When I started this Cleaning Menu experiment, I was trying to solve one problem:
I was tired of spending my Saturdays cleaning.
I work all week. Then Saturday would roll around and apparently I’d clock in for my second job.
So I made a cleaning schedule.
Monday, do this. Tuesday, do that. Wednesday, conquer something else.
The idea was to spread the weekly cleaning out and save the weekends for the bigger, less-frequent stuff.
It made perfect sense.
And do you know what happened?
Nothing.
I’d come home from work, see three loads of laundry waiting on me, get overwhelmed by whatever Sunday Jane had decided Wednesday Jane needed to accomplish…
and do none of it.
Turns out, Wednesday Jane still does not care what Sunday Jane planned.
So I Tried the Cleaning Menu Instead
I started wondering if my problem wasn’t the cleaning itself.
Maybe it was expecting myself to know a week ahead of time how much energy I’d have on any particular day.
Because I don’t.
Some days I come home from work with a little gas left in the tank.
Other days, everybody needs to kindly refrain from requiring anything of me for approximately 15 to 20 minutes.
So now, on Mondays, I walk around the house and actually look at it.
What’s fine?
What didn’t get done over the weekend?
What needs some love?
The kitchen might be clean, but the cabinets need wiping.
On the list.
I may have done laundry Sunday, but I can already see three more loads coming.
On the list.
I’m not writing down everything that could possibly be cleaned. We’d need a legal pad and a prayer for that.
I’m looking at the home I’m actually standing in and figuring out what needs attention this week.
What My Cleaning Menu Actually Looks Like
I use my regular weekly planner and write the Cleaning Menu in one general spot.
If something needs doing more than once, I write that down, too.
So instead of:
Kitchen Reset
I’ll write:
Kitchen Reset ☐ 1 | ☐ 2
Because resetting the kitchen once does not, unfortunately, cause these people to stop eating in it.
Same with laundry:
Laundry ☐ 1 | ☐ 2 | ☐ 3
When I do the first kitchen reset, I check off the 1.
Then I go to that day’s section of my planner, write Kitchen Reset…
and check it off again.
Yes.
I get two checkmarks for one job.
Could you just make one Cleaning Menu and check things off there?
Absolutely.
But I like being able to look back and see what I actually accomplished throughout the week—especially during those weeks when I’m feeling down on myself or like I’ve been a complete sluggard.
I’ll flip back and realize:
Oh.
I did the kitchen Monday.
Laundry Tuesday.
Wiped the cabinets Wednesday.
Did another load Thursday.
Well, would you look at that. I have, in fact, been doing things.
The Cleaning Menu tells me what still needs doing.
My daily planner shows me what I’ve already done.
One keeps the house from slipping through the cracks.
The other keeps my effort from slipping through the cracks.
And yes, I like checking boxes.
I’m not turning down bonus checkmarks.
I Started Accounting for Today’s Jane
Years ago, I ended up with some hand-me-down yoga DVDs from an instructor named Shelly McDonald.
Hand-me-downs, y’all. I am not that old.
There’s something she says in one of them that has stuck with me. I can’t quote her exactly, but the idea was not to compare what your body can do today with what it could do yesterday, because your body is different every day.
And I started thinking:
Well, shoot.
Why wouldn’t that apply here, too?
Yesterday’s energy is not today’s energy.
Monday Jane might come home ready to tackle something substantial.
Wednesday Jane might have enough in her for one load of laundry.
That doesn’t mean Wednesday Jane gets a lifetime exemption from participating in her own household.
Nice try, Wednesday Jane.
This isn’t permission to become a sluggard.
It’s permission to be realistic.
Monday Jane makes the menu, but she doesn’t get to boss everybody around.
She looks around, figures out what needs attention and writes it down.
Then each day I come home, take my 15 or 20 minutes to chill, look at the menu and ask:
What can I reasonably tackle today?
The menu gives me choices without letting me pretend there isn’t anything to do.
But Did It Actually Give Me My Weekends Back?
This was the whole point of the experiment.
So did the Cleaning Menu eliminate weekend cleaning?
No.
I still pick things up. I still do dishes. I still do laundry.
I do, in fact, continue to live in the house.
But last weekend, I spent about three hours doing the full-blown cleaning.
Three hours.
Not all day Saturday.
Not Saturday spilling into Sunday.
Not an entire weekend recovering the house from the week we just lived in.
The goal was never to defeat housework.
I just didn’t want it swallowing my whole weekend.
And this time, it didn’t.
Then I Walked Outside
By Sunday, the main thing left on my Cleaning Menu was laundry.
There is always laundry.
But I walked down the side of our house and really looked at it.
Hunnies.
That side of our property had been neglected for about four years.
Bushes. Weeds. Limbs. All the evidence of four years’ worth of we’ll get to that.
But it was beautiful outside.
And my body was craving sunshine and soil.
So I had a choice.
I could stay inside because laundry was on the menu.
Or I could pay attention.
My husband and I went outside.
We pulled weeds, cut and hauled limbs, and worked our way through years of neglect.
I had my hands in that warm sand, doing the kind of physical work I’d apparently been craving.
And as we uncovered that forgotten little side of our property, I started imagining it differently.
Maybe herbs.
Maybe flowers.
Maybe this could become Mom’s side.
Somewhere to put my hands in the dirt and make something beautiful.
And that’s when this whole Cleaning Menu thing clicked.
I Don’t Think the List Is the Point
The Cleaning Menu is helping me tremendously.
But I don’t think it’s because I finally found The Perfect List.
I think it’s because once a week, I’m deliberately walking around my home and paying attention to it.
What needs love?
What can wait?
What’s a big job?
What’s a ten-minute job?
What’s actually important this week?
I’m making those decisions before I’m tired from a full day of work.
The menu is just holding that information for me.
And that feels less like following a cleaning system and more like learning how to care for the place I live.
Maybe I’m Training My Eye
The best comparison I can think of is tracking calories.
In the beginning, you have to look everything up.
How many calories are in this?
What does a serving look like?
You track it because you’re learning.
But eventually you know the foods you eat all the time.
You don’t need to investigate the same piece of toast every morning for the rest of your natural life.
You’ve learned.
I’m wondering if that’s what the Cleaning Menu is doing for me.
Right now, I’m learning my house.
What needs attention weekly.
What can wait.
What sneaks up on me.
What I avoid.
What takes ten minutes and what needs a Saturday morning.
Hopefully, I won’t need to make a Cleaning Menu every Monday for the rest of my life.
Maybe eventually I’ll just know.
I’ll notice.
Because I wasn’t trying to become a woman with a lifelong commitment to a cleaning checklist.
I was trying to get my Saturdays back.
So, What Does Jane Reckon?
VERDICT: STILL PENDING… BUT WE’RE ONTO SOMETHING
Did the Cleaning Menu eliminate weekend cleaning?
No.
But last weekend, the big clean took about three hours instead of swallowing Saturday and Sunday.
And some of the time I got back went toward caring for a piece of our home we’d neglected for four years.
I’d call that progress.
I’m not ready to declare the Cleaning Menu the answer to all my housekeeping calamities.
But I do know this:
The list wasn’t teaching me how to clean my house.
It was teaching me to notice my house.
Maybe caring for a home isn’t about obeying a schedule—even one last week’s version of yourself made.
Maybe it’s paying attention.
What needs love?
What’s most important?
What can I reasonably accomplish today?
And then…
do something.
Missed still doesn’t mean owed.
But flexibility doesn’t mean doing nothing, either.
Sometimes caring for my home means doing a load of laundry after work.
Sometimes it’s wiping the kitchen cabinets.
Sometimes it’s three hours of Saturday cleaning.
And sometimes it’s walking outside, noticing a forgotten piece of your own property and finally putting your hands in the dirt.
So I’m keeping the Cleaning Menu.
For now.
But I’m starting to suspect the best thing about it might be the day I don’t need it anymore.
I reckon we’ll see.
— Jane
Grace for the mess. Grit for the rest.
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