House Cleaning: 5 Daily Tasks for Minimal Cleaning

House Cleaning is about keeping a reasonably clean house. To keep our homes from getting away from us, we need to take care of certain tasks daily. Depending on the size of your family, you’re always going to be washing dishes, doing laundry, vacuuming, wiping up spills, and making meals.

No matter what happens in my day, I have 5 daily tasks for minimal cleaning to ensure that my home runs somewhat smoothly. One of the concepts I learned when reading a wonderful book about the sacred and spiritual aspect of homekeeping, Keeping House, is the importance of managing the “simple practical provisions for the needs of the body: food, clothing, a place to sit, [and] a place to sleep” (page 143).  

My 5 Dailies cover the basics. I don’t do all of them myself, however, I delegate as much as I can, and more when I need to. I feel strongly that kids should carry some responsibility for taking care of their home. When I only had one child, I did all the work myself. Now, I’m retraining him to take responsibility for his own possessions while getting him prepared for life outside our home. It’s much easier to teach children about home care from the beginning.

House Cleaning: 5 Daily Tasks for Minimal Cleaning

1. Laundry – In my home, I do at least 2 loads per day. Smaller households may be able to do one per day or one every other day.

2. Dinner – My goal is to get out ingredients the night before or in the morning. I try to start dinner early in the day or spread the preparation out over the course of the day. Waiting until 4:30 for even the simplest dinner can be very stressful, and I don’t give it my best effort.

3. Make beds – I make our bed every day, and will redo my husband’s efforts. As a visually-oriented person, I need the bed to look right. My husband’s fine if I tweak his work. This might not work for other families. Just saying. My kids take care of their own beds, though they need the occasional reminder.

4. Run dishwasher – We run ours daily given 7 people in our family. I hand wash the coffee pot and filter holder, along with any plastic that isn’t too greasy. It’s not a good idea to put plastic in the dishwasher because of leaching, something which I’ll cover in another post.

5. Wipe bathroom and kitchen counters – I wipe the kitchen counters, and I have the kids wipe the bathroom one after they’re finished brushing their teeth. Since we have many boys, I wipe the toilet daily.

Do you have a few chores that keep your home running on a daily basis?

House Cleaning Printables

• Weekly Cleaning Tasks
• Weekly Cleaning Tasks – Blank Copy
• Zone Cleaning
  • Dining Room Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 1) January to June
  • Dining Room Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 1) July to December
  • KITCHEN Detailed Cleaning list (Zone 2) January to June
  • KITCHEN Detailed Cleaning list (Zone 2) July to December
  • Master Bathroom Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 3) January to June
  • Master Bathroom Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 3) July to December
  • MASTER BEDROOM Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 4) January to June
  • MASTER BEDROOM Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 4) July to December
  • LIVING ROOM Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 5) January to June
  • LIVING ROOM Detailed Cleaning List (Zone 5) July to December

Meet Barb

Barb Hoyer has written 4097 posts.

After working in the fundraising world for over ten years, Barb is an avid runner, writer, photographer, parent volunteer, and lover of dictionaries and thesauruses. Wife to an engineer and mom to 5 kids, Barb lives in the suburbs of Philly. Her idea of relaxation is an afternoon on the couch with a stack of books.

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