Check out Some of my First Cleaning Printables

You might not know this, but way back at the beginning of this blog I was mildly obsessed with cleaning. And I shared that here in the form of cleaning printables! From schedules to checklists, to work sheets to help make schedules and checklists, my quest for the perfect cleaning system resulted in a lot of printable tools.

In the last few months some of the original cleaning printables have jumped up to the top 50 one my monthly downloads stats. Seeing them pop up, some I don’t even remember making, made me smile. And I thought it might be neat to pull them all together in a post.

Come join me on my trip down memory lane as we take a look at the first cleaning printables I ever shared. All of the printables in this post were originally made and shared at least 10 years ago.

Checking Out Cleaning Printables from Way Back When

Once upon a time I believed that how clean I kept my home defined me as a person. You see, my whole life I struggled with the notions of tidy and clean. I was always the messy kid.

Messy desk? Check!

Messy locker? Check!

Messy room? Of course and always.

And that didn’t magically change when I moved out on my own. I felt embarrassed, defeated, frustrated, and like I was failing at life.

It took me a lot of years to understand the correlation between my ADHD, my mental health, and the state of my home. I didn’t understand that what I needed was to find the tools and systems that work for me, not the other way around.

These printables were part of me figuring that out. When I look at them I see beginnings. The beginning of my journey to figuring out what works for me. The beginning of me stepping away from allowing my home to define my whole being. And perhaps, most importantly, the beginning of this space where I hope you are able to find tools, inspiration, and encouragement to find what works for YOU!

Ok, enough of the mushy stuff! Let’s check out these printables.

Remember: To get a copy of the printables just click or tap their image. They’re all linked to the PDFs.

Staying On Top of the Little Things and 2 More Printables

These were the first two cleaning printables that I shared on the blog. I was desperate to get back on track with my home care while were getting ready to sell our house. First I made one for my cleaning schedule and then I made a blank version so others could use it to create a routine that would fit their own needs.

If you’d like to check out the post you can find it by clicking the button below. Word of warning, I haven’t updated this post except to fix the links to the printables, so it’s still in it’s original format.

Don’t worry, both the printables from that post are below to make it easier to check them out.

Cleaning Schedule

This printable is the first cleaning schedule that I ever shared here on the blog. It’s a simple schedule broken down into daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning tasks. In addition there is a list of projects, which are all decluttering on this list, and a spot for home related tasks that aren’t really housework.

This schedule would be a great fit for someone who wants a somewhat detailed list of things to clean and a way to track them.

Blank Cleaning Schedule

This one is the same as the one above but it’s empty. You can fill this out in a way that works best for you.

Reader Request

This was my first ever Reader Request post. Wow – talk about a trip down memory lane! In case this is your first time here, Reader Requests are some of my favourite posts to share. It’s where I make and share printables requested by you.

I love that the first one I ever did was cleaning related.

You can check out the original post by clicking the button below. Again, I haven’t updated it in years, and when I did it was just to fix the link to the PDF. Or you just scroll down to check out the printable.

Room by Room Cleaning Checklist

This printable is a weekly cleaning checklist. It’s such a neat way to organize cleaning tasks. Each room has a list of things that need to be done each week in that space. Whether you clean each room on it’s own or tackle one task at a time in all rooms, you can use this checklist to keep track of what’s been done where.

Taking Care of the Home

This post has a few different home care printables in it because I was creating the home care section of my Home Management Binder (HMB). Have you been around since the HMB days when every blogger seemed to be making one?

In this post I was mostly focused on home maintenance tasks, rather than cleaning. Though I did also include my cleaning schedule from that first post. The original Indoor and Outdoor Home Maintenance Checklists were first shared in this post, and I have to say I still print a version of these every year to have on hand. It makes it so much easier for me to remember what needs to be done when.

Just like before, I’ve included a button you can click to check out the original post if you want too. And the printables themselves are just below.

Indoor Home Maintenance Checklist

This list is takes tasks like check smoke detector batteries and rotate/flip mattress and spreads them out throughout the year. The result is a list organized by month. These are mostly quick tasks that are easy to forget or overlook. Having them all listed in one place, already planned out makes it quick and easy to just check the list and do what it says.

Outdoor Home Maintenance Checklist

This one is a little different. It lists things you may need to do to maintain your yard and home exterior in the spring and the autumn. These maintenance tasks are little more time intensive than the indoor ones but many of them could be spread out over a few weeks or even months.

Laundry Special Care Instructions

Laundry is one of those tasks that I struggle with. It’s bad enough trying to remember to stain treat and all that stuff. But then there’s those items that require special care. Things that need to be hand washed, hung to dry, only ironed on a certain setting, etc…

To this day, I’m still terrible at remembering what requires what. This printable really helps. It allows you to note the item and then any special care instructions that is needs. I used to keep a copy in my laundry room for easy reference. It came in handy more times than I can count.

Free Home Keeping Checklist Printable

This post came about because I was frustrated with my cleaning routine. I’d been trying to make old systems work as best I could. When I finally gave in and created a tool that would work better, of course I had to then share that tool on the blog.

Reading that post was a great reminder of how as we transition between different seasons of life it’s a good idea to take a look at our routines and systems to make sure they’re still working for us.

Along with the Home Keeping Checklist you can find below I also included the cleaning schedule, room by room checklist, plus the indoor and outdoor home maintenance lists in this post as well. I forgot that I used to share printables across multiple posts back in the day. I’m not sure why I stopped, but I think it’s something that might see a come back from now on.

If you’d like to check out the original post click the button. To skip straight to the printable, just scroll down.

Home Keeping Checklist

My home keeping checklist was a powerhouse checklist for me. I used it on and off for years. I even printed a copy earlier this year.

It’s really easy to use. The left hand side is daily tasks at the top and weekly at the bottom. The weekly section is divided into cleaning tasks and home/life management tasks. The right side is mainly monthly cleaning tasks with a section at the bottom with a reminder to check the Indoor and Outdoor Maintenance lists.

Print this one once to use all year, and then scroll down to get a copy of the weekly printouts or laminate and use a white erase marker to track your progress.

Home Keeping Checklist Weekly Printouts

After use the home keeping checklist for a few months I set it aside because it wasn’t working for me as well as I had intended. I realized that a big part of the problem was that I need to be able have a fresh daily/weekly side each week.

So that’s what I did. I replaced the monthly and maintenance tasks on the right side with the daily and weekly cleaning on the left. This way I could print a few copies each month and fold or cut in half and just start fresh each week.

Then I went ahead and made half letter versions of both because it turned out a number of readers really wanted a smaller size version.

You can read all about it in the post by clicking the button below. Or just keep scrolling to check out the printables.

Home Keeping Checklist Weekly Printout

Well, I guess I already told you about this printable above. As you can see, it really is just the daily/weekly column duplicated.

One of the things I really like about this version was that if I just wanted to focus on daily and weekly cleaning I could just use this. Then I didn’t have to see all the extra stuff.

Half Letter Home Keeping Checklist

This is just a half letter size of the home keeping checklist, but it also includes one page of weekly printouts in half letter as well. It made more sense to include that than to have two pages with a year of monthly cleaning on them.

Half Letter Home Keeping Weekly Printout

And this is the half letter version of the weekly printout. This will give you four weeks worth of daily and weekly cleaning tracking on one page.

Blank Home Keeping Checklists

Fast forward almost year after I first shared the Home Keeping Checklist and I was once again needing to change my cleaning routine. The first couple of years after we moved brought a lot of changes for our family. It felt like every few months something was needing to be adjusted or changed.

To help give myself structure, but still allow flexibility to make changes as I needed to, I created a blank version of the checklist. Not only did this help me, but allowed everyone who wanted to create a cleaning checklist customized to fit their needs and lifestyle. I also made black and white versions.

That button below will take you to the original post if you want to check it out. The printables from that post are below to keep it easy to get a copy.

Blank Home Keeping Checklist

This is the Home Keeping Checklist with nothing filled in. Fill it in how you need or want to. Also, it’s worth noting, that you can use this for more than just house work.

Blank Home Keeping Weekly Printouts

Guess this doesn’t really need any explaining does it?

Black and White Home Keeping Checklist

And then I mixed it up a bit with a black and white version. As much as I love colour, there is something calming about monochrome.

Black and White Home Keeping Weekly Printouts

Again this is just a copy of the weekly printouts, with nothing filled out for you, and in black and white this time.

Home Cleaning Plan

I wrote this post, not only to share the printable worksheet, but to talk a bit about how I create a home cleaning plan. I don’t know about you, but I’m always fascinated by the thought processes that go into creating new systems and routines. Even if they don’t always work for me, usually I get some idea or inspiration from them.

My hope with this post was that it would help others create their own cleaning plan or their own system for creating plans and routines.

Click the button to check out the post. Or hop on down to checkout the printable.

Home Cleaning Worksheet

This printable is an actual work sheet, not a checklist or a tracker. I made it in two parts.  The first section is divided into six categories.

1. Utility
2. Living
3. Food
4. Bath
5. Bed
6. Traffic

There’s space to note what rooms or areas of the home fit those categories, followed by a place to note how frequently it might need to be cleaned, and lastly a place to note ideas for daily maintenance to make deeper cleaning faster.

The second half is for creating a weekly cleaning list. The first column is for the task, the next section is check boxes to selected multiple areas the task needs to be done in. The final spot is for who is assigned to do what – because I sucked at delegating back then. (Truthfully it’s still a struggle today.)

New Cleaning Printables?

Cleaning systems and routines have come and gone for me over the years, as happens. I’m actually tweaking my current system to adjust for some changes around our home. After taking this trip down cleaning memory lane, I’m tempted to share an update and maybe even a new printable or two?

While I’m on the topic of cleaning printables what does everyone think about these printables? Do we need an updated or refreshed version of any of them? Drop a line in the comments below.

Until Next Time,

Happy Printing!