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Updated on February 14, 2024
How to Create Routines and Schedules. Tips on creating a routine for your home, including morning, evening, and cleaning schedules.
I promise we will get down to the nitty-gritty of organizing our spaces very soon, but I have a few more basic tips to pass along to you.
This post has been brewing since I started with Project Organize, but I have been struggling so much that it seemed hypocritical of me to suggest what to do when I am not doing it myself.
I thought there was no time like the present, and I would jump right in with you to get myself back on track. I know what needs to be done, so now it is time to do it!
What is a Routine and Schedule?
Creating routines and schedules is essential to long-term success. I know not everyone works well with set schedules, but for the most part, I think the order from having a plan in place is worth it to most of us, including our children.
So, first, let’s break down the two words that are our focus for this post.
- Routine: a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.
- Schedule: a plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times.
So what does this mean for us? Our schedules are the planned times things need to be done. Our routines are all the things we regularly do, be it on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
If you have been around this blog for a while, you know that I suffer from depression, off and on. Having routines and schedules set up is crucial for my productivity. And honestly, depression or not, having these in place as a stay-at-home/work-at-home mom is critical for everyone’s happiness.
Have you ever been going about your day, and then 2:00 in the afternoon hits, and you think, “What did I accomplish today?” (Yes. Me, too!)
I will tell you how I go about setting up my routines. These tips will be geared toward work-at-home or stay-at-home moms, but the principles can apply to everyone.
Setting up Routines
Start by creating a morning and afternoon/evening routine.
My morning routine includes everything up to picking my kids up from school. My evening routine includes everything from after her school pickup until I go to bed.
Get out a blank piece of paper and write down the following items.
List Set Appointments and Scheduled Events
List everything in your day with set times to figure out a routine that will work for you.
For me, this includes – school drop-off and pick-up, meals, after-school activities, and bedtime. I also try to have set times for working from home.
List All Daily Activities
Now that you have figured out the items that must be done at a certain time, you can focus on all the other things you want to do.
This could include exercise, household chores, undistracted time to play with the kids, time to cook, etc. Many of these things can happen at any time during the day.
Start filling in when you would like for them to happen. You can attach a specific time to them or a general time block of the day.
Be Flexible
When you first figure out a routine, getting into a rhythm will take some time. And don’t expect every day to go as planned, especially if you have kids with their own needs and timelines.
Having a general idea of when you plan to clean for the day or read books with your kids will help make things run more smoothly. Also, I find that my kids thrive on routine. They like to know what will happen next in our day.
I will share my specific routine with you, but I realize this is what works for me with my schedule. At my current stage of life, I have two kids in school, and I work from home.
Sample Routine with Older Kids
Morning Routine
- Wake up, get kids up, make lunches
- Take daughter to school
- Morning chores – empty dishwasher, scoop cat boxes, start laundry, make bed
- Work
- Lunch
- Work
- Pick up daughter from school
Afternoon/Evening Routine
- Switch out laundry
- Daily cleaning tasks – I use the room-by-room method
- Take daughter to dance
- Make dinner and clean up the kitchen
- Pick up house
- Fold laundry and put away
- Spend time with my husband
- Pick up daughter from dance
- Read and go to bed
Sample Routine With Young Kids
Morning Routine
- Make breakfast (and make school lunch)
- Son to the bus stop (7:00 am)
- Feed pets and clean the catbox
- Check emails/social media
- Make the bed, start a load of laundry, empty and/or load the dishwasher
- Play with daughter
- Get ready/shower and run errands
- Snack time (9:30 am)
- Learning/preschool activity or play outside
- Put laundry in the dryer
- Lunch and clean up
- My daughter watches a show/quiet time, and I follow up on emails
- Daughter’s nap time
- Start another load of laundry, fold, and put away the first load
- Daily household chores
- Exercise
- Blog and work on projects
Afternoon/Evening Routine
- 2nd load of laundry in the dryer
- Daughter is up from nap/snack time
- Son home from school/snack (3:15 pm)
- Feed dog (4:00 pm)
- Cook dinner while son does homework
- Dinner (~5:00 pm)
- Dishes, wipe counters, sweep the kitchen
- Play outside/go for a walk/active play
- Nightly pick up/kid’s chores
- Bath/shower time and storytime for kids (6:30 pm)
- Kids in bed
- Wash face/pajamas/floss
- Finish chores
- Fold and put away 2nd load of laundry
- Work
- Time with husband
- Read and go to bed
Slip this into your home management binder, on your command center, or stick it up on the fridge with a magnet.
Setting Up a Cleaning Schedule
Now that you have a general idea of what you will be doing and when it is time to nail down the specifics for cleaning.
It doesn’t matter what schedule you choose, but you do choose to clean your spaces regularly. Every home has items that need to be cleaned daily, weekly, monthly, and semi-annually, whether we want to or not. How will you keep track?
Room-by-Room Cleaning
The first option is to clean one room at a time from top to bottom. Each day, assign one or two rooms to be cleaned. By the end of the week, every room will be clean.
Free Printable: Room-by-room Cleaning Checklist
Task Focused Cleaning
Another effective way to clean your house is to focus on one task or type of cleaning job daily.
For example, one day you vacuum, another day you mop, another day is for dusting, etc.
Free Printable: Task-Focused Cleaning Checklist
I printed both out and placed them in a plastic page protector in my home management binder.
I use a wet-erase marker to mark off the jobs as I do them. At the start of the new week, I wipe it clean with a damp cloth and start over.
Some weeks, working on one task at a time is easier than cleaning room by room. This system allows me to be flexible.
Pick One Day to Clean
Before children, I could clean my entire house from top to bottom in one morning. This doesn’t work for me in my stage of life, but that might still work for you!
Put on some fun music, get the entire family involved, and get your house cleaned on a Friday evening or Saturday morning to enjoy a clean home all weekend.
Be Flexible
You have to choose a cleaning routine that works for YOU!
If you don’t think either of my checklists will work for you, simply Google: “printable cleaning checklist,” and you will find many great options. You can even hand-write something yourself!
Whatever routine you choose, give it at least two weeks up to one month to decide if you like it and think you can stick with it. If not, find something else and try something new until you find a routine that sticks!
For the rest of the week, we will be setting up some tasks that I think most everyone could benefit from daily. I need to get back on track and will be doing them with you.
Tag #projectorganize on social media so we can all encourage each other!
Do you have a routine or schedule in place?
Project Organize Daily Checklist
Each day, we will build on the previous day until we have all our basic daily routines on auto-pilot.
- Use your planner and master list
- Do chores from the cleaning routine you chose
- Stop multitasking
- Do the dishes
- Complete one load of laundry per day
- Daily pick up
- Make the beds
- Quick vacuum or sweep the floor
- Sort the mail and papers
This post is part of Project Organize: The Basics. Together, we will work on setting up basic systems in our homes to conquer overwhelmed and busy schedules.
These are the basics we need to do daily that will set up the foundation for success. This will allow us the space to tackle the larger decluttering projects with ease.
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