Okay – so a few weeks ago I shared on my instastories (if you aren’t following me on instagram – what are you doing?! I update stories daily! Check out my profile here) what our “night shift” or “ground zero routine” is in our house. Several of you mentioned that it would be so helpful for you to have an idea of what daily chores & closing shift chores we incorporate daily to make our lives way less stressful and run so much more smoothly – so here it is! I am aiming to be as transparent as possible so I’m going to share exactly what my husband and I do in our house. Let’s jump right in.
Daily Family Chores Routine
So, for our family, breaking the chores up by person makes the most sense for us. Since our kids are still little, Noah is a year old so he has no chores (LOL) and Jack has a few at 3.5. Adam and I split the bulk of the chores, and then we do have a house cleaner that comes twice a month to do some of the deep cleaning. The below list is what we do for our “ground zero” house cleaning at the end of the night so that we go to bed and wake up with a fresh house. If we’ve been keeping up with it daily (sometimes we fall off the bandwagon or have a particularly busy evening, we’re only human after all!), it only takes us 30 minutes (or less) to get it all cleaned up.
Taylor:
- Toilets: If you have little boys in the throws of potty training…you know why I need to bleach clean around the toilet every night.
- Toys: I go around the house with a bin every night and make sure there aren’t any miscellaneous toys that need to be put away. If they go in our living room or basement toy storage, I’ll put them back where they belong. If they go in the boys’ rooms, I keep them in the bin and put them away in the morning.
- Living Room: I fold the couch blankets, put the balls back in the ball pit, fluff the pillows, spray linen spray on the cushions, and use my handheld vacuum to get any crumbs.
- Kitchen Table: I put away any papers, mail, toys, cups, etc. that have been left throughout the day.
- Preschool Prep: If it’s a before preschool night, I will empty out lunch box, go through his class folder, fill his water bottle, and put it all away in his backpack for the morning.
- Folding Laundry: I try to keep up on the loads Adam brings upstairs for me each day at the end of the night so that we don’t have too many loads unfolded at once.
Adam:
- Dishes: Adam will do all of the dishes from the last half of the day (he also does the morning dishes on his lunch break because he works at home). He cleans the pots/pans and unloads/loads the dishwasher.
- Post-Dinner Clean: Since I’m the one who typically cooks dinner for us, Adam does the dinner clean up. He puts the leftovers away, and wipes down the counters and table.
- Laundry: Adam also does our laundry throughout the day. The washing machine is by his office downstairs, so he loads and unloads the washing machine and then brings the clothes upstairs for me to fold.
- Basement Clean: The basement is really Adam’s domain so he makes sure that the toys get put away, the living room area is straightened up and that it stays generally put together.
- Cat Litter: God bless husband’s who scoop the cat litter. Adam scoops this nightly and I love him for it.
Jack:
- Pick up toys: Jack is in charge of putting the toys in his room away before bed. We take a few minutes to put all his toys back where they belong before we read his stories.
- Put clothes in laundry hamper: Jack also has to put his shoes in his shoe rack and his clothes in his hamper.
It’s really important to me that we keep up with this schedule as much as possible because my mental health is so dependent on a clean, tidy space. Because we don’t have to deep clean our home, there really isn’t any reason we can’t keep up on the day-to-day tidiness. It’s so worth it to me to spend 30 minutes daily making sure our house is livable and clean.
