Does it feel like you’re the only person who does the washing up, or puts the laundry away? You need a family cleaning schedule, and here’s how to start one.
Although many people are still unfamiliar with the term, the mental load is a new phrase to describe an old concept. Quite simply, the mental load is the invisible labour involved in managing a household and family, which typically falls on women’s shoulders.
Numerous studies show that women in heterosexual relationships still do the bulk of housework and childcare. Many couples aim to split their responsibilities down the middle, yet for various structural and socio-economic reasons, they still end up allocating tasks along typically gendered lines.
Even in couples who think that they have achieved an equal division of labour, the more hidden forms of care generally end up falling to the woman, especially once kids are involved. While this may not always be the case, introducing a cleaning schedule can be an incredibly effective tool to help alleviate this.
Making A Cleaning Schedule That Actually Works
A regular cleaning schedule can be the difference between being chained to your home every day doing chore after chore, and freedom from worry about what needs to be done – but when the work seems endless, where do you start?
As a guide, a typical weekly cleaning schedule that includes basic actions like wiping down the counters, dusting, vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms and doing laundry, will take approximately three to five hours for a three-bedroom house.
However, how you choose to split those chores up throughout the week – and more importantly, who does them – is entirely up to you. While every family or share house with multiple roommates will have different benchmarks, and some tasks like wiping down benches and washing the dishes need to be done daily, aim to use the following as a guide when making your first cleaning schedule.
Monday – Vacuum and mop floors
Tuesday – Clean bathrooms
Wednesday – Do the ironing
Thursday – Do the laundry
Friday – Change bed linen and towels
Saturday – Enjoy your weekend
Sunday – Enjoy your weekend some more!
In addition, try to make a separate cleaning schedule for bigger tasks that need to be done less frequently, such as washing the windows, cleaning the oven, defrosting the freezer and clearing out gutters. Even if you manage to tick one off a month, it’s a simple way to ensure that they don’t pile up and leave you feeling overwhelmed.
If you share your abode with kids, don’t be afraid to implement a mini cleaning schedule just for them. Things like picking up toys and making beds are perfectly reasonable tasks for children to start taking on, and your kids may get more excited about cleaning when they see their parents implementing and sticking to routines.
Keep in mind that a cleaning schedule is a flexible tool that can be customised however you like. If one format doesn’t work for you, rejig it so that days or allocated time frames are more in line with your household’s needs or lifestyle. Ensure that your cleaning schedule is on display to hold everyone accountable, such as keeping it published on a large whiteboard or stuck to the fridge for all to see.
Either way, the important thing is that the jobs get done, not the order in which they are completed. A cleaning schedule is designed to reduce the stress linked to keeping a house spick and span, not to create more.
However, even with the perfect cleaning schedule in place, there still comes a time where busy mums and dads need to find the balance between making the most of their time, and having a clean house. To get the best of both worlds, investing in a reliable house cleaner to take care of the bigger tasks can be worth their weight in gold – but where do you find one?
Ditch The Chemicals And Stay Clean With Goodwings
We all know that good help can be hard to find, particularly when it comes to finding a reliable housekeeper that you can trust. Offering four to six hour cleaning packages, just a handful of the services on offer with the Cleaning Angels at Goodwings include bed linen changes, washing, and topping up everyday household goods like washing powder, shampoos, toilet paper and much more.
Given the fact that eco-friendly cleaning agents have been demonstrated to be just as effective at tackling various chores as traditional cleaning products, the weekly or fortnightly packages on offer through Goodwings enable Queenslanders to continue on with a healthy lifestyle without sacrificing the cleanliness of their homes.
To find out more about the services on offer with us at Goodwings, get in touch to discuss how we can provide your household with world class cleaning solutions.
