Day 24 – Weekly Cleaning

Welcome to Day 24!  Are you still with me?  I’m not even sure I’m still with me, and I can say with utter confidence that at the end of this month I’m not going to want to even THINK about my kitchen for at least a week, 🙂  but that’s ok, because I’ve been having a ton of fun working on this series.  If you’re just joining us, you can find all the previous posts up on the 31 Days tab at the top of the page.  To continue on with the cleaning part of all this, I thought we could take a little peak at weekly cleaning in the kitchen.  So far we’ve covered daily cleaning routines where I showed myself and all of you that it doesn’t take as long as we sometimes think it will.  Earlier today I talked about cleaning as you go and some of the benefits you can reap from following that practice.  And I also share some ways I help save time when I’m giving the kitchen a deep cleaning.  Today I want to talk about weekly cleaning.  What is it?  Why do it?  And do we really need a weekly cleaning routine in the kitchen?

Let me answer that first question shall I?  Weekly cleaning tasks are the task that need to be done fairly often, but not often enough to warrant an item line on the daily to do list.  These could be anything from mopping the floors to cleaning under and behind everything on your counter-tops.  Every person will have their own list depending on their needs and the needs of their family.  For me, I pretty much covered my weekly cleaning tasks when I talked about my short cuts for deep cleaning.  A little further down in this post I’ll outline this a little more.

Why should you have a weekly cleaning routine in the kitchen?  Well, depending on how much you clean your kitchen throughout the week, having a weekly cleaning schedule for this room can help you stay on top of some tasks that might get forgotten or passed by throughout the week.  A weekly cleaning routine will allow you stay ahead of the grime and the germs, and keep your kitchen looking and feeling clean.   Having a weekly cleaning schedule will allow you to sort of skimp out during the week, or break larger cleaning jobs down into smaller chunks.

Here is my weekly cleaning lists:

• hand-wash floors
• deep clean stove top
• drip pans
• microwave
• oven
• pantry/food cupboards
• vent hood
• fridge
• freezer

Here’s how it works for me.  Every week I pick an item or two from that list.  Like I mentioned in my Deep Cleaning Time Savers post, I try to find times when I have extra time to tackle projects like this.  Left over night is a great night to add in a little extra cleaning.  There is one exception to the list that I’m trying to work into my regular cleaning schedule and that is the microwave.  Depending on how often it get used throughout the week, I’m pretty sure it could benefit from a weekly clean.

The thing with the weekly cleaning routine is that it only makes sense if you’re only focusing on the basics on a daily basis.  I add in the mopping and wiping down the cabinet doors every day to help keep the weekly cleaning down to a minimum.  I don’t go for perfect, a quick wipe every day will suffice.

So, do you need a weekly cleaning schedule for your kitchen?  I don’t believe you do.  I believe there comes a point when we can take cleaning and routines and schedules too far.  The kitchen gets so much attention every day, it really doesn’t need it.  Unless you’re skimping out on the daily cleaning (which is totally fine IMHO) a weekly cleaning routine isn’t really giving you anything extra.  Adding in a deep cleaning tasks each week will save you time later on, and I think when it comes to weekly kitchen cleaning, that is the way to go.

What about you, are you big on giving the kitchen a weekly deep cleaning?  Or are you content to just worry about the daily upkeep and worry about bigger clean projects later?