Listen, guys – you’re not supposed to be checking off every single one of those 50-item whole-house cleaning lists!
That’s for bored single housekeepers or empty nesters (ahem).
This is why you never have enough time in your cleaning schedule as a mom – because the system wasn’t designed for you to ever cross it all off.
How does that sound, huh? Freeing, or super-duper-annoying?
If it’s freeing, then there’s nothing more you have to do. Just ditch the quote unquote rules and enjoy it.
But if you started getting grouchy at the thought that those list-makers might *not* have your best interests at heart….
Here’s what I want you to do. Come up with your own must-do list of seasonal essential cleaning.
Come on – do you *really* think you need to dust those fan blades once a quarter or else?
But on the other hand, you might swear by a quarterly freezer clean out or pantry re-organization.
The point is, do what works for you. (And don’t let anyone else pile more chores on top of that for you!)
You’re not supposed to be checking off everything on that 50-item cleaning list!
So when you look at your own cleaning schedule – take a minute and pull it up – what do you see on that list? What jumps out at you?
Do you have a bunch of useful, “I’d forget this otherwise” reminders, or is it mostly comprised of “well, they *say* I should be doing this so I better put it on there” chores?
You’ve got to make the call. Free yourself, ‘cause they aren’t doing it for you. Make sure that you fully approve of each and every item on that cleaning list.
(By which I mean, you’d be complaining about the state of the pantry for a week if you didn’t have that scheduled reminder to overhaul it – aka, *you’re* reminding yourself to do it – NOT that you’d never notice if one of your tasks hadn’t gotten done!)
So your homework for today is to unbusy your seasonal, monthly, or quarterly cleaning to-do list. Just clear it out of all the unnecessary, “because I should,” “everybody must be doing it” tasks it’s stuffed full with.
Return it to the helpful state of “things I actually want to do every so often but don’t need every month.” Okay?
Remember – you’ve got a good gut instinct here. If you’re kind of questioning whether a task is meant to be on your list, it probably isn’t.
