February 3, 2025
Welcome back! To my new friends who have recently subscribed or visited my site, I’m so glad you are here. I hope you feel welcome and encouraged by being here.
In last week’s post, I formally introduced my cleaning cycle and explained what exactly it is. If you are wondering, a cleaning cycle is NOT the same thing as a cleaning schedule. Far gentler than a cleaning schedule, a cleaning cycle is tailored to your life and your personal needs.
In an effort to build upon last week’s post, today I want to share more thoughts on how you can design your own cleaning cycle. Your home is as unique as you are, and YOU are the very best personal designer for your own cleaning cycle because you are (probably) the main caretaker of your home! You know all the ins and outs of your home, and you know your home’s unique needs. My goal in this post is to put some “tools in your hand” that will enable you to design a simple and doable cleaning cycle that you can actually accomplish.
I chuckle to myself (and sometimes I get a bit annoyed, honestly) when I read articles or posts about the exact way I should clean my home or how I’m cleaning my home all wrong. Some people online can be quite bossy, can’t they? Other people do not know the layout of my home, my personal endurance level, or a variety of other factors that influence how I clean my home.
There is no right or wrong way to clean your home. Nothing in life is perfect, and the sooner we embrace the imperfections of this life, the happier and more restful we will be.
This post is not going to tell you exactly how you should clean your home. I’m not going to be bossy like that. What I hope to accomplish in this blog post is to help you in designing a cleaning cycle that works for YOU! Please know that any comment stated directly is not meant to be a command but simply an idea that you may or may not choose to implement.
Today I would like to share 3 simple thoughts to get you thinking about and actually starting your personalized cleaning cycle.
Take Inventory
Before starting any project or task, I like to “take inventory” and know what I’m dealing with. The same is true for the continuous cycle of cleaning my home.
To begin, I would recommend writing down all the rooms/zones in your home.
This is what the list for my home looks like:
Kitchen/Dining Combo
Living Room
Master Bedroom
Master Bath/Laundry Combo
Kid’s Room
Office
Upstairs Bath
Then I recommend writing down the tasks that you hope to accomplish in these zones. (These are the maintenance type of tasks that you want to accomplish on a routine basis. We are not talking about deep cleaning/decluttering, once-in-a-while type of tasks.) Here’s what my list looks like:
Kitchen/Dining Combo—dust and vacuum, clean counters, clean sink, clean oven (the top)
Living Room—pickup and put away objects out of place, dust and vacuum
Master Bedroom—pickup and put away objects out of place, dust and vacuum
Master Bath/Laundry Combo—pickup and put away objects out of place; clean shower, toilet, mirror, and sink; vacuum floor
Kid’s Room-- pickup and put away objects out of place, dust and vacuum
Office-- pickup and put away objects out of place, dust and vacuum
Upstairs Bath--pickup and put away objects out of place; clean shower, toilet, mirror, and sink; vacuum floor
At the very end of accomplishing the above tasks, I get the mop, a sinkful of warm water, and a few drops of Dr. Bronner’s castile soap and get to swishing across all the floors.
Decide on a Flow
Write out a logical sequence for moving through the rooms/zones and their respective tasks. Maybe ask yourself, “What would be the most logical room to start with? Then what room would be next?” I think you will naturally gravitate to a certain flow through your home that makes sense to you and seems right for your home.
I tend to focus on a room at a time and attempt to clean the entirety of that room. By focusing on room completion, I’m not left with lots of little, undone tasks should I get interrupted in the middle of a focused cleaning time.
Here are some thoughts when designing your own cleaning cycle.
--I like to link dusting and vacuuming together. It’s just kind of common sense to sweep up those dust bunnies after they have been kicked to the floor.
--I mop after vacuuming/sweeping.
--I like to work from the top of my house down. We live in a 1 ½ story home (our upstairs only covers about half the downstairs). My mom taught me the top-down approach, and to me it’s logical that if dust and dirt settle to the lowest location, then start cleaning at the top.
--I often combine bathroom cleaning together. Cleaning bathrooms is just gross in my opinion, so why not knock them all out if possible.
Here’s the order I usually follow, though my cleaning cycle is not set in stone. The most important goal is that I accomplish all the tasks in my cleaning cycle before starting over again.
Kid’s Room
Office
Upstairs Bath
Sweep down the steps
Living Room
Master Bed and Bath
Kitchen
Start Chipping Away
There is no cleaning schedule or cleaning cycle that will hop off the page or computer screen and start cleaning for me. I am the literal hands driven by a motivated heart to work on my home. Honestly, I rarely follow an exact pattern every time I clean, and I keep a mental checklist of what all I’ve accomplished in a given cycle.
There is no perfect way to clean a home. I hope that statement helps you breathe a sigh of relief—it really should. Even if I perfectly cleaned my home, guess what? The dust bunnies will come hopping back way sooner than I was ready for them. Cleaning a home is absolutely not about perfection. Cleaning a home is about creating a safe and healthy environment where my family and I enjoy being.
Thank you for bearing with the lengthy and tedious nature of this blog post. If anything doesn’t make sense or merits greater explanation, please let me know! I greatly value my readers’ insights. Have a safe and blessed week!
-Ashley
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Personal Disclosure
As the author of Ashley Qurollo Blog, all opinions are my own. Any possible applications are universal in nature, not directed at any one individual or people group. My sincere desire is to help others by sharing what I am learning. Nothing stated on this blog is ever intended to hurt others. Ashley Qurollo, owner of Ashley Qurollo Blog and Website, is not held liable in any way for any application of the ideas and thoughts stated here.
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