Creating a Plan for Organization and Cleaning (with a busy schedule)

I have always enjoyed organizing and (as embarrassing enough as it is to admit), cleaning too! I take pride in our home and all of the projects we've done to make it "ours". Being able to sit down and relax, knowing that the house is clean and that I don't have a long To Do list to tend to eventually that night or throughout the week, is a great feeling!

While finding time to organize and clean is already a struggle between my already insanely busy schedule, I know that it will only get more difficult to make time for these things once Bennett arrives in December. While I'm ready to give up my free time for a handsome little boy and all of the duties and time attentive things that come along with taking care of a newborn (and that having an extremely clean home will no longer be one of my goals), I'd still like to think and am hoping that the upkeep and cleanliness of my home won't need to suffer during this new and exciting (even busier) time.

To help myself come up with a better, more effective plan for my busy schedule, I've been jotting down the normal chores and activities that I do weekly around the house, and have been pinning different ideas and checklists for cleaning. While identifying all of the things I'm already doing, it'll give me the chance to better organize/set time frames for those items to help me stay on top of little things that can be done daily here and there while avoiding letting it all build up to have to tackle everything at once, with a very lengthy To Do List (when that small window of "free time" presents itself again from the last). I can easily identify those things that should be done nightly, every other night, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc. (which makes it so easy to pick an item or two from the list to tackle when free time presents itself).

One awesome thing that I'm thankful for that makes juggling all of these duties and responsibilities now easier, and planning for the upcoming even busier time that we are looking forward to, is that thankfully I married a man who is a huge help around the house, and has a clean thumb of his own (so props to you Eric!).

My point for this post is not to make it seem like it'll be an easy job to balance keeping a clean home while adjusting to life with a new baby, or that I'll even want to spend time on these things like I do now (I know it'll be difficult and that I'll want to spend all of my "free" time - if you can call it that - catching up on sleep while not with my little man), this post is encourage myself to easily help me stay on top of the chores around the house and prioritizing tasks that I'm already doing now, to better fit the schedule of a busy, working mom. It's also important to note, that while I enjoy cleaning, I easily become stressed with the house is a mess - so I know that on top of all of the mommy duties that I'll be adjusting to - it will actually be less stressful for me to have a plan/list in place to stay on top of a semi-clean/decent looking home :)

Here a few examples from each of my lists that I've created so far (it's a work in progress!) From these lists, I'm able to sit down on the weekends to look over our schedules and easily come up with a rough plan for the week while ensuring we leave plenty of relax time as well!

Again, hopefully this will keep me motivated and will  better assist me in planning out the small tasks I can tackle when those "free moment" opportunities present themselves [or when your loving spouse is asking what they can help you with during the week] :)