DWMY – daily weekly monthly yearly – my secret sauce combination that will help you get it all done! Honestly the only way you’re going to successfully tackle keeping your house clean and not full of crap or falling apart is to chop it up into little pieces that you can then dominate.

You have to maintain control of a lot of moving parts all at once, and it’s your responsibility.

Non-negotiable: You cannot let anything fall behind! You MUST stay on top of all chores every day!

You got this dude. You can handle it, think through it logically. The solution is obvious, isn’t it? Some things need to be done every day, some once a week, some once a month, and some once a year.

Here is a sample of how to break down the chores – some may not apply to your home, some things may be missing – but this is a good start:

Daily

Make beds
Dishes (click here for video tutorial)
Mail
Vacuum
Counters (click here to see why this is important)
Tidy
Trash
Cat Box
Wipe toilets
Laundry
Eating areas
Wipe mirrors
Stove top
Area rugs

Weekly

Dust
Mop
Bathrooms
Fridge
Cabinets/appliances
Sheets
Pool chores
Poop patrol (pick up dog land-mines)
Declutter
Vitamins
Trash cans
Meals/groceries
Water plants
Dry cleaning
Microwave

Monthly

Furniture
Mattress covers
Oven
Baseboards
Ceiling fixtures
Inside dishwasher (click here for video tutorial)
Light switches
Door handles
Car wash
A/C filter
Keyboards/remotes
Descale coffee pot

Yearly

Closets/dressers
Screens
Windows
Fridge/pantry
Clean carpets
Vents
Pillows
Store seasonal clothing
Garage

Here is a printable version of that list: Click here

Attack Plan

Ok Captain Housekeeper, that’s a boat-load of things to do. Where do I start?

First and foremost always make sure everyone is safe and fed. A well-run house means nothing if your dependents don’t get breakfast. I’m just saying.

Next you need to devise an attack plan that works specifically for you and your household. Here are some general guidelines:

• Every day do every thing on the Daily list.
• Every day select one or two things from the Weekly list to do.
• Three times a week select one thing from the Monthly list.
• At least once a month do something from the Yearly list.

Here’s how my attack plan looks:

For a printable copy Click Here

I created my attack plan with a spreadsheet. That way as I finish each item I can check it off by filling the cell with a color like yellow. If I somehow break the cardinal rule and not get everything finished on a certain day I color that cell green so that I know to try and add it on to the next day’s to-do list.

Notice how I kept weekends light? If you get everything done during the week there is plenty of time to enjoy the weekend with friends and family.

Assign age-appropriate tasks to the kids! Scooping the cat box, doing the dishes, even running the washing machine can be completed by other members of the family too! It’s great practice and helps build a sense of ownership of the tidiness of the house.

If you keep the attack plan in place and you follow DWMY as closely as possible, your home is going to always look pretty darned good at any given time. Hopefully you’ll find that you have more free time to do other things as well.

Watch the video!

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PS: You can whittle that attack plan down quite a bit if you follow my advice and automate a lot of the tasks.

Read more about that here: Automate Automate Automate!