Many of us live busier lives than ever before.

Demands on us can range from work, home life, raising children, social commitments, hobbies and more — not to mention our efforts to stay in shape.

As studies have shown that our space can have a profound impact on our mental and physical health, staying on top of cleaning is important too.

But how is this achievable when there is so much to juggle? A cleaning schedule can help.

Whether you are a strictly organised person who loves lists, projects, and ‘checking’ items off when complete, or more laidback, making a schedule for your cleaning can have lots of benefits.

We have rounded up some of the best ones below.

1. It Prevents You Becoming Overwhelmed

There are few feelings more tiring than returning home to a mountain of laundry or cleaning, or else finishing the housework only to discover things are back the way they started a few hours later.

At such times it can be easy to become discouraged and even overwhelmed.

Having a cleaning routine in place helps to prevent this. You know that things will be taken care of even if not right away, because you have already ear-marked some time to handle it. It will also help to ensure that nothing ever gets too out of hand, because it is being regularly addressed.

We probably know from our own experience that the longer we leave a mess, the greater it becomes. Cleaning routines help to address this slowly but surely, so that things stay manageable.

2. It Minimises ‘Decision Fatigue’

New studies show that daily decisions all incur an energy cost in the brain. What happens when we have too many decisions to make in the day, even small ones, is that we can develop ‘decision fatigue’.

Decision fatigue can feel exactly how it sounds. We’re simply faced with too many decisions until eventually very little gets done.

The way to combat this is by taking the decision out of our hands in some way. If we have already allocated time to clean, we don’t have to decide again to do it the next day. We already know that this is what we have planned. Similarly, if you were to hire professionals offering Phoenix cleaning services (or others elsewhere more relevant) you’d remove the decision fatigue of figuring out when and where to clean, as well as the physical exertion of cleaning yourself.

Allocating the cleaning to a specific day or time that works for us and trying to stick to it reduces the daily decision fatigue of wondering whether to clean or not!

3. It Can Be Easily Delegated

A cleaning schedule will help to illuminate exactly what needs to be done and how regularly. Once you know this, you are in a position to share the load.

Partners, children, and other family members or flatmates can all get involved. You could even consider making an event of it with a friend — returning the favour at their home the week after, for example.

Even if you are taking care of the cleaning yourself, having a schedule ensures that you can divide up the work sensibly across the whole week, so that you have never given yourself too much to do.

4. It Becomes Routine

Cleaning can feel like a chore or an unwelcome obligation if it interrupts us.

We might just have settled in for a movie night with friends or a well-earned rest after work when we notice that the surfaces are dusty, for example.

Having to get up and start cleaning when we are already tired or had other plans can make the process feel like a punishment. The results we get may even be sloppier too.

A cleaning schedule helps to ensure that cleaning doesn’t infringe on your leisure time or otherwise disrupt things. You know when it is going to be done, and you can even indulge in a reward afterwards!

5. It Is More Efficient

Our time is precious. We want to get the best results in the least amount of time, with minimal effort.

One of the best ways to achieve this is with professional cleaners, but a cleaning schedule can be a great help if you are tackling the cleaning alone.

A cleaning schedule helps to ensure that our cleaning is efficient. We are less likely to repeat areas or to forget when things were last dealt with.

We can also use a schedule to keep track of things that need to be done only periodically — such as deep cleaning the carpets or mattresses.

With a bit of initial effort, even a simple cleaning schedule can help us to stay efficient, effective, and in control.