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Weekly Cleaning Schedule: Improve Your Cleaning Habits

Weekly Cleaning Schedule
Welcome to Spring Cleaning Week at Classy Clutter! This week we are focusing on how to get organized and clean our homes! We will be sharing a few tips, tricks and ideas to help you get your home in order. What better way to start then coming up with a cleaning schedule.
Every Monday, I get overwhelmed thinking about my week if I do not have some sort of schedule mapped out. I have come up with a cleaning schedule that is basically life changing. You can get your home *sparking* clean in about an hour a day. You don’t have to do it all in one solid hour, you can break it up throughout the day if necessary but having a plan  and a weekly cleaning schedule it makes things sooo much easier!
This is my plan for each week but I have included a blank schedule for you and a lined one if you prefer to use that. You can simply save the image and open it in Picmonkey.com to create your own weekly schedule or feel free to use mine! You can adapt it to whatever works for you in your home.  You will notice that Friday and Saturday have a smaller area to write down chores. Usually our weekends can get pretty busy but if I have a couple things planned to clean up, I feel like I’m more on top of it all.
If you prefer the lines save & print this one!
I like to do focus on one room a day + my daily tasks. You’ll notice on my daily tasks I include a “quick pick up”. This includes toys, clothes on the floor throughout the house, dishes left out, basically, a super quick tidy up. Sometimes I have to do this several times a day. That’s what happens when you have 3 boys under 4 years old. I find it easier if I encourage them to clean up after themselves and do it as I go about my day. I’m really working on “everything has it’s own place” and teaching the boys where everything goes so it’s easy for them when they’re asked to put something away.
Here’s my Weekly Cleaning Schedule that is working for us. Feel free to use it or use one of the other printables to make your own!
That’s it! hope it helps someone out there! I know it seems like a lot. It may take you over an hour at first but once you start memorizing your list and get through the first week or two, it will become routine and things will tend to stay cleaner longer! If anyone needs help saving the documents, let me know. Usually you can just right click > save image as. > name it whatever you’d like and print!
Oh! Here is my laundry schedule if anyone wants to use that as well. 🙂
Good luck and I can’t wait to show you what else we have in store for your for Cleaning week! Be sure to check out my “Cleaning Pinterest Board” for more cleaning tips, tricks and tutorials!
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23 Comments

  1. You’re so sweet to offer a printable- I need to get better organized in this area! I try to do all my deep cleaning on Monday (after the weekend slop! lol) but sometimes the small chores get put on the back burner. Thanks for sharing, Mallory! (: xo

  2. This is so awesome!!! I never learned to clean growing up but trying to change that & teach my kids but not very good yet. Thank you so much for posting the blank one & the one filled out & sharing that you pick up multiple times a day. I never even thought to clean baseboards. LOL Thank you!!! 🙂

  3. Hello sir, Are you ok?

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  4. I just found your site from another blog, Jilly and Mia. You girls are great and I am loving your blog. I will be visiting a lot more now that I found you! I have save some of the Cleaning Schedule printable’s that I will be using. Thanks for making them and allowing us to download them.

    1. Hi there!

      I am also interested in knowing if you have a schedule that is fillable and able to print. If so, how can I obtain a copy? Many thanks!

  5. Pingback: Laundry Schedule | Living a Rookie Life
  6. Thank you for the free printables! Most weekdays with work and kids sports/coaching after, we are gone 12hours a day sometimes, so most of our housework gets done on the weekends around those busy schedules … I’m really trying to incorporate a little bit each day (like 20min for everyone) to work on keeping tidy throughout the week!

  7. Thank you for sharing this table. I will print this down, I will put this in my room and start prioritizing what to clean on the day. It will teach me to be organize in cleaning my home. Cheers to this.

  8. Warning…the following is VERY LONG, but I promise there’s a purpose to it if you read all the way to the end! Thank you in advance for taking the time to do so (if you should choose)…

    Thank you SO much for these helpful hints! I’m your typical Type “A”, OCD, perfectionist personality. I love all things dealing with organizing and in groups by color! I was even keeping my husband’s t-shirts in our closet in rainbow order since I was the one who did all of the laundry. This annoyed him (and me as I would find things “out of order” on a daily basis!) so I stopped. I figured I’d put that extra energy and attention to our other household common areas and my own side of the closet.

    Anyway, my husband & I moved into a new house 7 years ago, in May of 2008. Previous to the move, I was very stressed with packing up the whole house and trying to keep things organized as I did so. I wasn’t feeling my best and then shortly after, I started to feel worse and have health (female) problems. I found out I had a golf ball sized cyst on my right very and a softball sized fibroid in my uterus, so I had to have a partial hysterectomy and had surgery on Dec.18,2008. Our first Christmas in our new house was spent with me in bed most of the time, trying to heal and recover. They said it would take 6-8 weeks to recover, but after 3 months, I STILL hadn’t recovered and didn’t know why. I had no energy and was lethargic all the time. I don’t like to complain or let people down and if I’m hurting or not feeling well, I tend to keep a “stiff upper lip,” not say anything and just deal with it. So I attempted to get back to work with my brother-in-law who is a Land Surveyor (it’s a family business). Inside, I’m the office manager and I draw the completed jobs (plats) on our AutoCad drawing software. Outside in the field, I’m like a surveyor “assistant” cutting line and chopping downs trees, weeds, vines and briars with my machete, helping to mark property lines and set corners using 1/2″ rebar, running the instrument and data collector, and using the prism pole to go to specific places he tells me to; where he needs a shot. Basically I know a little bit of everything. I would wear a 15 pound tool belt and could carry 20-40 extra pounds of equipment on my shoulder while hiking up steep inclines. I was very strong for a girl (I’m not stocky either…5’6″ and 113 pounds).

    I managed to be able to get a fair amount of work done for more than a year, but then my strength started to fade away again, When that happened, I made an appointment with a Rheumatologist in early April, 2010. I found out I had a very severe case of Fibromyalgia! Well, that explained the fatigue, lethargy, daily body aches & pains and headaches I was having. During all of this time I also wasn’t feeling myself at all. I just didn’t care about anything anymore and I didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything. I had daily “stress” headaches (I was dealing with a difficult, narcissistic mother and I worked in a very taxing, physical job, often in very hot weather, so of course I’d have headaches, right?!) My overall feeling of malaise was overtaking all aspects of my life, not only in my work but my marriage included. Things started to “fall apart” and our house got messy. Mail began to pile up and my emails piled up too, often not being answered or even acknowledged! This was NOT me! My husband & I love the outdoors and were avid hikers, bicyclists and kayakers, among many other activities. I was an avid scrapbooker and a consultant for Stampin’ Up!, holding monthly workshops and “Stamp Camps” for my girlfriends. My basement could closely rival any Michael’s or A.C. Moore out there! (And only half of my craft items are unpacked and put away in their places after SEVEN years!) I continued looking for answers when my amazing Rheumatologist referred me to a Neurologist to check out my daily stress headaches. I’m so thankful she did! My Neurologist ordered an MRI and 2 weeks after I learned I suffered from Fibromyalgia, I found out I had a brain tumor! (It is located in the front right lobe of my brain…the side that controls all of my emotions!) Finally I had some answers! So THAT’S why I hadn’t been myself for so long! I was grateful….I know that sounds awful to be grateful for finding out you have a brain tumor, but it answered SO many questions about my health and moods!

    I had an initial brain surgery to see what type of tumor it was…a WHO Grade 2 Oligoastrocytoma. After that surgery on April 27th, 2010, I healed quickly. That surgery was super easy and I had NO pain whatsoever afterward. (They had only made a burr hole in my skull to go in and take a tissue sample of the tumor to do a biopsy on it.) A Grade 2 out of 4 wasn’t that bad. They told me it was very slow growing and that I’d probably had it for years…for reference, staying with the sports theme here, it was the size of a baseball.

    They put me on steroids to control my brain swelling and I gained 60 pounds in less than TWO months! I gained the weight so quickly and was so uncomfortable that it felt like my skin was going to rip apart! I gained most of the weight in my belly and I seriously looked like I was nine months pregnant! Mind you, this was AFTER I had my hysterectomy! So I was bedridden because I’d get out of breath by just walking up and down the stairs with that extra weight…and taking a shower and washing my hair made me weak for the rest of the day! My arms would feel like I’d just lifted 100 lb. weights for an hour! I felt like a very weak, incapable rag doll.

    I was going stir crazy not being able to work and not being able to do things around the house like I used to….I couldn’t even push a vacuum cleaner! That’s when I decided to start with some small organizing projects & get some things done at home that I’d been meaning to get done for those past years (5 at the time) since we moved. So I started with a Zip-loc bag of recipes I’d clipped out or printed and gathered including those that my husband brought home from the firehouse when someone made dinner and he really liked a dish….I finally put them into a recipe book I got at my bridal shower (in 2002!). Then I updated my address book and birthday calendar, erasing people who I lost touch with, and adding new contacts. I got onto Facebook and sent messages to my friends and family asking for current addresses and birth dates. Following that, I typed up NEW Christmas card address labels (alphabetized of course!), making different groupings for: family, friends, firehouse family, neighbors and medical people (doctors, nurses, even the place where I get my regular MRIs done). Then I cleaned out and organized our pantry. I was so proud of it I posted a picture of it on Facebook. I got SO many replies to that photo! Someone said that our cereal boxes weren’t lined up according to height…I replied that they were…mine were simply on the left side and my husband’s were on the right! LOL You should see our junk drawer now!

    A year after my initial brain surgery, a routine MRI showed a new tumor growth. I decided to get aggressive with the next step. They were going to have to do another brain surgery to go in, grab a sample and do the biopsy. So since I had to have that surgery again, I decided to just get a Craniotomy so that they could resect the new tumor and while they were in there, remove any extra tumor from the original one. The Craniotomy was seriously a piece of cake and I had NO pain. When asked to rate my pain on a 1-10 scale, I fibbed and said like a 2 or 3 because I didn’t think they’d believe me if I said “zero”…I had a titanium plate and screws in my skull and about 20 staples across the whole front of my forehead! I was blessed with great doctors, wonderful care and fortunate to having a very high tolerance for pain! So I came back home and….rested, recuperated, got the staples removed from my head and then….

    Onto the next project…

    I made this huge, GORGEOUS 3” 3-ringed binder that I titled “Danielle’s Brain Tumor.” There’s a color picture of a brain with all of the parts labeled that I slipped between the plastic cover on the outside of my notebook. Then I made an index (that was in alphabetical order of course!) of the sections; the section tabs (in rainbow & number order of course!) in my notebook had sections such as: 1.) Chemo: I printed blank calendar templates and filled in the times I took my ORAL (yea!) chemo meds. I used 4 different colored markers to show when I took my pills in the a.m., p.m., and for my two anti-nausea meds. I also included the invoices from my mail order speciality pharmacy (for the very expensive chemo drugs) behind each monthly template. 2.) Emails: I print out every doctor correspondence, such as questions I’ve had and their replies. 3.) Medications: I hole punched (and put in alphabetical order) all of the medication side effect pages to keep them on hand in case I was having a strange side effect, such as a dry mouth, so that I could determine which medication(s) it could be and then I’d be more educated when asking my doctor(s) about the problem and thus, many times, being able to work with my doctors to adjust the dose of the drug(s). The notebook soon started bursting out at the seams and I had to upgrade to a 4″ binder!

    I made a separate notebook just for ANY type of medical notes. I put my post-it notes in there of notes I make when my appointments are made (or changed), notes from phone calls, etc. All notes have the date and the time I spoke to them as well so that I’ve got documented records for my own personal history.

    There’s a separate binder I bought that’s typically used to organize CD’s. I always get a copy of my MRIs on CD and put them in this notebook.

    I typed up a page showing which steroids I took and the tapering schedule I followed when getting off of them. Then I created my ⭐️Masterpiece,⭐️ what I’m most proud of: my “Updated Medical Information” which I’ve added to since 2010 and update for every single doctor appointment. It is now 14 pages and I jokingly call it my “dissertation!”. It’s SO much easier having that to help quicken the process of checking in and filling out the standard paperwork…Now when I’m asked: “List all medications you currently take”: I just write “See page 2 & 3 of Medical Information provided. My “dissertation” includes such things as: my personal & emergency contact info, my work info., my legal documents available upon request (like my will and Power of Attorney), all of the current medications I take, including the directions/dosage (both RX and OTC), all radiation dates, chemo cycles, dates of physical therapy & massages, previous surgeries, dates of MRIs, diagnoses and other tests I’ve had done, and all doctors who are currently or who have previously treated me, including their addresses, phone & fax numbers, dates I last saw them and next appointments scheduled. Along the way, I’ve added such things as my height, weight, shots & immunizations, dates & results of mammograms and family history. Like I said, it’s my dissertation that is steadily growing and may become a novel very soon!

    My many medications are organized by removable colored circles that I label with the names of the medications so that I can find what I need quickly. If they’re mail order drugs, I’ll label them “use 1st, use 2nd, etc.” when I’m still using a bottle and it’s not empty yet. I bought a drawer organizer for socks and created 3 columns that were then sectioned off into 3 rows so that I could put all of my morning medications in the far left column, all of the meds that I take twice a day (both a.m. & p.m.) in the middle column and then all of my nighttime meds in the far right column. I have to take 37 pills a day,!! so needless to say, this has been super helpful! I’ve got a big pill organizer (that is normally for keeping (1)-week of medication in 4 slots: morning, lunch, afternoon & evening)…I use it to hold 2 weeks of my meds. The morning and lunch slots hold my a.m. & p.m. meds for week one, then I repeat my second week of meds in the afternoon & evening slots. I also made 5 “emergency meds” for when I may not have felt well and wasn’t able to fill up my big medication container. They consist of two empty prescription bottles (1 labeled a.m. pills and one labeled p.m. pills then rubber banded together). I keep those 5 emergency days of pills in a gallon sized Zip-loc beg. So when I need to fill my medication container up, I just grab my box (sock organizer) of medications and start filling them up. Is also helps in keeping track of when I’m low or running out of certain medications and when I need to order refills or call the doctor for new ones.

    SO my purpose in writing this VERY LONG and detailed reply is to demonstrate that: 1.) you can continue to stay organized in ways that pertain to your life as it is RIGHT NOW, 2.) that it’s OK to not be productive every single day, 3:) that it’s fine to take a break or what I call a “me” day or “me” time and 4.) it’s OK to ask for help when and if you need it. I’m no longer afraid to ask for help and I’ll tell people if I’m hurting…I don’t hold it in anymore. You know what I’m talking about you Super Moms out there!!!

    I’ve always been a positive, optimistic person. The glass isn’t just half full for me…it’s completely full and brimming over! My illnesses have taught me to stop and prioritize. There are several rooms in our house that I’ve never cleaned. Oh well…I’ll eventually get to them. I think I may try Mallory’s daily Spring cleaning schedule as a weekly schedule for me since it takes me three times as long to do things…so Monday’s list (kitchen & dining room) I’ll start this week, Sun. May 17th. Then I’ll start Tuesday’s list (Living Room & Hallway) the following week, Sun. May 24th and so forth. (I’d also add vacuuming my steps to Tuesday since they’re carpeted, and dusting the wood spindles.)

    I like having check-off lists and feeling like I’m making accomplishments daily, no matter how small they are. Nowadays they’ve been very small tasks like “take a shower” or “order dog treats from Petco today,”, go through one page of emails, go through a stack of mail, etc. I don’t call them tasks either because that sounds like work, rather I call them “goals”…makes completing that GOAL much more rewarding once I’ve checked it off of my list!

    In case you wanted more personal info on me or were wondering, my husband and I don’t have children. Ours are the four-legged furry ones! We had 2 Jack Russell Terriers whom we adored but lost in 2013 & 2014. We adopted a new dog10 days after losing our 2nd JRT who is listed as a Patterdale terrier. He’s red and has light brown eyes…looks like a miniature Vizsla.

    Before going to work with my Brother-in-Law, I taught 2nd grade for 5 years (I have a Master’s Degree in Pre-K through 3rd grade). I taught at 3 different schools in 2 different counties and had 5 (yes,five!) different principals! The amount of work compared to the pay was ridiculous and being that Type A person, I spent over $40K of MY OWN MONEY in those 5 years for things like books, supplies and materials to support the curriculum because teachers are given close to nothing! It varied by school and was usually only $50-$100 for the whole year. I bought an industrial pencil sharpener that was $115 alone to speed up the morning routine and to make my classroom run more efficiently. Plus I only had ONE wall mounted sharpener and I couldn’t STAND the noise it made and the long line that always formed behind it! Our morning always started late waiting for everyone to have their supplies ready. I felt that delay was costing my students immensely, by missing out on valuable instruction time, so that pencil sharpener was a worthwhile purchase in my eyes! Once the other teachers learned about it, they were all asking me if they could use it after school! They’d come with a huge tub of colored pencils, etc.! I could have made a killing if I had charged them to use it! Hahaha.

    I was in a rough area my first two years, so my students were very needy children. I bought shoes for one student who had shoes with no laces and holes in them. The glimmer in his eyes and the big smile on his face when I gave them to him was priceless! They were too big, but he didn’t care…he started to run more & much faster when we went out for recess. School was the best part of their day…they got hot meals for breakfast & lunch and I made sure my classroom felt like a welcome place. Every day started and ended with a hug. I’d decorate my classroom each month with a different theme and I’d hang colored lights (I bought) from the ceiling. So for example, October was The Pumpkin Patch & the lights were orange… complete with real pumpkins, mums & a scarecrow. December was a Winter Wonderland with white lights. January stayed a Winter Wonderland but I changed the lights to blue, of course Feb.was red and March was green, etc. I know it’s hard to believe that I spent that much of my own money, but I spent it on things like items for a music and art center…I bought a radio/CD player and CDs that we would dance to in order to get the “wiggles” out. The CDs included kinesthetic movement for those types of learners, acting and poetry. I ended up having to buy TWO radios because at this really rough school, my first one was STOLEN! I bought an easel, paints and gel pens for the art center (a very mean and misguided student stole about 3/4 of them!). I bought authentic Native American items on my vacations with my husband when we went to the Southwest like moccasins, deer skins and dolls. This same awful student took those dolls and ripped off their hair ruining them for good. All of these things added up. Every year I’d add to my Reading center by purchasing books (on average $1,000) every year. I took pictures of all of the children’s birthdays (we’d celebrate half birthdays for my summer students) and all classroom functions such as assemblies, parties or celebrations. I would always pay extra when turning in my film and getting my photos (this is before I had a digital camera) so that I could send the copies home with the children so that the parents had them for their child’s memories. I never had very many pictures like this as a child and I’ve always wished I did, so I tried to do things for the parents and kiddos that I would have wanted for myself. I recently saw a mother of a former student and we caught up, exchanging emails and contact information. She sent me the nicest card with 2 photos included…one of me with her son from 2nd grade where I’m giving him a hug and another photo of him now in the Marine Corps! So she held on to that copy I sent home to her, which verified that they meant something to at LEAST some of my students and parents.

    Anyway, after 5 years of teaching, I got burned out really fast. I started to not like the profession for many reasons and I always told myself that if I ever started to resent teaching, I’d get out so that I never did a disservice to my students. My heart simply wasn’t in it anymore. I definitely felt like I had my share of children to last a lifetime! That’s why I never had children of my own (plus having to have the hysterectomy).

    My brain tumor is stable now but I will have to continue monitoring it for the rest of my life. It’s now about the size of a “small plum” or “small lime” as my Neuro-Oncologist said. I always ask for a reference like this so that I can visualize and understand the tumor better, plus it helps to have a reference of how much it’s shrunk. I get MRIs and see my Neuro-Oncologist every 4 months now (it used to be every 3).

    So that’s me in a very long, detailed nutshell! If you hung around and read my whole story, I thank you so very much! I hope some people are inspired or that in some way I may have helped,. Everyone in life is dealt a hand of cards, some good and some bad. Life is like Yin & Yang: there’s always a little darkness in the light (or bad in the good) and there’s always some light in the darkness (good in the bad). Every bad thing has a silver lining. Yes, I’ve got a brain tumor, but I’m so grateful it’s a Grade 2 and not a 3 or 4! Everyone has challenges in life. They may not seem like a big deal to you, but it could be to them. I’ll end this here by sharing my two mottos that I live by:
    1.) The only thing you can control in life is your attitude and how you choose to deal with things. And…
    2.) LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

    Kindest Regards,
    Danielle Cabrera

    1. Danielle, you have definitely gone through a journey of illness and recovery, that would daunt anyone. You have taken a positive approach, as I read your story about your struggle in teaching and in health that would depress most people. Great to see your organizing skills in detailing your medical paperwork. I hope your health improves for the better.

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