If your bathroom cleaning routine isn’t working, this *practical* bathroom cleaning checklist might be the secret you need to start using!
Hi friends,
Quick question, how well do you keep up with your bathroom cleaning routine? If you’re anything like me a few months ago, maybe you’d prefer not to answer. Lol!
As a stay at home mom, you’d think “hey, she has all the damn time in the world to clean her bathroom!” but, you’d be wrong. I’m not going to go on a rant here about all the work involved in being a stay at home mom but I will say that my day gets filled up very quickly. My ideal “perfect” cleaning schedule was just not working!
Even if you’re a working a mom, I know you can relate to planning on doing something at a certain time but then… well, kids. “It’s 1pm, time to tackle the bathroom” but wait.. someone spilled their juice on the carpet.. as you’re cleaning that up another kid is picking on their sibling so you pause to go be the referee.. As they’re calming down you hear a scream from the kitchen, someone is trying to climb on the counter..
You finally finish cleaning up the juice, look down and suddenly it’s almost 2pm and its the baby’s nap time! Well shit, there goes cleaning the bathroom today!
This has happened to me so. many. damn. times. And then I beat myself up for it or I’ll try to leave it for the next day. Then, the next day comes around and it’s Wednesday, playroom cleaning day! Now I’m scrambling trying to keep up and play catch up from the day day before at the same time!
I say, f*ck the bathroom cleaning routine schedule! It aint working!
I hate constantly feeling like I’m falling behind and can’t catch up. I hate it. Cleaning routine schedules added that stress to my day/week so I lowkey kinda gave up.
Then, I downloaded a daily iPad planner and it had this a nifty little thing called a “habit tracker” and a blank space to add your own habits. Many people use this to track water intake. I decided to use it to track how often I can vacuum the playroom.
To my surprise, it helped… like, a lot!
The first week, Thursday rolled around and I realized I hadn’t vacuumed the playroom at all so far! When I found a quick minute, I made sure to vacuum it so that I could know it got at least one good vacuum that week.
I continued to do this for another month or so and realized I was able to carve out time to vacuum the playroom way more than I thought! Before, it was kind of a “all or nothing” mentality. If there wasn’t enough time to dust, pick and vacuum the playroom.. I would simply skip it that day!
Thats when the light bulb in my head went off!
Why the hell do I try to set aside a day for each area that needs to be cleaned? Every now and then the sun and moon would align just right and that week would be perfect! Every room in the house would be cleaned according to plan! But I can’t really bullshit my own self, I know that was rare!
I needed a bathroom cleaning checklist “habit tracker” instead
I’ve realized this is the best way to *actually* hold me accountable and make tasks seem less overwhelming at the same time!
Now, I’ve been cleaning my bathroom this way for the past two months or so and I can honestly say my bathroom has never been this clean, this often before! Even better, I haven’t been stressed out by it at all!
Today, I’m going to share with you exactly how I set up my bathroom cleaning tracker and what tasks I put on it to help me maintain the cleanest potty room without feeling overwhelmed!
How To Set Up Your Bathroom Cleaning Checklist
1. List all of your tasks
First, if you’re like me, my idea of a cleaning schedule was just what room to do on what day. Wednesday = bathroom, Thursday = Playroom, etc.
Instead, you’re going to need to make a quick list of specific tasks that need to get done in the room. Don’t worry, I’m going to show what’s on my list and you can copy it or modify it to fit your needs!
2. Figure out your goals
Do the baseboards need to wiped down once a week? Probably not, but maybe for you thats something you want anyway!
As you write down your tasks, make a note of how often that specific task needs to be done. Is it a task that you want to try to do weekly? Maybe it’s even a task you only feel you need to do monthly. Perhaps something that only needs to be done yearly! Take note of your ideal situation.
Bathroom Cleaning Checklist Tasks
Daily/Weekly Tracking
On the left side, you have your daily and weekly cleaning tracker! This includes eight different boxes for eight different chores/tasks. Each task has five week rows with checkboxes for Sunday through Monday! This is so you’re able to use it for an entire month before wiping it clean and starting over for a new month!
I track every time I clean something. Even if my goal is only once a week, I get a chance to clean it more often that week, I’ll still track it! This is great for those weeks when we look back and are thinking to ourselves “Did I even get anything done this week??” uhm.. Yes! Yes, you did! Here’s proof!
Monthly/Yearly Tracking
On the right side, you have six lines for six different monthly chores. These are for chores you don’t necessarily need to do on a weekly basis but would like to at least touch on once a month. For me, thats things like mopping, dusting and cleaning the baseboards.
On the right you also have five lines for five yearly chores. Similarly, things that you really only think about when “spring cleaning” or whatever comes around and you start thinking about how much hair is in your drawers haha!
How To Use Your Bathroom Cleaning Checklist Tracker
Since this tracker comes with not only daily/weekly tracking but also all the way up to yearly, you’re not going to want to have to print out a new one every month. Here’s what I recommend you do!
1. Download and save to your device
This is easy! Once you enter your name and email, you’ll be sent a download link straight to your inbox. Once you open the file, go ahead and save it!
2. Edit your tracker (optional)
If you have terrible handwriting like me, I highly suggest you do what I did! I opened this file/photo up in Canva and simply added text over it. Go ahead and add in all of your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly tasks! Adjust text size as needed.
If you’re one of the lucky ones who had good handwriting, you can totally skip this step!
3. Print it out
If you skipped the last step, now is the time to physically write in all of your tasks!
4. Laminate your checklist
Once you have all of your tasks either edited in or handwritten in, you’ll want to laminate this tracker! Again, this is a tracker meant to be used all. year. long! But also only comes with 5 weeks worth of daily/weekly tracking spots.
So instead of reprinting every five weeks, you’ll want to be able to reuse it. I use the Scotch Thermal Laminator and love it. It’s pretty dang cheap and has held up perfectly throughout the years even with constant use!
5. Use dry erase markers
You can simply use a dry erase marker on the laminated paper to easily wipe off that months daily/weekly tracking once the five weeks are full. In the photo up above, you’ll probably notice the squares are filled in with colored pencils. This is solely for the sake of the photo, I wanted to add in a pop of color since I only have black dry erase markers. On the daily basis, I would not do that because obviously, you would have to reprint it every month.
You can definitely make your tracker just as cute but using colored dry erase markers though. I do highly recommend picking up colored fine tip dry erase markers since some of the squares are small.
What Should My Bathroom Cleaning Checklist Include?
That’s totally up to you and what your bathroom looks like! But, if you need a place to start brainstorming, here’s a quick list!
Here’s a general summarized list of bathroom cleaning tasks
- Tub/shower
- Counters
- Sink
- Toilet
- Toilet bowl
- Toddler potty
- Mirror/windows
- Light Switch
- Baseboard
- Sweeping
- Mopping
- Wash rugs/bath mats
- Wipe down cabinets/drawers exterior
- Dust
- Sanitize bath toys
- Wash shower curtain
- Clean shower head
- Take out trash
- Clean out cabinets/drawers
- Throw away expired products
You can use this list as a general starting point and expand or narrow down as needed. If your tasks for any section exceed the amount of line spaces, feel free to print out two copies and just keep them together. You can use a hole puncher and some yarn to tie them together if needed.
