The Joy of Zone Cleaning

Are you one of those people who run and hide when you hear those dreaded words...
"Spring Cleaning".

 Do you envision weekends committed to washing walls, ceilings, windows and pressing curtains? Well, I have a cure for your phobia, at least I have found what works for me. Enter the joy of ZONE CLEANING!  :)

I complete my "spring cleaning" throughout the year. It makes life easier for me so when the beautiful weather arrives I am not stuck inside washing curtains, scrubbing walls, and removing cobwebs from ceiling corners. Below you can read what works for me.

I divide my home into zones. The kitchen is a zone, the living room is a zone, the bedrooms are a zone, etc.  The idea of zone cleaning was presented to me through a great website called Flylady. While I do not implement all of her ideas, this site has a great wealth of information for keeping your home tidy and in order. Tweak it to fit your needs.

Our bathroom zone card

I focus on a zone daily, Monday through Saturday. Example: Mondays are the bathrooms.  For each zone I have a printed sheet of tasks I would like to accomplish. Each sheet is actually an index card in which I have written my tasks out and then laminated it and put a magnet on the back so I can just pop it on the fridge when it's that zone's day. My children join me in cleaning these  areas during the week.  When we all work together it takes 15 minutes to give these rooms an extra blessing.

By tackling the housework in small bits each day the whole house gets clean which eliminates a deep spring cleaning. I LOVE it! So each day I complete my daily chores and the tasks for the zone we are working on for that day. For example, on Monday we focus on the bathrooms. The children take care of the upstairs bathroom and I focus on the downstairs.  Some tasks that I need to add to my list are washing the shower curtain and vacuuming/mopping the bathroom floor.  I do them out of habit but it would be good to have them on the list in case I am having a brain fog kinda day. :)

So, I have a zone card for each type of room in my house.  Our zones include living room/hallways, dining room/sitting area, bathrooms, bedrooms, playroom, and kitchen. I walk into each room and look around and write down a list of things that need to be done, outside of the norm, to make that room sparkling clean. Examples might include: clean the ceiling fan, wipe down switch plates, vacuum baseboards, vacuum ceiling, wash windows, wipe down cabinets, wipe down fridge, etc. All of the items I think of go on my zone card (like the photo above)

We tackle the zone together as a family.  I set the timer and spend no longer than 15 minutes in a zone.  Once the timer goes off, we are done that zone for the day.  If everything didn't get accomplished that is okay.  We can pick up where we left off next week when we hit that area again.
There is no guilt for not completing all the tasks.  We just do what we can and when the timer goes off, we move on to the next thing in our lives (like getting outside to play!). :)

 It is enjoyable for me to take things in small steps so that way I am not overwhelmed. By dividing my cleaning into zones it allows each room to have my attention throughout the month. I normally do not mind if people drop by unannounced because my home is relatively tidy (not immaculate because that is not the way I conduct my life... but my home is in order with a lived in feel to it).

I hope these tips give you a few new ideas to incorporate in your corner of the world so maybe spring cleaning does not have to be so daunting.

Let me know what works for you by leaving a comment below.

Happy house blessing!

Love,
Dawna