I’m a person who loves a good list, writing them might be my longest hobby but completing them isn’t always guaranteed.

Today let’s make a monthly cleaning list for your home – all those tasks which should be done regularly but doesn’t need to happen monthly.

Every home will have a different list and most of the time I can’t use lists which have rooms such as nursery and library or foyer. Instead, let’s start by deciding the common spaces in your home which you’d like to keep (reasonably) clean.

For me that looks like

• Kitchen
• Laundry room
• Dining room
• Entry / Stairs
• Office
• Master bedroom
• Master bath

You may also want to include spaces like a porch, guest bathrooms, children’s rooms or guest bedrooms. If you live in a studio apartment, consider creating “zones” for yourself to break up your space.

Now determine the tasks you want to cover of the course of a month. I’ll give examples for a bathroom and living room.

Monthly Bathroom Cleaning Tasks

• Wipe down the countertop, sink and faucet
• Clean the mirror
• Dust light fixtures, artwork and storage pieces
• Scrub the bathtub
• Deep clean the toilet
• Vacuum then mop the floors

There are a few other tasks not exactly cleaning related that I include:

• Restock toilet paper
• Check stock of shampoo, conditioner, soap, razors, makeup

Monthly Living Room Cleaning Tasks

• Dust ceiling fan, furniture, artwork, door/window trim, television
• Clean the light switches with surface cleaner
• Clean mirrors
• Wash sofa and chair covers
• Vacuum rugs
• Vacuum then mop the floors
• Wash windows including tracks

And that’s it! To me, these are tasks which don’t need to be done too often because it takes some time to accumulate dust and smudges so even weekly is too frequent.

Make a list, check it… daily

While it would be an easy enough task to complete everything in a single weekend, I don’t enjoy devoting that much time to cleaning on my days off. So instead, I work on one or two cleaning tasks a day and then check it off my monthly list.

It’s not a huge deal if something doesn’t get done within the 30 or 31 days of the month, but I absolutely try to make that my first task next month.

Final tip, most of the time I have similar tasks in different rooms so if I’m cleaning windows in the living room, I’ll go ahead and clean windows in the kitchen, office, entryway and bedroom while I’m at it. That checks off 5 tasks at once and doesn’t feel like much more work.