Is this AI housework schedule accurate?

[Mopsy567]

I am terrible at housework. I am deeply ashamed by this and want to improve. I asked AI to produce a cleaning schedule as a checklist for me and this is what they have come up with. Is this what you do? Some of it seems excessive, like changing bed linen weekly. I also don't clean the bathroom weekly either but I probably should.

Is your cleaning schedule similar to this?

Daily:
Tidy up: Put away loose items, make beds, and keep surfaces clear.

Basic cleaning: Wipe counters, clean sinks, and quickly address spills.

Laundry: Keep laundry up-to-date and stay on top of clothes storage.

Weekly:
Deep clean: Clean bathrooms, toilets, showers, and floors.
Dusting: Dust furniture, surfaces, and mirrors.
Floor cleaning: Vacuum or sweep floors.
Laundry: Change bed linens.
Empty bins: Take out trash and recycling.

Monthly:
Appliances: Wipe down appliance exteriors, clean microwaves, and dishwashers.
Windows: Clean windows inside.
Deep cleaning: Clean ovens, wash shower curtain liners.

Seasonal:
Deep clean: Deep clean refrigerators, freezers, and garages.
Seasonal storage: Swap out seasonal clothing.
Annual deep clean: Perform a thorough cleaning of the entire house.

Seems normal to me: though I’d sweep kitchen floor several times a week and perhaps hoover high traffic areas twice a week too. Also wipe bathroom sink most days (v quickly).

Try to do an ‘80 percent’ perfect clean often vs a ‘100 per cent’ clean that’s so tough it puts you off ever doing it again!

But if your house isn’t in good shape to start with you are going to have a tougher job

I think ‘the organised mum method’ has it right: spend a few weeks decluttering yoit house, then really deep clean it (here you could get an agency to do a one off clean to make it easier on you), then you can maintain it

Your house will never be clean/tidy if you don’t have adequate storage so do this first or it’s an uphill battle

I’d do a room or two a day vs the whole house in 1 go (less exhausting, or clean some of the house at the weekend and do a few other tasks in the week on days you are home more). Depending on your house (how dusty it gets, how messy your family is etc) you could do bedrooms every second week and a more thorough clean downstairs the other week

Clear up spills/major messes straight away and that should be enough to keep on top of it

I do clean the bathroom weekly but if you don’t think it’s needed do it every 2 weeks

If you think changing the beds weekly is too much, do it every 2 weeks (or do sheets & pillowcases more often than the duvet cover). You might be able to mop less often than weekly depending on how dirty your house gets too, especially if you don’t wear outdoor shoes in the house (I mop kitchen weekly, bathrooms a couple of times a month)

Lastly, have the right products (hoover, cloths, decent washable mop, bathroom & kitchen cleaners, glass cleaner, furniture polish/spray to wet dust, flash or similar liquid for tiled floors and anything else you need for your house) and keep in a place you can get to easily: I keep some duplicates in my upstairs bathroom to make cleaning upstairs more streamlined too

Wet dust so you are not just moving dirt around, and use lots of cloths (you can’t clean with a dirty cloth). Wipe appliances when they look like they need it / every few weeks

Its totally normal to spend up to an hour several days a week cleaning: it doesn’t just do itself unfortunately.

My 3 bed house easily takes 3 or more hours to clean all in one go depending on how thorough I am, friends with young kids do more they tell me - hence spending an hour a few times a week to do different tasks can be more doable and less exhausting.
If you really go for it one week, the next week you might find it’s a bit less of a job.
Your family should be sharing the load if kids old enough/ and partner should be too

I tend to do: bathrooms one day, kitchen another (it’s the biggest job), dust and hoover other rooms and change beds another day as this makes sense for my house, you will work out what makes sense for you over time

Looks normal and sensible to me although I admit to doing bed linen every two weeks as three king-size duvet covers take up way too much space to be done every week. Towels are every week though.

I also vacuum every couple of days in high traffic areas.

Yes.

If you’re doing the “daily” stuff automatically (wiping spills, tidying surfaces etc), then everything else is very much easier.
I thought I was pretty lax, but actually I do much of that list. Except bedding is closer to every 10 days and I don’t often clean the windows.

I mean probably, but I do hardly any of those things in those time frames and the world continues to function. The weekly things I probably do monthly apart from the bins, the monthly things either never or very rarely, and the seasonal things the same although we don’t have many of the things mentioned Eg dishwasher, microwave, garage.

All apart from the oven. it is Dh’s job and he doesn't do it enough. I also do mirrors and inside windows at the same time, weekly.

put this into a weekly table now. Daily tasks every day and weekly ones choose days to do each.

We do ours and DC1’s bed weekly. It’s a but more of a struggle to get DC2 to part with theirs but yes, it all looks fine and sensible.

You might want any to look at the cleaning schedules from The Organised Mum Method as it’s pretty much what you’ve posted but she breaks it down into more achievable daily tasks. Although you could ask AI to do that for you too

yes seems very normal to me - except we haven’t cleaned our oven in 5 years LOL. But agree with that schedule in theory 😆😆

I only do the daily things on that list to that schedule. The other things less often than suggested and some of them never.

Some people will do the monthly ones weekly. There's no right answer.

Some of it seems excessive, like changing bed linen weekly

Erm. That's not excessive.

The list you have is pretty much what we do.

I assume you live alone or there are no other adults in the house for you to share the chores with?

Looks normal to me.

Well, I certainly don't dust weekly and 🤣🤣 at seasonally deep cleaning the garage.

I’d empty the bins more often. I’d hoover high traffic areas more often. Clean the fridge more often. All of these things couple of times a week. Sorting the fridge if not a proper clean, just so nothing is going off anywhere.
Inside of windows less frequently. But seems like a good list to me. Oh and I try to do beds weekly but if it’s going to be sunny or a good drying day the day or so after I’ll wait and do it then.

We pretty much do the daily and weekly suggestions.
The monthly and seasonally guides probably stretch to more like seasonally and annually!!!

Looks about right to me, except some of the appliance and oven cleaning is less than monthly (but gas hob is frequent by necessity - part of the pretty much daily ‘wipe kitchen’) and we never do a seasonal clothes swap.

I split it into upstairs and downstairs for the dust and hoover. Kitchen/diner has its own event in my head as it also needs mopping and everyone ‘lives’ there so I have to find homes for art and junk and bags and so on before I even start to clean.

In the summer usually do laundry in the evening and fold it wet overnight before bed, ready to peg the next day before work. Squashes most of the creases out and takes advantage of the weather.

little and often is a lot easier than a massive event, and trying to be ruthless about keeping things (eg thing that don’t fit, ornaments and niknaks, broken things that you will never get around to repairing) also helps, but I find difficult.

you can do this :)

Yes that sounds totally normal and good advice. I do clean the bathrooms now often than once a week though. And the floors.

I'd say this is the ideal to aim for yes. I mainly achieve it give or take like I don't always mop the floor but it is hoovered daily. But I always clean bathrooms and keep on top of tidying things away and washing.
Why are you struggling op? Do you think you should make your own plan and reduce it down a bit to start with?

How often you wash the bedding came up at work recently and one Woman said “she washing her bedding once a month, whether it needs it or not”. Is that you Jackie?

That monthly deep clean seems a bit much to me. I think otherwise that schedule is right. But we don’t manage it! The cleaner fortnightly does bathrooms and vacuums, and we do sheets and towels fortnightly too, we just weren’t keeping up. We do sweep the kitchen and meals daily, wipe all the benches etc, and a bit of a tidy and washing

I clean applicances from the outside when I clean the kitchen counters, it just takes a couple of minutes more and I am already in the room with a rag in my hand.

Bins are emptied when full.

Vaccum/sweep - depends a lot. If you have pets, you need to do it more often. A small child who drops crumbs everywhere - daily.
Are you at home a lot - you may have to do some rooms more often than others.
Friends love their robot vacum but it works best with fairly empty floors they found.

Seasonal - our wardrobe is big enough to hold items all year round, duvets don't need swapping as we just add blankets.
I may add some decor but that's it.

What you have there isn’t unreasonable but while check lists are useful for information they’re not a great tool for implementation imo. Especially when you’re trying to get started and a list like that seems overwhelming.

Flylady has a concept of morning and evening routines and I’ve found that pulling a number of small jobs together into a semi automatic rhythm like that is very helpful. So for me, turning back my bed to air it , picking up the bedroom, wiping down the bathroom sink (after I’ve brushed my teeth), giving a quick swish to the toilet bowl as I flush, opening curtains and windows is a part of waking up.

Tidying the kitchen, turning on the dishwasher, closing internal doors, setting alarms, switching off lights, putting a few things back where they belong is part of the wind down in the evening.

Some jobs hang together easily - like wiping down counters if you’re washing up. I try and run the fridge down before going shopping, and when I’m making a list of what to buy, I’m looking in the fridge, tossing out anything that shouldn’t be there and it isn’t hard to give it a quick wipe. That’s not necessarily an every week activity, but it doesn’t feel like an extra job to be ticked off somewhere when it does happen iyswim.

Dans K White has a concept about non negotiable daily tasks that she doesn’t have to think about, weigh up if they need going, or make decisions about whatsoever - they just have to be done. It sounds a bit cheerless but for my busy overthinking adhd brain this was a breakthrough. Mine are emptying bins, litter trays, dishes, 5 mins of tidying up, cleaning the kitchen island, quick clean the bathrooms.

I don’t schedule a deep clean, but sometimes when I have the hoover out anyway I’ll be inspired to run it under the sofa cushions, over the lampshades and curtains, and into the ceiling corners to clear the cobwebs (usually because there’s something else on my to-do list to avoid).

I would never try and clean the whole house annually. But at Christmas areas that we decorate get cleaned. I’ll think to send eufy under the bed when I’m swopping out seasonal clothes. The bathrooms get their best efforts when we go on holidays for the cat sitters benefit, the kids bedrooms will be on their to list over the summer holiday.

I actually think it’s a big mistake to think in terms of one big clean, or the smaller version of that which is getting everything done. It’s a fallacy of media - magazines in the old days and instagram now that makes us see housework as a static binary, when it’s actually a lot of little cycles in motion. You can be a great, efficient housekeeper and still have piles of dishes and laundry or dirty floors because everything is in progress. In my house the day my floors are cleanest, my laundry pile is highest because that’s the next day’s job.

Another reason I don’t like check lists is that everyday isn’t the same but on a low energy day it can feel like a failure not to get through it all. In real life there are menstrual cycles, work deadlines, sickness and even bad weather. I’m not an automaton. On a low energy day if the bins get emptied, the dishwasher switched on and the cat mess taken care of, that’s a win.

I hoover main areas daily and a daily clean of bathroom. On top of a weekly clean.
not cleaning the bathroom weekly is pretty grim.

Sounds about right….although I must admit I recently cleaned my oven that hadn’t been done for a couple of years 😬
this post has also reminded me to book the window cleaner!!
but I tend to tidy and wipe down surfaces throughout the day and I do the hoovering/dusting/mop floors/ clean bathroom etc on the weekend. I think having a dedicated housework day helps….for example, a Monday evening after work or a Sunday morning. Then you just do it without really thinking about it.
i usually change my bed sheets every 2 weeks unless it’s summer and warmer weather.
i live in a rental and I like things near and clean but would probably take even more care if it if it were our own home. I’m a new mum and now want to make a nice home for my twins so adding things such as booking a monthly window clean.
if I don’t mop, hoover etc for over a week I do start to feel a bit grim

I'd say yes other than cleaning bathroom and hoovering being every other day, and cleaning hard floor (hallway and kitchen/dining room) being daily because of having children. I would imagine pets would mean the same.
And bins/recycling being daily