Friends, I am the first to admit that cleaning is not my favorite thing in the world. I absolutely love to organize, but cleaning? Not so much. Every year when spring cleaning time rolls around, I vow that this year will be different, that I will find the perfect printable on Pinterest, print it off, and complete every single task on the list!
Do you know how many times I've done that successfully? Approximately zero. 🙂
Oh, I'll print off the sheet. Sometimes I even do a few of the tasks. But with 10-15 tasks usually listed for each room of the house, I quickly get discouraged and abandon my best laid plans.
Because of my terrible track records with spring cleaning plans in the past, this year I decided that I would take matters into my own hands and come up with a plan that is 100% my own.
I call it my five point plan.
You see, while 10-15 tasks might seem overwhelming to me, five seems like a much more manageable number. I can handle five tasks in each room, especially if I get to decide what those tasks are going to be. When I came up with this brilliant plan, then, I knew I would have to create a pretty printable to go with it, so that is exactly what I did.
[Did you know that we actually have more than 50 types of free printables on the blog?! You can see every single one in our pretty printables library!]
My list is simple. I broke it down by area of the house and left space to add five tasks for each room. I figure that if I can hit one room each weekend for the next few months, I can easily complete my list before spring ends.
Five tasks per weekend? That I can handle. I can make them as big or small as I want and focus on the areas in my house that really need the most attention. It doesn't get much easier than that!
Oh, and of course I'm giving you a copy of my pretty spring cleaning checklist too! Simply click below to download your free copy!
{Click here to download your FREE printable spring cleaning checklist!}
Need some ideas of tasks to add to your list? You can download a pre-filled version of the spring cleaning checklist here.
I don't know that spring cleaning will ever be on my list of favorite tasks, but having a pretty printable (and putting on some fun music while I'm cleaning!) can make it a little more bearable!
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Happy Cleaning!
I'm a clean freak! I just posted yesterday about how I'm spending the week following the cleaning routine of a 1950's housewife. My baseboards have never been so clean!
Oh, girl, teach me your ways! I really *want* to love cleaning, but as hard as I try, it's just not happening, lol. Maybe someday! (And in the meantime, if you run out of things to clean at your house, feel free to come over and start on mine! 😉 Have a great day, Erica!
~Abby =)
I put on lively music or an audiobook to listen to when I am doing the boring work of sorting, filing, organizing, ironing, window washing and other unappreciated scut- work. I have a fannypack that holds my Kindle or CD player and tiny Sony (dime-size) earphones. I put the cord for the earphones under my T-shirt so it does not catch on anything and I am good to go. Order a fast charger for your Kindle and it will go as long as you do. I keep the Kindle plugged in with an extra long cord when I am sitting to work. You ever notice that you can spend hours and hours working on areas that do not show until you open a drawer, closet or file? At the end of an exhausting day, you look around and cannot see the changes? Arrrgh. Family wonders what you did all day? I remember a tale from my childhood about a farmer and his wife who swapped chores one day when he complained that she did not work as hard as he did, and did not think she did anything all day. He suffered all sorts of mishaps and ended up with no dinner made, the house a mess, crying children, and was delighted to go back to the fields the next day. My husband made the "you don't do anything all day" comment to me back when our daughter was about 8 months old. We had a tiny mobile home which was not hard to keep clean. He truly thought that the baby slept all day while I read. I mean, once you plant the seeds in the little garden outside, there isn't anything else to do except water once in a while, right? So, I got a part-time job and left him to babysit. He was working on his dissertation and truly believed that he could feed her, change her and he would be free the rest of the day...hee, hee, hee. I came home about 6:00 p.m. to find the place a wreak and a totally frazzled husband who had gotten nothing done all day except "take care of the baby". He could not understand why it was so much work. He wanted me to quit the new job on weekends. I refused and eventually he learned to cope, but I never heard any more of the "you don't do anything" comments! When he finished, I went back to school and got my Masters in Clinical Social Work and we shared more of the chores. But most men just do not deep clean. They don't see the mess or cannot be bothered. I have only known a few who who were obsessive house cleaners. (I wanted to invite them over).So take some before and after photos and list every single thing you do one day, even if it is just to change a light bulb or put out a new roll of toilet paper! You will be amazed at yourself. And it will be fun for the kids to find in about 50 years and marvel.
Thanks for sharing this Abby, I'm printing it as we speak! I love that each room is broken down (and it's so pretty it made me want to actually go clean, ugh!) Wish me luck 🙂
Aw, thank you, Lisa! Now if I could only create a printable that would do the actual cleaning for us, I'd be set... 😉 Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
~Abby =)
Oh I love this printable. Yes 10-15 things to get done in each room is just not going to happen. I'm really going to work hard to do 5 in each though. My house definitely needs it this spring.
Thanks, Karissa! And I am in the same boat-- our house needs it badly, lol! Hope you're having a wonderful week!
~Abby =)
I can probably do five items in each room after Easter. I am not sure when Spring starts but I work at a Church part time and the 2 weeks before Easter are super banana crazy.
Spring begins March 20. This year Easter is on April 21, in about 2 months from now.
Hey there! I have printed my checklist! That's the first step, right? 😉 Ah shucks, maybe we should just hire a "spring cleaning" housekeeper! Then it will be that much easier to keep 'em coming!! :):)
I love your checklist! It is so beautiful that it almost makes me want to clean 🙂 The five points are just perfect. Not to many, not to few. The weather is not appropriate to start spring cleaning here yet so I'm pinning and sharing the post not to lose it.
Love your printable!! I'm going to get right on my Spring cleaning!!! Then I'm going to take the month of April off and go to the beach to recuperate!!! ...lol!!!
Hi Abby! Just this morning I was telling myself that I should make a spring cleaning to-do list by room/area then I opened your email and saw this! What PERFECT timing!!! Thank you!
I love the idea of a clean home...it just doesn't happen too often! Thanks for the fun printable - we'll give it a try and see if it helps this spring!
~Karina
Thank you so much for your advice on choosing five goals per room and for the lovely printable! Somehow cleaning seems less daunting when it's divided up and when it's recorded on such a cheerful list. You've managed to inspire me to get moving on my spring chores (and that's saying something 🙂 ).
Thanks for the printable, Abby! It is printing as I type...now I just need to fill it out and actually get around to cleaning, haha. I'm right there with you with loving pretty printables but not being a big fan of cleaning. It's funny how I can spend all afternoon organizing a closet or desk drawer and enjoy every minute, but I despise dusting and sweeping and all of those cleaning tasks.
Thank you for the printables - it's great to have a prefilled one and a blank xx
Thanks for the lovely printable, Abby! Here it comes another spring... (time is passing quickly, doesn't it!) Spring is a wonderful time of year but unfortunately we need to do spring cleaning. I don't like this so much but I now that my effort will be rewarded when I see my house clean and fresh again. Here is an inspirational picture for the spring cleaning: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/732235593135685633. 😛 Happy cleaning to everyone!
Thank you so much for this! I love the pretty colors!
So glad it will be helpful for you, Ellen! Have a great day! <3
~Abby =)
Many thanks for this Abby. We've printed it out and pinned it to the kitchen notice board. Now it's just a case of dividing the jobs out among the family members!
Yay! So glad it will be helpful for you. Happy cleaning! 🙂
~Abby =)
I’m right there with you girl! Not a fan of cleaning at all but organizing just makes me giddy 😉 xo
Lol! So glad I'm not the only one! Have a wonderful week, Marie!
~Abby =)
This is great! I was also dreading spring cleaning...my husband and I like to just do the entire list in one Saturday full of cleaning. Last year I found a list on Pinterest that was just too crazy...my husband was not happy with having to "dust the ceilings" LOL! This list makes it much simpler to tackle!
So glad it will be helpful for you, Leslie! Happy cleaning! <3
~Abby =)
This is such a good idea. I have two little kiddos at home so I am going to further make it into a little person to do list 🙂 But it can be so unmanageable if I see a big list I need to tackle. Doing maybe 1 or 2 things a day is super helpful. Today I started doing the Marie Kondo method with my daughter's clothes. Oh my gosh it was a monster pile that she kept jumping on, but somehow I made it smaller. She was a bit upset the pile disappeared but that it was fleeting before she ran off to find another, haha, Thanks for the list!
Yay! So glad it will be helpful for you, Diana! <3
~Abby =)
Thank you so much for these I have used hem to teach my two under-fives to be organized and how to clean in no time at
all
So glad it’s been helpful for you guys! Love to hear that. Hope you’re having a great week! <3
~Abby =)