My Home Management Rhythms as a Working Homeschool Mom

I am not tidy by nature. Keeping my house clean does not come easily to me, and it’s something that I’ve had to really work at over the years. However, a couple months ago, I read the book “Home Management: Plain and Simple” by Kim Brenneman and it gave me a starting point for creating home management rhythms that really work for me as a working homeschool mom.

I’m still new to this system, and, of course, systems take time to learn and implement, but what I’m outlining below has made a huge difference in how I manage my home. I honestly have never felt this on top of my housework or this peaceful about my ability to accomplish what I need to when it comes to cleaning my home.

My Home Management Rhythms

As I mentioned before, these home management rhythms were inspired by Kim Brenneman’s “Home Management: Plain and Simple”, but I’ve adapted them to work for my life as someone who works full-time and homeschools my kids. You can download a cheat sheet of my home management rhythms below, if it’s helpful to have them laid out that way. You’ll also be able to see exactly which days I do what on the cheat sheet.

Within my home management rhythms, there are tasks that I do daily, weekly, and monthly. However, I’ve set them all up, so that all of my tasks are spread throughout the month and there aren’t any days with overwhelming amounts of deep cleaning to tackle. I’ll explain all of that below.

Daily Rhythms

There are some tasks that I do every day (except Sunday). Those are: laundry, dishes, and daily tidying.

Laundry: I’ve set up my laundry schedule so that every day has its own focus. For example, on Mondays, I wash the kids’ clothes. On Tuesdays, I wash towels. On each day, I wash ALL of the items in that category and then I’m done with laundry for the day. The kids’ clothes and ours get washed twice a week, and the other two laundry days are for towels and bedding.

Dishes: Right now, dishes is my husband’s chore. We typically switch off laundry and dishes every few months. When I do dishes, I unload the dishwasher every morning and then load it throughout the day. I then finish loading the dishwasher in the evening and run it overnight. Any dishes that need to be hand-washed are done in the evening when I load the dishwasher. Doing this daily is an absolute must because dishes can pile up quickly. If I don’t have time to accomplish any other housework in a given day, I focus my limited time on dishes.

Daily Tidying: We have a daily tidying time when the whole family pitches in with tidying the house. Our biggest messes tend to be in the living room and kids’ room, so we spend about 15 minutes before dinner putting away toys and anything else that got left out.

Weekly Rhythms & Focus Cleaning

Alongside the tasks that I do daily, there are also weekly tasks that are assigned to a specific day of the week. For example, on Mondays, I focus on my kitchen, which includes cleaning and meal prep in the kitchen. Here are the different home management focuses I have for each day:

Kitchen: On kitchen days, I focus on cleaning the kitchen and meal prepping for the week. I wipe off the counters and appliances, organize and clean one cupboard, organize and clean one fridge shelf, toss any expired items in the fridge, etc. Meal prepping for me typically looks like preparing lunches for myself for the week and sometimes baking something the family can eat for breakfast for a few days. As a note, I do my meal planning on my office/admin day.

Bathrooms: On bathroom days, I clean the mirrors, wipe down counters, clean toilets, etc. Pretty straight forward. As you’ll see in the next section, though, I save my bathroom deep cleaning for my monthly rotation.

Garden: This is the day dedicated to all housework outdoors. This includes taking care of plants, tidying any toys or kids’ items outside, sweeping the deck, cleaning the cars, etc.

Cleaning: On cleaning day, I dust, sweep and mop, and vacuum the whole house. Because I clean the bathrooms and other areas on other days, this doesn’t take too long.

Office/Admin: This might seem like an odd focus area, but this day is dedicated to all of the non-cleaning tasks involved in managing a home. On my office/admin day, I review the budget, pay bills, plan meals for the following week, make any phone calls or appointments needed for the family or home, order homeschool and house supplies, and tidy up my office space.

Town/Errands: This day is dedicated to any errands that need to happen. For me, this typically only involves grocery shopping. I do most of my other shopping online, but there are occasionally other errands I need to run, as well.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which day of the week you do each of these tasks, but if you’d like to see the days that I’ve assigned to the different focus area, along with a full list of tasks for each, you can see all of that in my Home Management Rhythms cheat sheet:

Monthly Rhythms & Deep Cleaning

So what about the rest of the house? There’s still the dining room, bedrooms, living room, etc. That’s where my monthly rotation comes in. My kitchen and bathroom get dirtier than the rest of my house, so they need to be cleaned weekly. But there are other areas of my home that really only need a deeper clean (outside of the daily tidy and weekly dust and floors cleaning) about once a month.

So here’s how my monthly rhythms work. Each week of the month has its own focus area for deep cleaning. These focus areas include: bathrooms, bedrooms, dining room and schoolroom, laundry room and entryway, living room and playroom.

However, instead of picking one day each week to fully deep clean the space, I’ve divided my deep cleaning tasks across each day of the week. For example, on Mondays, I declutter whichever space is the focus for that week. My deep cleaning tasks include: declutter, dusting (cobwebs & baseboards), straighten one drawer or cupboard, wash windows and area rugs, and consider decor updates.

One Last Note

If you’re just starting out with home management or looking to tweak your current system, I hope this given you some helpful ideas. Remember, rhythms aren’t about executing them perfectly, they’re about having a system that helps you know exactly what needs to get done and when so that you’re not re-creating the wheel each time. Some weeks will be smoother than other, and that’s okay. Give yourself grace as you find what works for your home and your season. Little by little, it truly does add up.