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As a stay-at-home dad, one of my primary responsibilities is to get the cleaning done around the house. This used to be a very tough chore for our family. We felt that we lacked the time and would easily get overwhelmed by the house chores. It was a vicious cycle that would lead to issues as well. Today, I’m here to talk about how we broke the cycle and started getting our house cleaned by following some simple steps.
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We Created Our House Cleaning Plan
This was an eye-opening exercise for me especially because my wife and I view what needs to be done completely differently. I knew about the basics, but my wife is a little more in depth at what we should be doing. This was very helpful to me so that I could help her out more so she wouldn’t get so frustrated in things I wasn’t seeing.
As we went through each room, we talked over all the components of the room that needed to be cleaned and wrote down how often they needed to be cleaned. This was the starting point for our house cleaning checklist that you can download for free.
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We automated our house cleaning checklist with Google Calendar.
After creating the house cleaning checklist master list, we went through and added recurring events to Google Calendar with notifications. We now just check our phone each morning to see what needs to be done. I am a big fan of Google Calendar as it allows me to create multiple calendars and sync them with others so that everyone can see what’s going on. My wife and I both get to see the Google calendar by sharing it with one another.
If you need help creating a recurring event, check out the guide from Google. Get started by downloading our house cleaning checklist and using it to create all the events on Google Calendar.
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We execute the house cleaning checklist by following our guide each day.
Now that we’ve got our plan in place, we can simply follow along. There is no more “what do we need to do today?”. Our house work is a breeze now as we follow our house cleaning checklist and calendar. I would challenge you to try it out and take a new approach to your house work. Since we did it, we have had a much cleaner house. Our time is much more efficient since we don’t waste it on making decisions. We are focusing more on getting stuff done, reducing decision fatigue. Lastly, we’re saving a bit of money since we don’t have to bring in that maid service that we were considering.
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What are your tricks that you do to get your housework done? Do you use any sort of a checklist or method?
Thanks for reading and I hope your house ends up being cleaner in the future!
Don’t forget to get your free House Cleaning Checklist here. too!
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This post was originally published on MyFamilyOnABudget and is republished here with the author’s permission.
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Photo credit: Flickr/Dave Crosby
And when your kids get older, I presume you will expand this list? Take it to a new level where it becomes a contract that the kids APPROVE and accept consequences when they fall short f THEIR agreement
Hi Tom, I’m sure the list will change over time and we will incorporate the kids into the cleaning and helping as well. I’m not looking at this as being a contract, rather a guide to get things done with a busy lifestyle. I found that this helped me stay on track a little better and as my wife and I saw different things that needed to be kept up with at different intervals, helps us keep an eye on the things that the other feels are important. Thanks for stopping by and reading and taking the time to add… Read more »