Resetting your Weekly Routine

Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.

So goes the rhyme from pioneer days. It’s something we can learn from, though. The 1940’s home keeping book that is my housekeeping bible, America’s Housekeeping Book by the New York Herald Tribune Home Institute, suggests a weekly routine that looks like:

Monday – Washing
Tuesday – Marketing or Ironing
Wednesday – Specific jobs such as silver polishing, shopping, sewing, or something to be carried on throughout the day
Thursday – Thorough cleaning of rooms
Friday – Thorough cleaning of rooms
Saturday – Special food preparation for weekend

For some of us, laundry needs to be done more than once a week. For others, once a week is just fine. We are also likely not polishing silver weekly. So let’s take a look at how we can customize a weekly plan that works for us.

There are two ways to think about your weekly routine. The first is to have days for specific things like housecleaning, errands, laundry, etc. The second is to spread your housecleaning chores across the week, picking a day for each task. Either way, you’re going to want to make sure that it’s customized to your schedule. If someone in your family has an activity that goes into the evening, you’re likely not going to want to schedule something that takes a while to do. Save that for the day of the week where you don’t generally have a lot going on and have a larger block of time available.

I’ve taken most of my recent inspiration from Clean Mama‘s suggested weekly tasks; though I’ve had to rearrange the days a bit since I have evening yoga class on Mondays and Wednesday and tend to work from home on Tuesdays. Here’s what my weekly schedule tends to look like:

Tuesday: clean bathrooms, dust house, and vacuum floors
Thursday: wash floors (though this is usually as-needed and happens more often)
Saturday: catch-all day and washing sheets/towels

Laundry is done as needed and by my husband. (Yes, I know I’m lucky.) I usually do the sheet and towels loads and items requiring special care. Daily I am checking the floors (sweep? mop?), clearing the counters and dishes, and trying to keep ahead of the clutter, especially the paper clutter.

Why are these routines – morning, evening, and weekly – important?

So this series is about resetting our homes. Why have I spent three days on looking at our daily routines?

Routines help us maintain. Once we’ve done a deep cleaning, the weekly cleaning routine will keep the dirt down so that the next round of deep cleaning won’t take quite as long. Routines make sure that if not completely spotless, our homes are picked up most of the time and presentable. When my home is cluttered, dirty, messy, the thought that I need to clean it nags on my brain, and it becomes a source of stress. For me, a presentable home is a source of peace.

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What does your weekly routine look like?

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31 Days 2016 - Reset Your Home

This post is a part of the series 31 Days to Reset Your Home, part of the 31 Days challenge. Please join me during the month of October. Each day I’ll be posting what I’m working on, challenges so you can join in, and update my progress (and hopefully hear about yours!). The 31 Days challenge is a writing challenge to pick a topic and write a post on it every day in October.

This entry is post 4 of 21 in the series 31 Days 2016 - Reset Your Home

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