internet homemaker: cleaning chart

I'm starting a new series on this blog to give insight into how I approach my job as a homemaker. I am amazed at how different--and yet similar!--a homemaking job today is from a generation ago. I believe one BIG difference is computers and the internet. And since I love my computer and use the internet daily, both as resources for my current job, I thought I'd share some heads-ups that I've come across.

Take today. Since Henry's birth, I have slowly (oh-so-slowly) worked on balancing his needs with my needs. One of my needs is to have a clean environment. I'm not talking about having items picked up and put away (although that is important), I mean clean. Dusted. Vacuumed. Disinfected. CLEAN.

I've been working on a cleaning chart of sorts. Before you ask: YES, I do need a cleaning chart for myself. Let me explain by describing my day: my activities rotate around Henry's schedule of eating, playing for 2 to 3 hours, then sleeping for 45 minutes to 3 hours. He's currently pretty unpredictable about his sleeping times, so I'm never quite sure how long I'll have to myself. And when he's awake, I'm never quite sure how long he'll contentedly play by himself. Hence, if I don't have a pointed plan of what I want to get done for the day, nothing gets done. NOTHING. (Well, nothing outside of having a happily fed baby. That's pretty big.)

So I made up a cleaning chart. I was going to make a daily chart, but that seemed I would be assuming too much "free" time any given day. So instead I made a weekly cleaning chart. I started by listing every cleaning responsibility, then marking whether it needed to be completed weekly, bi-weekly (as in every other week), or monthly.

Then I made little lists for each week, with appropriate check-off boxes. (NOTE: Crossing off to-do items--or checking them off--is extremely satisfying. Sometimes I will write in "eat breakfast" or "take a shower" just to be able to cross something off.) I will print these off and put them on my fridge (in approximately 5 minutes).

I'll be trying my new cleaning chart out for the next couple of weeks and let you know how it goes.