Why You Need to Implement Zone Cleaning
I had never heard of zone cleaning before until I had listened to an episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life where Lisa Bass had on guest Chelsi Jo Moore and she had talked about dividing her home into zones to clean each week. As someone who is constantly trying out new systems and cleaning schedules to be more productive, the zone cleaning system really clicked with me.
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What is Zone Cleaning?
Zone cleaning is pretty much what it sounds like. You break your home into “zones” and you focus on cleaning one zone a day or a week. It breaks up the overwhelming task of cleaning your entire house by putting it into bite-sized manageable chores.
I like to use zone cleaning because I get very overwhelmed very quickly by cleaning. It always feels like there’s so much to do and that everything has to be spotless. I strive for my HGTV house but I’m only one person and not a professional cleaning crew. I choose not to have a cleaning service because I am at home and I know I can do it. But without a plan, it gets chaotic fast.
Being able to break my home into “zones” and each “zone” having a checklist makes everything more manageable. The best part is there’s no rule of having to get all of the checklist done in one day. The checklist also reminds me of things I need to do such as wipe the doorknobs and the baseboards.
Related Post: Grocery Budget Tips for Beginners
How do I Divide my House into Zones?
There’s two ways you can divide your house into zones. Either 4 zones or more than 4 zones. Having 4 zones makes it easier to clean each zone 1 week and finishing all the zones within a month. More than 4 zones is great for cleaning 1 zone a day and restarting every week. You can adjust by how busy you are and how many people are in your family.
Currently my home is divided into 4 zones.
Bathrooms (I have a full and a half so both of these are a zone)
The Kitchen
Upstairs (including the master bedroom, hallway, stairs, and my office)
Downstairs (including the living room, dining room, entryway, and laundry room)
Each week I concentrate on one zone. The upstairs and downstairs zones are relatively big but there’s not as much to do in those zones besides floors and dusting. We are pretty good at picking up every day. I also don’t include any organizing in the zones. If I start an organization project it’s separate from my every week cleaning.
Dividing your house into zones is supposed to make cleaning easier so make sure you don’t add too many things on your list. Many light cleans mean that you don’t have to do a full several hour clean (we all know the one) and keeps your house guest ready at all times.
Having the zones also means that you never feel bad if you don’t complete the big clean. If it takes you three days to finish cleaning the bathroom - then you’re right on track. It’s one zone a week. If you don’t get to the living room vacuuming until day 7 - still on track. It helps you breathe easier and not be overwhelmed.
What about those 5th week months? For your occasional 5th zone make it something that doesn’t really need to be cleaned every month. Such as the garage, backyard, or front yard.
Getting the Family Involved
Zone cleaning can be done by one person but if you have extra people to help out, assigning zones to them is easy and it doesn’t stress anyone out. It’s also pretty equal work. The kitchen may be one zone but by the time you’re done wiping appliances, cleaning the microwave, and descaling the coffee pot, the person with the upstairs zone is about done as well.
This also shouldn’t take all day. Depending on the size of your house, maybe an hour tops. It’s a lot easier to ask someone to help out for an hour instead of them thinking it will take the whole day! Then after the hour you can move on to the rest of your day.
Related Post: What’s In the Adult Chore Chart Bundle?
You can grab my Chore Chart Bundle on Etsy which has a pre-filled out list for zone cleaning, as well as several chore charts made for zone cleaning. Check out this post that goes through what’s in the Chore Chart Bundle here.
Zone cleaning is a more efficient way to clean your house than the traditional way of doing it all on one day (usually Sunday, right?). I used to feel really overwhelmed until I was able to implement zone cleaning into my household management.
I try very hard to only put affiliate links to products I’ve used and bought or at least recommend with all my heart. This is one of them. This spin scrubber is a game changer for me. I don’t have to bend over and scrub gross things anymore. It worked really really well on my tub and my baseboards in the bathroom. Not only that, but I was able to clean the ceiling right over the microwave. I had no idea how greasy it had gotten! It doesn’t kill my back and it gets things clean.
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