“My Perfect Day” Ultimate Housework Routine

When I first resolved to keep a better home, I knew I needed a change in my daily housework routine. My days were already disorganized, and clearly, I wasn’t doing what needed to be done with the way my house was looking. So, I wrote a list of all the chores I wanted to get done in a day, week, and month.

When I made my first housework routine, I looked at several vintage and modern homemaking routines before making mine because I was starting from scratch; I didn’t even know what I should be doing with my house in a day. 

Of course, any full day routine is an ideal day at home. There are going to be days when I run errands and go to my mom’s house, so I don’t commit to my all-day homemaking routine every single day of the week. I take off Sundays because I routinely spend that day out of the house with my family. 

Sunday is my sabbath from work, house, and blog. I do a few things on Sunday to keep us out of disrepair on Monday, but I don’t commit to a project like mopping or cleaning the oven, for example.

I also consider my routine an ideal and not a standard because, so far, the self-discipline it takes to commit to a routine is hard work; I just haven’t gotten there yet. My primary obstacle is that unless I start my routine at my planned start time, I lose motivation to pick up later in the morning. My planned wake-up time is 7:30 a.m. I know a lot of vintage homemakers woke up at 6:00 a.m., so I shouldn’t complain about waking up an hour and a half later.

If you fall off your routine, forgive yourself, complete your most important goals, and try again tomorrow. So what if your day is no longer perfect because you didn’t do your morning exercise? I usually don’t do my morning exercise and stretches, and can still say that I had a very good day. Look for the reasons why it was a very good day.

Here are some of the sample homemaker daily routines that I referenced to make mine:

MY MID-CENTURY MOM DAILY ROUTINE by Emily

A REAL 1950S HOUSEWIFE CLEANING SCHEDULE by Lisa Sharp

I used others’ cleaning chore lists to get an idea of what I should be doing with my day, and chose to do what worked best for me.

Here is my Ideal Daily House-Mom-Wife Homemaking Routine:

a.m.

• Wake 7:30
• Air out the bed
• Open blinds/windows
• Do stretches & exercises, 10 minutes
• Brush hair & teeth
• Take vitamins
• Get dressed 
• Start coffee
• Start laundry
• Read the Bible for 30 minutes
• Pray ACTS Prayer Model
• Wake up kids by 9:00
•     Brush teeth & hair
•     Serve breakfast
•     Cartoons are allowed until 10:30
• Dailies
•     Clean kitchen
•     Plan dinner (set out ingredients, thaw meat)
•     Pick up the house
•     Sweep floor
•     Vacuum the living room
•     Do a weekly
  • Monday, do a monthly

• Noon

• Lunch 12:00
• Baby naps after lunch
• Make beds
• Put away laundry
• Take out trash
• Take the kids for a walk
• Play outside
• Friday: do an enrichment activity (craft, bake, crazy game)
• Daughter (3 y/old) nap/rest 2:00
• Read, blog, work on project
• Wake baby, or both kids, by 4:00

p.m.

• Start dinner 4:00
• Serve dinner 6:00
• Clean kitchen, do dishes
• Run washer
• Tuesday Bible study 7:00-9:00
• Kids’ baths 7:00 (unless it’s Tuesday)
• Watch shows with Dear Husband
• Kids’ bedtime 8-9:00
• My shower, teeth, hair
• Work on blog* -12:00
• My bedtime 10:00, take meds

*I’m working on scheduling workdays for my blog so I’m not doing everything after bedtime and staying up past midnight. But, there are things I need to do daily, like keep my Pinterest active.

I broke my chores down into Daily, Weekly, and Monthly tasks to organize them. I do one weekly per day and let them rotate over the weeks. I find motivating myself to complete my weeklies and monthlies challenging because they are larger tasks than my dailies and can be somewhat of a drag.

A day of just “dailies” is an easy day. After getting the house cleaned the first time, keeping the house clean is easy, and I find I have a lot of downtime throughout my day.

Weekly:

• Clean and sweep my bedroom
• Clean the kids’ room 
• Mop house
• Clean microwave
• Clean bathroom (wipe shower and tub)
• Dust
• Make a week-long meal plan (Sunday)

Monthly:

• Clean fridge
• Wipe kitchen cabinets
• Deep clean the shower and tub
• Wash and change bedroom linens
• Clean oven
• Vacuum behind the sofa and the recliner

Annual:

• Clean window sills
• Clean fan blades
• Clean baseboards
• Purge stuff

Do you have any essential cleaning chores that I didn’t include in my daily, weekly, and monthly tasks? Let me know in the comments what you do at home on a regular basis.