Want to make life a bit easier and keep your house cleaner at the same time? I’d like to introduce you to a cleaning method called, “Daily Room Rescue.” The premise is easy. Divide your home into 5 rooms or zones, assign a room or zone per day and within 30 minutes you and your brood can have that room straightened and cleaned up!
First things first. Figure out your 4 biggest high-traffic areas. This is usually the kitchen, bathroom, family room and dining room. Next, assign each area to the first 4 days of the week. Leave bedrooms for Friday and make Saturday an overflow day for any clean up that didn’t get done during the week.
Next, purposefully schedule time in your day to execute the “Daily Room Rescue”. The reason for this is two-fold. One, you and your children will become accustomed to doing a cleaning session for each room once a week. And, you will also use this allotted time to train children in an age-appropriate cleaning task.
Next breakdown tasks per child. Give each child at least one age-appropriate task to complete. Working as a team, the room should come together quickly.
For example, our week looked like this:
Monday – Kitchen
– Clear off counters
– Help mom clean out the fridge
– Wipe off counters
– Wipe off appliances
– Make sure kitchen towels are replenished
– Wash kitchen floors (To make this really fun, I had the kids step on damp, soapy towels and mop the floors with their feet.)
Tuesday – Family Room
– Fold and put all blankets away
– Dust furniture
– Clean up anything that doesn’t belong in the family room and put in its’ correct place
– Vacuum
Wednesday – Bathroom
– Put away anything that doesn’t belong in the bathroom in its’ correct place
– Using kid friendly cleaning products (We made our own using a mixture of 1/2 white vinegar and 1/2 water in a spray bottle), spray down and wipe toilet seat, toilet bowl, sink, and bathtub.
Thursday – Dining Room
-Put away anything that doesn’t belong in the dinning room in its’ correct place
-Dust furniture
-Thoroughly sweep floor and dry mop as needed
Friday – Bedrooms
-Either have kids work together or separately in each bedroom. Put away anything that is out of place.
-Change bed sheets
-Take all dirty clothes to the laundry room
-Dust furniture
-Vacuum
Saturday – Overflow Cleaning Day and Laundry
-Anything that didn’t get done during the week is worked on Saturday morning.
-Tackle laundry
While I don’t have a perfectly clean house all at once, I have peace of mind knowing that each room will get cleaned every 7 days and the knowledge that my children are being trained in the ways of keeping house.
