There’s a reason they’re called chores. House cleaning chores can be tedious and tiresome, but unfortunately keeping up with the household chores is absolutely necessary for your health and sanity. By keeping a household chore list, you will incorporate cleaning tasks into your weekly routine and delegate tasks among household members if appropriate. You can also have a yearly spring cleaning checklist.

First of all, you’ll need paper, a pen, and an hour of your time to create the checklist. Your goal is to come up with a comprehensive list of house cleaning tasks, and divide it into bite-sized chunks that are scheduled, timed, and prepared for. That way the entire idea of cleaning doesn’t feel too overwhelming!

Take a piece of paper and fold it into four equal sections. Write the following words on the top of one section each: “daily,” “weekly,” “seldom,” and “seasonal.” These divisions tell you how often the cleaning task needs to be done, and you’ll be filling them up as you go.

Now with your blank house cleaning checklist in hand, go through each and every room in the house. List down the cleaning tasks you need to do for each room under the appropriate section (e.g. “Make the beds” go to “daily,” while “mopping the floor” may come under “weekly.”)

It’s a good idea NOT to miss any cleaning task per room. When you forget listing down a cleaning activity, chances are the area concerned will get dirtier and dirtier until you realize you’ve been neglecting it. (“Cleaning out the closet” falls under this risk particularly easily.) So feel free to spend up to 5 minutes per room, making sure all the bases are covered.

Once you’ve filled up your list, decide the dates and weekdays when it’ll be best to do the tasks you’ve listed down. Obviously, the daily tasks need to be done every day, but the weekly tasks, for instance, may be better done on days when there aren’t too many people in the house. Weekly tasks can also be spread over the week instead of one traditional block.

Here’s a very short, very simple example of a good household chore list:

Daily:

1. Make beds.
2. Take out trash.
3. Wash dishes.

Weekly:

1. Clean the bathroom.
2. Wash the floors.
3. Clean the kitchen.

Seldom:

1. Clean windows
2. Check for random clutter .

Seasonal:

1. Shampoo carpets.
2. Clean out closets — update Ebay profile.
3. Wash upholstery

Remember that no two houses are exactly the same, and your own residence is going to have different cleaning needs. It’ll be up to you to find out precisely what those cleaning tasks are, schedule them accordingly, and carry them out.

Oh, and make sure you don’t get overwhelmed by your household chore checklist! Sometimes we want everything to be so clean that we cram the “daily” section with too many tasks, and we end up burning ourselves out. Make sure that doesn’t happen — sometimes, some tasks only need cleaning once a week.

So take it easy on yourself, and create a household chore list checklist you can reasonably handle. That way you can enjoy a clean and tidy house all the time.

Author Bio: For tons of free cleaning short cuts and tips, visit http://www.speedcleaningsuccess.com/housekeeping-checklist/, a directory of house cleaning articles designed to free up your time.

Category: Home Management
Keywords: House cleaning, Household chore list, chore list, housekeeping checklist, spring cleaning checklist,