ROUTINE CLEANING SCHEDULE
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Welcome to the awaited Small Steps Series. This series is where you can find a simple system for building your home, one small step at a time. It is where you can have access to a new resource each month to help make a small step towards a more cohesive interior to your home, a small step in homemaking so your interior decorating can actually shine, and a small step towards making a home that is intentional, beautiful, and yours.
Each month, you can find a PDF download on my website for $5. That is about 16 cents a day for a home that is more manageable, more beautiful, and more cozy, all reasonable systems that I use in my home, with three kids ages three and under.
If you sign up for a Paid Subscription on my Substack - each month I will reveal a discount code to get that month’s download FREE. So hop on over there and check it out too!
Cleaning and keeping a nice home have been a challenge for me, and through failure I have come to be very motivated to crack the code for homemaking. I have read many a blog and scoured Pinterest for the correct way to keep a clean home, especially as a mama with children. Some tips I laughed out loud at, and others I longingly wished I had the time to accomplish what the author was promising.
And today - I am here to share I have a solution that works for me right now - with three kids ages three, two, and almost 1 year. The key I think to this schedule is: simplicity. I don’t have an exceptional amount of free time. I have a little time every day to keep our home, but the part I love is it is all scheduled out.
In short, each day I have basic things I do: load the dishwasher and one load of laundry Monday-Friday. Then there are some required items each week, such as taking out the trash and filling the car up with gas, but I try to keep those to a minimum. Then - my favorite part kicks in. I have chores spread throughout the month, so that Monday-Friday I have ONE extra chore to do each day. That’s it. Whether that is cleaning our kitchen backsplash, or doing a deep vacuum of the bedrooms - it is only one thing for me to do that day.
Do I get to my extra chore every day? Absolutely not. Many days, I do, but some days, the basics of feeding, clothing, and parenting my children is all I get done (plus a quick house reset after they go to bed, for my own sanity!). But I only have a specific chore for the first 4 weeks of the month, Monday-Friday. Saturdays, and any leftover half-weeks of the month are great catchup days. Or I will just take a couple hours and knock out a week’s worth of extra chores. It’s totally flexible.
What I love about this model is that I am doing a little bit at a time. Small baby steps towards a clean home. I was worried at first that completing some of the tasks monthly wouldn’t be enough, but turns out months go by quickly, and knowing it will get done at least once a month is a perfect set up for my season of life right now.
Then, I have the big tasks, like doing a deep clean of the refrigerator, cleaning out the garage, etc. scheduled for the first Saturday of every month. Should I do a deep clean of the car more than once a year? Well sure, but at least I know I won’t forget it, and in busy seasons it got some attention once that year, which relieves some of the task-juggling in my brain.
This calendar minimizes my mental load. When I have a little free time, I am not drowning in the analysis paralysis of what could be the MOST productive thing for me to do. I have a list to go to, simply laid out for me to keep up with, catch up with, or get ahead.
I keep this calendar on my refrigerator in one of these handy magnetic sheets that is dry-erase friendly. I have the marker clipped above, with one of these lovely anti-scratch clips, and so it is always there for me to cross of items or reference what I need to do next. I am also super motivated by lists - so I can challenge myself to cross as many things off the list that I can every month.
Small steps towards a cleaner home. Small steps towards a healthier home. Just as my sweet children are taking small steps, learning to run, I am taking small steps in my motherhood. Small steps towards making a home that is intentional, beautiful, and ours.
For August 2026 of the Small Steps Series, my PDF upload for you is my Monthly Routine Cleaning Schedule. It’s a printable page that you can put on your refrigerator or incorporate into scheduled reminders on your phone. In it I share my daily, weekly, quarterly, and monthly routines for cleaning. And let me tell you - if I can at least keep up with some of it, you absolutely can to!! I don’t have the major monthly cleaning down since that is more of a family effort, but progress over perfection, every day. Feel free to swap some of the chores for things that work better for your home as well.
To sign up for the monthly subscription, click the button below. I hope you’ll join me!!
If the monthly subscription isn’t something that is accessible to your budget right now, no worries, I get it! Every monthly PDF will be uploaded to the Shop on my Space Stylists & Co. website, so you can pop on over and just get whichever downloads you need without the monthly commitment.
I hope this resource is helpful - don’t use it as a comparison metric, or another layer of pressure to your life. It’s a Small Step - and when you put a bunch of those together - progress follows.
AND…. ONE LAST THING:
Today, since it is the first month of the Small Steps Series - I have a gift for you! This month, everyone will have free access to the download. If you are a subscriber to my Substack, next month you will receive a second email with the discount code. Today, I am giving it to everyone, so enjoy!!
Free Download Code for Routine Cleaning Calendar: 38B4TMC
