, body and soul, read our article on self-love for moms.
Examples of differing priorities:
If you feel overwhelmed when the house is messy, prioritising 10 – 15 minutes in the morning and evening to tidy up will be imperative.
If you cannot schedule a time during the week, your priority will be to time block over the weekend rather than tackling small tasks every day.
“Cleaning with children in the house is like brushing your teeth while eating chocolate.”
Time Management
Nobody likes to talk about time management, but the secret to a successful life is managing your time well. As a working mom, it’s important to avoid procrastination, both at home and at work.
Following our cleaning schedule for working moms will ensure you know which chores need to be done and when they will be done. Obviously, as working moms, our plans get thrown out constantly but knowing what’s next on the list when you get a free moment will save time ensuring you stay focused.
Ideally, you want to break your tasks down into practical and doable sessions and try to do them at the same time every day, so it becomes a habit.
Using Apps
There’s an app for everything these days, including cleaning. Why not download a free app such as clean my house to help you organise your home.
The app will remind you of your tasks every morning, and you can tick them off as you go. For more amazing apps to streamline your life, you can view our article on the best apps for moms here. We have recommendations for photos, videos, recipes, productivity, fitness, organisation, weight loss, etc.
Cleaning Tools
Another time-saving technique is ensuring you have all the right tools to clean as effectively and efficiently as possible. These easy to use, convenient items will make you look forward to cleaning.
These six tools will save you time and are worth consideration:
Robovac
Use a Robovac to reduce your need to vacuum manually to bi-weekly. Set and schedule while you are at work.
This model is quiet, compact, sleek and easy to use, and it’s a great price point for the quality.
Spin Mop
Swivel machine washable mop heads that fit into corners, under furniture and around kitchen tables and chairs. The telescoping handle makes it easy to clean small spaces and get into hard to reach places. Easy, convenient and practical.
Window Cleaner
Cleaning windows is a huge pain and can also be quite time-consuming. This little helper will take some of the pain out of the task. It’s lightweight, convenient and easy to use.
Cleaning Caddy
Assemble all the items you need to accomplish your cleaning task, then put them in a bucket or caddy, so you have all the supplies you need together. This one is sturdy, fits a good amount of cleaning supplies and is easy to carry.
Microfibre Cloths
Using microfibre cloths rather than furniture polish will ensure your furniture collects less dust. Microfibre cloths also require less strength and product to get things clean.
Soap Dispensing Brush
This soap dispensing brush is excellent for scrubbing dishes before they go into the dishwasher. It’s easy for children to use, sturdy, holds a good amount of detergent and doesn’t leak.
Declutter
Clutter can cause stress, zap energy and make cleaning harder. Having less stuff to clean and organise will make your life easier and more manageable.
If you can’t part with your “stuff”, box it up and put it somewhere out of view. If you don’t use it within 12 months, don’t reopen the box; just throw it away.
Anything you get out in the 12 months may be worth keeping. It’s therapeutic to declutter and gives you a feeling of lightness coupled with a new lease on life.
You will feel more relaxed and find cleaning is a breeze when everything has a place.
Speed Cleaning
“I get more cleaning done in the 10 minutes before someone comes over than I do in a week.”
Speed cleaning is not about getting your home perfectly clean and can make cleaning fun. Use speed cleaning when you are in a hurry and have guests arriving, or make it a permanent feature of your weekly cleaning schedule for working moms.
You will need your caddy with you, and I find putting some music on or a funny podcast is a great way to keep you entertained as you clean. You will also need a basket for collecting the items that need to be returned around the house.
Put all lost items in the basket as soon as you enter a room. Go from room to room and save your sweeping /vacuuming / or mopping until the end. Bedrooms and bathroom/s should take 5-10 minutes, dining and kitchen 10-15 minutes and then hopefully you can do the final clean in 15 minutes.
You can also find over 113 time-saving tips including, one that will give you 15 days, back per year, visit our article on time-saving tips for moms.
Your bathroom caddy should contain everything you need for each room. Stock it with multi-surface cleaners, microfiber cloths, sponges, dusters, gloves etc., so you have everything you need with you. Alternatively, ensure each room has a store of the items you need to clean close at hand.
Bedrooms
Make the bed, put everything away, dust surfaces.
Bathroom
Squirt toilet bowl with cleaner, use bathroom wipes or cloth to wipe down sink and shower. Squirt water in the bath, wipe if needed. Use wipes or rags to disinfect the toilet and surrounding floor.
Dining / Lounge – Tidy and dust.
Kitchen – Put dishes in the sink, unload / load dishwasher, handwash dishes/pots/pans, put everything on benches away. Spray and wipe all surfaces, wipe down stovetop.
Final
Vacuum, sweep, or mop floors. Wipe down windows and mirrors, put away items collected in baskets.
Make it Fun
Aside from putting music on or listening to a podcast, other fun ways to clean include:
Calling a friend and chatting while cleaning.
Listening to an audiobook.
Having a good tv show/movie on in the background.
Get all household members involved in cleaning, including children. Make it a game by seeing how much cleaning you can get done in ten minutes. Set a timer and race! Set rewards to make it even more fun.
Use a whiteboard to list the chores, give each task different points based on how hard it is and how much time it takes. The person with the most points at the end is the winner.
Turn your house cleaning into a workout. Pump up the music, track your steps and burn some calories! You will be walking, lifting, scrubbing and carrying, so it’s all counted.
If you have a room that’s full of clutter, take before, during and after photos so you can admire your handiwork.
Celebrate!
Once the house is clean, do something to celebrate and reward yourself for your outstanding efforts.
Sample Cleaning Schedule for Working Moms
Some tasks need to be done daily, regardless of whether you choose to clean on your day off or chip away at tasks daily. Your cleaning schedule will include making the bed, washing dishes/packing/unpacking the dishwasher and tidying up every day.
These ‘clean as you go routines’ will ensure you always remain on top of things and live in a manageable household.
Daily Routine
Morning
Make Bed/s
Unload Dishwasher
Reload Dishwasher
Wipe down kitchen benches
General Tidy
Evening
After dinner, wipe the table and counters
Spot sweep or vacuum floor (usually under the table and in the kitchen)
Load and run dishwasher
General Tidy
Take out trash
Laundry
“Don’t you love those 12 seconds when the laundry is all done”?
These laundry products are worth considering as they will save your time and your socks!
Laundry Sorter
This sturdy and lightweight laundry sorter will save you time. It’s big enough to hold a lot of washing and it even has brakes! You can wheel it from room to room or detach the bags separately as needed in the laundry.
Sock Clips
These sock clips keep socks together in the wash. They can go in the washer and dryer, they don’t leave holes in your socks and your socks stay in pairs while being washed and dried.
Handheld Steamer
Use a handheld steamer to reduce ironing time. Steamers heat up faster than irons, they don’t require an ironing board and you can steam clothes while they are still on the hanger.
Whether you choose to do laundry all at once or a little each day, it’s up to you. What I would say is, try doing a small amount every day and doing it all in one day.
After you have completed a trial, you can decide what is right for you. Dealing with laundry daily means it never piles up, it’s always manageable, and the relief from the mental load is fantastic!
You might love the 15 minutes per day routine more than you love the time blocking once or twice a week, usually on days off.
Daily Laundry Routine
If you have a timer on your machine, set the timer, so your washing machine starts in the morning and is ready to hang or put in the dryer as soon as you wake up. If you don’t have a timer, put a load on in the evening, so it’s ready for the morning.
Morning
When you wake up, either hang your washing out or put it in the dryer.
Evening
Fold and put away the laundry from the day before.
Load the washer up and set the timer for the next day.
Daily Cleaning Routine
If you choose to do a little cleaning every day to free up your weekends or days off, you will focus on one room per day choosing from kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, other rooms.
Weekly Cleaning Schedule for Working Moms
You can download the free printable weekly cleaning schedule for working moms below.
This is a fast and organised weekly cleaning routine that takes 20 – 30 minutes per day. The aim is to get 80% of it done 80% of the time. Good enough is good enough!
Weekly Cleaning Schedule for Working Moms – Weekend or Days off
Ideally, you want to blitz your housework on Saturday morning, so you have the rest of the weekend to trash the place. I mean, to enjoy your lovely clean house. You can get everyone in the household involved and use some of the ideas in this article to make it fast and fun. Pump your music, grab your caddy and let’s go!
Laundry
“Have you ever looked at the last few loads of laundry and considered just throwing them away”?
Gather all the laundry and separate it into loads. Get the first cycle going as soon as possible and if your cycle end signal is not audible, set a timer on your phone every time you start a load.
Having a timer in earshot will ensure you can hang or put the load into the dryer and start the next one as soon as possible. Ideally, you will fold and put laundry away as it comes out of the dryer or off the line.
Note: If you are not using the dryer, try to hang clothes immediately after the timer has gone off to minimise wrinkles.
If you are hanging and drying, put clothes on hangers.
Try to put dry clothes in the basket flat to minimise wrinkles if you are not folding immediately.
Alternatively, if you choose to block time for your laundry, you could use a laundromat. It might cost a bit extra, but you can put all the loads on simultaneously and go out for a coffee, read a book or enjoy a mindfulness for moms moment while the laundry is washed and dried.
If you are looking for ideas on what to read while you are waiting for your laundry, you can visit our article on the best self-help books for moms. We have book recommendations for compassion, mindfulness, forgiveness, health, relationships, career development, positivity, gratitude, etc.
Tidy
Grab a basket and go from room to room, tidy everything away and put anything that doesn’t belong in that room in your basket. Tidying up first means you will have a clean surface to dust and vacuum later.
Dust and Clean Glass
We recommend using a microfibre cloth and working from top to bottom for dusting.
Wipe Surfaces
We are working from the top down, so wipe down the bathroom, kitchen surfaces, desks etc.
Clean Bathrooms and Kitchen
Finally, clean Floors
Put all laundry away
You can download the free printable weekend cleaning schedule for working moms below.
“Our house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy”.
Working, prioritising self-care, and being there for your children while keeping a clean house are monumental tasks. We all want an immaculate and tidy home but being a working mom means prioritising other things.
If the beds are not made every day, and the floors are not always spotless, you are still doing a brilliant job. These cleaning schedules for working moms are practical, achievable and easy to follow, but if you can’t get to specific tasks every week, they will still be waiting for you next week (sadly!).
Related: For ideas on what to buy the new mom, visit our 85 new mom care package and gift ideas here.
Using this cleaning schedule for working moms will ensure you clean your house as quickly and as easily as possible.
