This free printable cleaning schedule template is the ultimate, realistic way to keep your home clean in just one hour a day! Instead of feeling overwhelmed by a massive weekend deep clean, this system breaks down realistic tasks by house zones to establish an organized daily and weekly routine that actually works for busy families.
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Why This Printable Cleaning Schedule Actually Works
A lot of cleaning routines you'll find out there fail because they are just too time-consuming, or they don't give you any flexibility. After using and refining this exact blueprint across four very different homes over the last 13 years - from a teeny tiny apartment to a busy two-story house - I think I've finally perfected a layout that gives you a ton of grace while keeping your home as clean as possible.
But here is the most important thing to remember: you live there. Your house is a home, not a museum, and it isn't supposed to look absolutely perfect 24/7. This schedule is built with a ton of real-world grace!
- It's simple: It consists of just two main tracking blocks: a morning routine and an evening routine.
- It's clear: Having a physical, visual house cleaning checklist template (on actual paper) keeps you completely accountable. If you are naturally forgetful or easily overwhelmed by large home projects, this takes away the mental load, breaking it into little chunks that are easy to complete.
- It's comprehensive: It leaves no stone unturned, mapping out everything from your daily kitchen counters down to monthly baseboards and air vents.
The 1-Hour Daily Cleaning Routine Breakdown
To make this printable cleaning schedule easy to use, your daily tasks are split into two manageable 30-minute blocks.
The Consistent Morning Routine (30 Minutes)
The morning routine never changes. It is designed to be a quick reset to start your day with a clear mind (I like tackling this right after dropping the kids off at school).
- Make beds: An instant win for the entire home. Get the kids in on this too - even if it's messy, they can help!
- Declutter (10 minutes): Quick sweep of main living areas.
- Unload the dishwasher: Prepping the kitchen for incoming daily dishes.
The Smart Evening Routine (30 Minutes + Daily Focus)
The evening routine resets your home before bed and incorporates one specific "Daily Chore" with a few rotating tasks from your Room of the Week page.
- Declutter (10 minutes): Putting away the day's stray items.
- Do the dishes: Load and start the dishwasher so it's ready for the morning.
- Clean the kitchen: Wipe down counters, spot-clean floors, and tidy up food.
- Tackle the Daily Chore Focus: (See the weekly schedule below)
The Weekly Cleaning Schedule & Zone Rotation
To prevent your routine from feeling overwhelming, you will tackle one specific daily chore focus each evening, alongside rotating through one designated "House Zone" per week.
| Day of the Week | Core Focus Area | Quick Tasks Included |
| Monday | Outside Areas | Porches, entryways, quick outdoor tidy |
| Tuesday | Dust Surfaces | Living room surfaces, bedroom furniture, frames |
| Wednesday | Fridge & Pantry | Purge expired food, quick shelf wipe-down |
| Thursday | Floors | Vacuuming and mopping main walkways |
| Friday | Bathrooms | Quick toilet and sink sanitation |
| Saturday | Laundry | Washing sheets, towels, and family clothing |
| Sunday | Rest Day | Complete day off to relax and recharge |
Monthly Deep Cleaning: Room of the Week Tasks
By dividing your home into four rotating weekly zones (plus a backup plan for longer months), you deep clean your entire house over the course of a single month without trying to do it all at once.
Week 1: Kitchen & Dining Room Zone
- Organize cabinets and clean cabinet doors
- Polish dining furniture and china
- BWDW: Baseboards, walls, doors, and windows (I find it much more efficient to tackle all of these hard surfaces at once in each room!)
- Organize your command center (throw out old mail/paper and file the rest)
- Wash kitchen linens
- Wash pet bowls
- Take things completely off the counters and wipe them clean (including the backsplash)
- Clean the oven, stove, and microwave
- Clean all small kitchen appliances
- Clean the fronts of your large appliances
- Deep clean the kitchen sink
- Clean and sanitize trash cans
- Deep clean the refrigerator
- Clean light fixtures
- Clean light switches and outlet covers
Week 2: Living Room, Playroom, Hall, & Laundry Zone
- Clean the washer, dryer, and deep freezer exterior
- Organize cleaning supplies
- BWDW: Baseboards, walls, doors, and windows
- Dust and spot-clean curtains
- Dust picture frames
- Back up electronics and clean out digital files
- Clean and organize mudroom lockers
- Wash living room linens and throw blankets
- Spot-clean carpets
- Vacuum and spot-clean furniture
- Vacuum stairs and clean the banister/rails
- Clean light switches and outlet covers
- Organize all playroom toys
- Organize TV areas and entertainment centers
- Dust the tops of ceiling fans
Week 3: Bedrooms & Outside Areas Zone
- Clean and organize end tables and nightstands
- Clean light switch and outlet covers
- Maintain flower beds (pull weeds, fertilize, and trim bushes)
- Dust the tops of bedroom furniture
- Organize the backyard and porch
- Organize and wash cars (wash the outside, spot-clean the inside, and remove trash)
- Dust the tops of ceiling fans
- Organize and sweep out the garage
- Wash comforters and heavy bedding
- BWDW: Baseboards, walls, doors, and windows
Week 4: Bathrooms & Closets Zone
- Hang up and refold clothes
- Organize shoes
- Clean showers and bathtubs
- Wipe down bathroom surfaces (back of toilet, shelves, and counters)
- Clean bathroom trash cans
- Clean light fixtures
- Clean bathroom mirrors
- Organize under bathroom sinks
- Wash toothbrush holders
- BWDW: Baseboards, walls, doors, and windows
- Clean light switch and outlet covers
- Clean the base of toilets and sinks
- Wash bath linens (shower towels, bath mats, etc.)
Week 5: "Odd Weeks" Maintenance Layout
(This bonus checklist is for those months that happen to have 5 weeks. You'll typically complete this layout around 4 times per year to catch the things that don't need monthly attention.)
- Clean air vents
- Clean the outside of your windows
- Clean out the vacuum cleaner and wash the filter
- Wash seldom-used blankets
- Clean elevated, high-reach surfaces
- Clean out and organize closets
- Deep clean furniture and carpets
- Organize junk drawers
- Wash and purge old bath toys
- Clean under furniture
- Deep detail your cars (inside and out)
- Pressure wash the house and driveway
How to Download Your Free Printable Cleaning Schedule PDF
Both the Daily Routine Page and the Room of the Week Chores Checklist are available as free instant downloads inside my exclusive printable collection! It is entirely free to join the newsletter, which unlocks access to these files along with hundreds of other coordinating planner printables
A standard printer should work perfectly for these files - they fit on standard 8.5x11" printer paper. (This is the printer I use and I love it!)
💡 Printable Pro-Tip
To save paper and ink, I highly recommend running your printed pages through a laminator. You can hang them up and mark off your tasks every single week using a wet-erase marker. Wipe it clean on Sunday, and you're ready for the new week without printing copies constantly!
Looking for a Simplified Layout or a Different Look?
Because I first published a version of this cleaning schedule nearly 14 years ago, I have kept our older, original layout styles available for readers who prefer a simplified blueprint or just want an alternative font and color palette.
If you want these historical, simplified layout versions with different colors and fonts, they are still completely available for free inside the subscriber printable collection!
And then we have slightly different versions of the printables you see in this post. These have basically the same content, just with different colors and fonts! These are available for free in the printable collection, too...you can get access for free here.
Master Your System: Take the "Journey to Clean"
If you love these printable pages but want an even more guided experience to totally automate your home care, you'll definitely want to check out my complete home cleaning system: Journey to Clean.
Once my first cleaning schedule post really caught on, I had a massive amount of requests to expand it into a full home system. So, back in the summer of 2016 - while running on pure caffeine with a 4-month-old baby in tow - I used every single spare second I had to write and publish my very first ebook.
What started as a tiny ebook adaptation of this exact schedule has grown into a comprehensive system used by thousands of sweet readers! We are now on our eleventh edition, Journey to Clean 2026. The latest version features fully dated monthly cleaning calendars, specialized "light" calendars for those incredibly busy months, and a deep cleaning roadmap to make your home shine with minimal friction.
FAQs
More Coordinating Planner Printables
I cannot wait to see this cleaning system bring peace and order to your home! 🏠 Leave a comment below to let me know how the weekly zones are working for you, or tag me on social media (@lambertslately) to share your physical printed checklists in action!
Leslie Lambert is a lifestyle writer and content creator specializing in home organization, family recipes, and intentional living. With 17 years of experience in blogging and digital storytelling, she helps busy women create calm, purposeful homes they love.
I forgot to save this and every time I want to access I have to unsubscribe and then resubscribe to your newsletter. Is there a place to put the password in without doing all this??
There is! Go to this link and put in the password that you got in the welcome email (it's also at the bottom of the newsletters I send out on Friday). If you need help, email me at leslie at lambertslately dot com!
I just went thru this, subscribed twice to no avail, could not find a button on the post to access these printables, only to subscribe. Maybe you could put a link in this post or on your home page to make it more obvious how to access printables if you are subscribed.
Hi Priscilla! The link to the printables should be in the email you receive after subscribed.
I just found out about Journey to Clean, but it's already mid-July. Do you offer a pro-rated version of this for the rest of the year?
I don't currently have a pro-rated version, but am planning some sales for the late summer and fall! I will be announcing those through my email list...you can subscribe here if you haven't already.
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Hi! I just found your site and then was offered the Journey to Clean for a nice price, but...2017 is just about over! Will you be coming out with a 2018 edition?
Hi Linda! J2C 2018 will be out on December 1st...until then, I plan on having a sale or two on the 2017 edition if you're interested! You can find out about that through my email newsletter (subscribe to that at the top of the page if you're interested).
I am quite curious why one would only sweep and mop once a week? I see this as a daily essential cleaning, especially with little (or any aged) child(ren). Is that for beginning for those that aren't ones to clean at all or is this a suggested long term routine that is suggested for practice within one's home?
There is always room for additions or deletions that fit your family, Becca! For me, it isn't personally needed...it would just be overkill. It would also be quite an undertaking (it typically takes me 45 minutes to an hour to sweep/vacuum/mop my whole home), so it just isn't possible in a practical cleaning schedule for me. However, most people do have to change up a couple of little things in this schedule to fit their lifestyle!
I just downloaded your cleaning schedule and implemented into my Google Calendar just to be aware every day on what I have to do and to count myself accountable for.
Hope I will have the oh so needed discipline! 😉
Thanks for making such a great resource available!
I hope you love it...you are very welcome!
I'm sure this is a question that has a really easy answer and I'll feel dumb for asking, lol! But I just purchased the Journey to Clean ebook and was wondering, what does BWDW stand for? I have been trying to think of what it could be and apparently my brain isn't working!
So I asked yesterday about BWDW and I had only looked at the printables file. Read through the one with instructions and found my answer of course! Sorry to bother you and thanks for the awesome cleaning schedule! 🙂
Great, so glad you found it! 🙂 (For those wondering, BWDW stands for Baseboards, Walls, Doors, and Windows.)
thanks thats was driving me nuts!
So I use a cleaning schedule as well but am always looking to improve upon it. I loved the “under an hour” part of your title because I’ve got littles who aren’t in school yet and one on the way so it can be a challenge to get things done without getting interrupted. Anyway, I’m very curious how you actually do all of that in an hour. It appears that you’re at 45 minutes not including the daily chore or weekly room chores. And looking at the chores, there is no way you’re doing the daily chore plus 1-2 room chores in 15 minutes or less total. And if you are...I’m very impressed. It would just be nice to have a more accurate time frame on this schedule.
Sure! Here's a quick breakdown of the times for each activity:
Mornings:
Declutter (10 minutes)
Unload Dishwasher (5 minutes)
Make beds (5-10 minutes)
20-25ish minutes in the morning
Evening:
Declutter (10 minutes)
Load and start dishwasher, clean kitchen (10 minutes)
Daily Chore (maybe 5 minutes, except for Thursday and Friday, closer to 10 minutes)
Room of the week chores (typically around 10 minutes)
So, you see that it really is right at an hour! I know it doesn't seem like you can get all of this done in the time frames mentioned, but you'd be surprised how much you can get done in 10 minutes. I do it every day (and have for years now). Set a timer and truly see how long it takes you - you'd be surprised! It doesn't take rushing through it, just being consistent.
Your math is off for the morning, it adds up to 25-30 minutes. For the evenings, the total is 35-40 minutes. That is 60-70 minutes a day, not under an hour. All the same, my house looks great when I have time to stick with this plan! I found myself modifying yours so much, I made my own in MS Word! 🙂 It's a great idea, but there is just no possible way I can clean baseboards for any room in 10 minutes. That does not include gathering supplies and moving all the furniture out from the walls. Maybe if I clean them more often, they'll be quicker to clean the next time around...? Also I realized I don't need to worry if I don't finish the Room of the Week list each week, because I can just make sure to complete the rest of it next month!
Thanks for the printables!
I have a question about the cleaning schedule.
What does the abbreviation BWDW stand for?
Thanks!
Hi Linda! BWDW stands for Baseboards, Walls, Doors, and Windows. I go a little more in depth about why they are paired together in the book, but in short, I found myself cleaning them together in most rooms so I made it one chore.
Please someone explain BWDW.
That’s an acronym for “Baseboards, Walls, Doors, and Windows.” You’ll clean those for the designated weeks’ room when you see this on the calendar!
I love that you have the daily, weekly and monthly breakdown. As stated, what works for some households will definitely not work for others. For a family of 5, waiting to do laundry on one day isn't practical, it just takes up too much time and if there is an emergency or something comes up and you're not home that day you are even more backlogged. Also, having 5 people's laundry piled up around the house for a week gets very messy very quickly.
I like the outdoor chores listed but those are only for summer and during summer waiting to do them once a week can be a nightmare! Those weeds grow fast!
I will definitely use this as a starting point. Thanks for the help. 🙂
Great schedule and tips! Of course I can use it for spring cleaning but you can make it a normal habit.
I like the room of the week concept. I tend to be so random when I clean and if I don't have time to finish the house just looks messier not cleaner
Hello! I have been trying your cleaning list for a week now. I love it!! I hate doing most cleaning jobs because they all seem so daunting. Your list has made it fun to do each task and check it off. Thank you for sharing!
I'm so glad it has helped, Summer! 🙂
I love the cleaning schedule, it’s very comprehensive. I used it today as a stepping stone to help myself out of a depressive episode. If I was sitting I was crying. Your method is a lifesaver today, thank you Leslie! I managed to tackle the kitchen and the living room zones and when I was done swiffering and getting my 2yo to bed, my husband came home and said “it feels so good in here.” Thank you for a list that is flexible and direct, it really helped me motivate to move.
This comment absolutely made my day! I am so glad it motivated you.
I’m a little confused about “odd weeks” section. There is nothing for even weeks, and when are these done? I just printed these today and will start doing these. I have multiple sclerosis and Hashimoto’s, so I think the breakdown you have on here will be doable with my chronic fatigue. Thank you so much for this!
The odd weeks section is for those few months that have a fifth week. You have four basic weeks in the cleaning schedule (kitchen, living, bedrooms/outside, bathrooms) - that covers 48 weeks out of the year (12 months x 4 week), but some months have that random fifth week. That's what your odd weeks are for. I try to put those in months that have the majority of a fifth week. Those are included in the monthly cleaning calendars in Journey to Clean!
Hi! Do you have an editable version of the cleaning checklists? I love the format, but I want to switch it around a little and add/delete things to personalize it for the cleaning needs in my home. Would definitely buy these if they were editable.
Thanks!
Skye
Because of the way I make my printables, unfortunately they aren't editable. However - I do put blanks on each section to make sure you can add things as needed!
Great website! I am loving it!! Will come back again. I am bookmarking your feeds also.
We don't have a dishwasher. Is there a version that has wash dishes instead of the dishwasher?
I don't currently have other versions - I'll keep this in mind for later this year when I do updates, though!
Can you check my email? I thought my order for the offer went through but I haven't seen anything in my gmail account. I even checked the spam folder. [email protected] Thanks!
Hi Maria! I am showing an order from Tuesday for you. Check you spam folder; if it's not there, email me at leslie at lambertslately dot com and I'll be glad to give you a link to your download!
You're very efficient and organized and I'm sure your home is always clean. I just feel like I have more important things to do at this stage of my life. I enjoy having a clean house but if I have to choose between checking off the items on my daily, weekly, monthly or room of the day checklist or playing with my grandsons, I'll choose my grandsons every day. They're only little once and when they're past the age of wanting to spend time with Mimi and Papa, it's gone to spending time with friends and doing other things. You are so dedicated and I know all of your hard work is a life saver for so many. And you have a wonderful home based business. Have a blessed day and thank you for all of your insightful information.
It's definitely a balance - that's one reason I love this list, it helps me get the things done that have to be done as quickly as possible so I can dedicate the maximum amount to my kids!
I love your acronym BWDW!
Cleanliness is such an important aspect of mental health!
Great article.
What does BWDW stand for on the cleaning schedule?
Hi Heather! That’s an acronym for “Baseboards, Walls, Doors, and Windows.” You’ll clean those for the designated weeks’ room when you see this on the calendar.
Thanks for the informative post on home cleaning! I'm sure a lot of people will find it useful.
Thank you so much for sharing your cleaning schedule! I am trying to get in a better cleaning routine! We are having our carpets cleaned this week so that is a start haha. Thanks again for sharing!!!
Thank you so much for these tips! I am trying to get into a better cleaning routine. I scheduled a professional carpet cleaning this week so that is a start haha! Thanks again for sharing!!!
I have searched through a few cleaning schedules. Yours is more complete and detailed than any others. I am excited to give it a try.
Please help! I need this so bad. I am 75 and retired from my financial job 2 years ago. I guess being at home ( not used to that) I am lazy and depressed. Hoping your system will help me. I don’t have a printer. Do you supply this information on paper or in a notebook. I would be happy to pay a cost for mailing me the printed information. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Hi Betsy, unfortunately, I don't offer a pre-printed version. However, you can always take this pdf file to a office supply store (like office depot) and have them print it. The prices are usually fairly affordable!
Ok i have questions and so this is like more than a comment I live in a mobile home a one-bedroom very small I don't have a lot of storage space but I would love to have a tidy house it's so cluttered now that I have no room for anything I need to get rid of a lot of things so I need help arranging to get rid of these things what do I do or can you help me ???
Yes, I would definitely start with decluttering. It's difficult to keep a home clean when you start with too much stuff in it. Go through each space (closets, bedroom, living area) individually and put things in piles; donating, throwing away, or keeping. If you're keeping it, it needs to serve a purpose in your life and can't be replaced by something else. Donating means you don't use it but somebody else can, and trashing means it's either damaged or someone else wouldn't find a use in it. Once you've decluttered, then this cleaning system would be a great way to maintain!
How much is this subscription a month?
Hi Linda! There's no cost to joining my email newsletter. I do have products for sale in my shop, but those will be clearly listed if there's any kind of fee. The printables you see in this post are free to download!
I really appreciate the detailed lists. Thank you! It’s nice to actually see a real plan with exactly what to clean and ideas for when. Especially with a new born at home!
Thank you so much for this simplified approach to a clean house-I find I do it all in a scatter shot way-this should be more thoro and easy!
Anyway to edit the days on the simple plan? Would love to switch days for cleaning out my fridge to Mondays since trash comes on Tuesdays. Thanks for your help!
Hi Janae! Unfortunately this one isn't editable - I'm hoping to get it converted to an editable version soon, I think that would be really helpful!
Hi! Not sure when this comment was made, but did you ever turn it into an editable version? I would love that! Love your approach💕
I haven't just yet, but I'm hoping to get that done soon!
I love this. But I think "take out the garbage" needs to be added to the evening tasks.
That's a good idea, thanks for the suggestion!