Family Zone Cleaning

Many moons ago I realized that even though I was an organized and clean person, I needed a routine to get me motivated. After a short time looking online for cleaning schedules, I quickly came across the FlyLady and her philosophy of cleaning house. (Some of you may have heard of her already.)

I loved her daily routines and copied and pasted them in an order that went with my weekly schedule better. Along the way, I modified things to fit my life, to make it work better for me.

Now almost five years later, I have a tween and a teen, two years of homeschooling under my belt (big whoop, I know! LOL), and a much bigger house than when I first met the FlyLady. It was time to revive my cleaning strategies and implement some of the FlyLady’s techniques and philosophies with my kids.

My kids really do quite a bit when it comes to daily chores. They have their own list each day that they have pretty much memorized. (See here for an example to download.) They do get a bit of chore money instead of allowance each week if they complete their chores.

BUT this summer I changed things up a bit with their daily chores. In that, I added more.

You can be sure they were not too happy when I introduced them to the “zone cleaning list.” Have you heard the expression, “like a calf looking at a new gate”? I had two baby calves.

After a couple of weeks using them, they were not all up in arms as when their eyes first laid on the seemingly long list. They knew ticking those tasks off each day wasn't so bad. They learned how to walk through that gate.

The Family Zone Cleaning List(s)
With summer winding down and school starting for many of us, we do not need more stress by living in an unclean house. Implementing these zone cleaning jobs along with general cleaning (vacuuming, laundry, dusting) will help keep your house spring-cleaned.

In all fairness to my children (because I’m alllllllways fair with my kids *wink*), I also made one for myself.

What is a "zone" anyways?! A zone is a particular area or room in your house. The ones I have used for these cleaning lists are bedroom & closet, bathroom, kitchen, living room, dining room, entry, guest room, and powder room. Others I haven't included could be: laundry room, den, sunroom, office, outdoor living space, etc.

How it Works.
Each sheet has four zones on it for the four weeks (usually) in a month. Each month you are doing two zones repeatedly (the bedroom & closet and the bathroom) because those are two of the rooms that seem to need the most cleaning. With the three of us using this system, we are rotating and cleaning the common zones weekly and the areas of the house that don’t get lived in as much (guest bedroom, powder room, etc) get cleaned one to two times a month.

For example, the first week of a month my kids and I will be doing the same zone (bedroom & closet) then the next week, one of us will be doing the dining room, another will be doing the living room, and the third person will be doing the kitchen. In week three, we'll be doing the third zone which means we will all be working on areas in our bathroom. Lastly, in the fourth week, one will be doing the guest room, another will be doing the powder room, and the third person will be doing the entry.

I have three colors to choose from for the schedule.

Bright PDF

Pastel PDF

Jewel PDF

Click on the word "PDF" above for your choice of color scheme.

If you have one child then you and him/her can rotate between the three sheets to accomplish cleaning all the zones. If you have more than two children then maybe you can let the younger children work together on a sheet each month or have the youngest share with you. Let’s face it, we all can use some help whether we work full time, stay home, work from home, stay at work to avoid a messy house, etc.

I have included copies to download both as a PDF and Word document. Even if it's just you or you and your spouse, then you can modify this to work for you! I have blanks for the months in the bottom right corners for you to fill in (example, August, September, October or you can number them 1, 2, and 3). You will need to make sure everyone is not working on the same sheet each month so that all the zones are getting covered (unless you want to work together).

Really though, doing three or four tasks a day they are usually done in only fifteen minutes. My kids are industrious when it comes to getting work done. They also are usually done with their daily chores in 20-30 minutes.

Ideally, you should print each document one time for each person so that they have three sheets. Everyone rotates through them. That way you are only having to print them every three months. If you have a laminator (here's the one I bought a couple of years ago and really like), then you can cover it and have your kids use a dry erase marker so you’re not reprinting them.

I hang them on one's bathroom door and the other's is just inside their bathroom. Mine hangs in my closet.

I decorated some miniature wood clothespins to use to hang them. Some I soaked in food coloring just to see what happened. (I like to play!)

I cut small strips of scrapbook paper and glued them on. On a few I sanded the edges.

Cutting a 3M Command poster strip in half, I put one on the back of three of the clothespins. You can always just tape them to a door if you're not into decorating the clothespins! ;)

Some of the things on the lists you may not want to do (or can’t do) monthly such as flipping the mattress or straightening shelves that may already be just fine. Those are nice “freebies” for my kids (they both have pillow top mattresses so we only rotate every few months). They like getting to check something off without having to do it. Ha! Also, once you have done some of these, it’s much easier the next month because it’s not quite as dirty as it was the first time (such as dusting the baseboards and wiping the windowsills).

There may be some balking at first, but remember we are raising our children to be adults. Learning responsibility as children is imperative. There may have to be a bit of reward involved to get them going (kids and husbands alike!).

Please let me know if this method works for your family or if you have questions. A few rooms like a guest bedroom, entry, or powder room may not be relevant to some so that’s why I included the editable versions so you can make it your own.

When you start cycling through these zone cleaning charts with general cleaning, it will help to keep your house in that "spring-cleaned" state!

If the whole idea of starting something like this makes you feel stress or skepticism, remember what the FlyLady says, “Your home did not get dirty in one day, and it will not get clean in a day either.”