Ever look around your home and feel a crippling anxiety over how much cleaning there is to do? Sometimes the amount of clutter alone can keep you from being able to think straight and your mind can feel overwhelmed.
I’ve definitely been there. I had to learn why my brain always felt overloaded when I would come home and see things just lying everywhere. I couldn’t think straight, I felt paralyzed by the thought of picking up, let alone cleaning. My brain wouldn’t stop adding to an imaginary list of tasks I had created in my head so I didn’t even know where or how to start.
Once I recognized my brain was sensitive to this kind of sensory input, I started researching different methods to tackle cleaning. I’ve found a few that have worked for me and zone cleaning was one I stumbled upon. It’s the right cleaning system for my family and I hope it works for yours too!
I created this one-stop-shop guideline in hopes that I could help other moms find a system that works for them as well. Here’s all you need to know about zone cleaning in one place.
Make sure you put your new zone cleaning system up on your family command center for visibility! It’s a great way to remind yourself what clean zone you’re on!
Let’s get started!
What is Zone Cleaning?
Believe it or not, there are several forms of cleaning. Zone cleaning is a method used to routinely clean your home by breaking down your home into “zones”. Each zone represents one or a few areas of your home that make sense to clean together. The idea of zone cleaning is to focus your energy only on the designated zone for a week so you can clean in a methodical and routine way.
What are the Benefits of Zone Cleaning?
- It’s one of the best ways to create a consistent schedule for deeper cleaning
- Sets a routine that takes the guesswork out of when you’ll have time for that deeper cleaning
- Sets an expectation so the entire family can get involved and help
- Ensures that a deep cleaning won’t take much effort because it’s done consistently
- Things don’t have much time to get built on grime in between cleans
- Your home is always guest ready even when they’re unexpected guests!
- It takes the stress out of being overwhelmed by too much cleaning at once
Who is Zone Cleaning For?
The zone cleaning method is great for people who thrive off routine or those that feel overwhelmed with cleaning their homes and don’t know where to start.
For those that love routine in their lives, this method ensures all areas of your home are cleaned regularly and creates consistency for everyone in the home. For those that are overwhelmed by the amount of cleaning that is needed, zone cleaning can help you get started slowly and really is quite simple.
How is Zone Cleaning Different than Normal Cleaning?
Zone cleaning is meant to tackle your different zones on a more detailed level than normal, everyday, task cleaning. Don’t think doing the dishes, think, cleaning the inside of your oven’s glass doors. The concept of zone cleaning is to bite off small chunks of the more detailed cleaning so it doesn’t overwhelm you, but gets done on a consistent basis.
No one loves to deep clean because it’s usually so bad that it takes forever and to be honest, it’s disgusting. So to combat that, you designate only a few specific things in each zone to tackle on a daily basis. Things stay clean and the overwhelm of deep cleaning is avoided.
Can You Use Zone Cleaning to Declutter Your Home?
The short answer: Most definitely!
The long answer: In order to declutter using this system, you will use the same zones you choose for zone cleaning, but with decluttering, you will only repeat this system until your home is fully decluttered. Once you’ve decluttered your home, you don’t need to do it as often as zone cleaning rotates. Once you feel your home has been decluttered to a manageable level, you’ll fully dive into zone cleaning and keep up with that routine from there on out!
And to be clear, when you are in the decluttering phase, you’ll only want to do the bare minimum when it comes to cleaning so you can focus on decluttering first. Here’s a simple weekly cleaning checklist you can use before you’re ready to fully dive into zone cleaning:
The Rules of Zone Cleaning
Now, of course, with anything good in life, there are some rules you need to follow for it to actually work. Yes, zone cleaning is simple, but it won’t work if you don’t follow a few things first:
- Your morning routine or evening routine (depending on when you start) should already be done
- The rooms shouldn’t be in chaos before you start
- If you’re in the decluttering phase, only work on as much as you can get done within an hour
- Clean one specific area at a time, don’t move back and forth between tasks (it’s proven that multi-tasking is actually less efficient)
- Use this system to declutter first, then move into zone cleaning for routine maintenance
- Don’t try to get everything done in one day! Set an amount of time you can dedicate each day and stick with that
- Start off small and build once you’re comfortable with the routine. Go at your own pace!
How Often Should I do Zone Cleaning?
Zone cleaning happens on a daily basis for as little as 15 minutes per day up to one hour per day. Each week-ish the zones rotate, depending on how many zones you have dedicated to your home.
4 vs. 5 Zone Cleaning Schedule
With only 4 zones, it’s pretty easy to rotate each zone on a weekly basis throughout the month. You may start a zone you’ve already done before the month ends, but you can always take a few days off or you can just jump right back into the next zone.
With 5 zones, you can use the last few days of one month with the first couple of days of the next month to create your 5th week.
Here’s an example of a zone cleaning schedule with 4 and 5 zones for a visual of how it would work:
No matter how many zones you end up having, the most important thing is to continuously rotate through your zones. Whatever works best for you and your family is really the best zone cleaning schedule.
How to Get Started with Zone Cleaning
The very first thing you need to do to get started with zone cleaning is figuring out your zones! You’ll usually have about 4-5 zones depending on the size of your home. The idea is to keep the larger areas to one zone each and the smaller areas grouped into a zone together.
Next, decide on the amount of time you will dedicate each day to your zone cleaning. It can start off very small, even 15 minutes a day. The key here is consistency, not burnout. Once 15 minutes is a piece of cake and you feel you can dedicate more time, move it up to 30 minutes. An hour a day is the maximum you’ll probably ever need to dedicate to your zone cleaning schedule.
Alright, let’s plan out your zones!
Planning out your Zone Cleaning
Consider how many rooms you have in your home and how they can be broken down into 4-5 zones. More than 5 won’t easily work to rotate all zones within one month so be sure you don’t go over 5 zones.
Larger areas that require more time like a garage, backyard duties, etc., are best scheduled separately or saved for weekend projects when you have more time. Rooms to add to your zone cleaning should include: kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, family rooms, porches, and entryways. Here’s a sample of zones that can be used. Feel free to modify it for what works best for you and your family:
- Zone One: Kitchen
- Zone Two: Main Bathroom + One Bedroom
- Zone Three: Dining Room, Living Room, Porch/Entryway
- Zone Four: Master Bedroom (includes closet, restroom cleaning, etc.)
- Zone Five: One Bedroom + Family Room
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Zone Cleaning Ideas by Room
Here are some sample cleaning lists broken down by our 5 zone example above. The tasks in each zone focus on the things that don’t need to be done daily or even weekly. Feel free to use these examples and tweak them as you go, or completely make up your own zone tasks based on the needs of your family.
That’s one of the great things about zone cleaning, it can work for you! As long as you’re consistent, you’ll reap the benefits. You can break down your zones into the following areas:
Zone One: Kitchen
- Inside Glass on Oven Door
- Microwave Wipedown
- Fridge/Freezer
- Baseboards
- Floors (sweep + mop)
- Clean out Dishwasher
- Clear out Pantry
- Wash Windows
Zone Two: Main Bathroom + One Bedroom
- Reorganize Closet
- Reorganize Dresser
- Reorganize Nightstands
- Dust
- Baseboards
- Floors (sweep + mop)
- Disenfect
- Wash Windows
- Check Supplies
- Clean Baths/Showers
- Wash Bathmats
Zone Three: Dining Room, Living Room, Porch/Entryway
- Dust
- Baseboards
- Floors (sweep + mop)
- Disenfect
- Wash Windows
- Clean Under Couch
- Wipe Down TV
- Sweep Porch
Zone Four: Master Bedroom (includes closet, bathroom, etc.)
- Reorganize Closet
- Reorganize Dresser
- Reorganize Nightstands
- Dust
- Baseboards
- Floors (sweep + mop)
- Disenfect
- Wash Windows
- Check Supplies
- Clean Baths/Showers
- Wash Bathmats
Zone Five: One Bedroom (Home Office) + Family Room
- Reorganize Closet
- Reorganize Dresser
- Reorganize Nightstands
- Dust
- Baseboards
- Floors (sweep + mop)
- Disenfect
- Wash Windows
- Clean Under Couch
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Cleaning Products to Use
Here are some of my favorite cleaning products for the whole house. Some you never knew you needed…
- Dyson Handheld (LIFE SAVER! Such a great tool!)
- Robot Vacuum
- Vinegar & Baking Soda combo for cleaning tough stains
- Mrs. Meyer’s Dish Soap
- Borax (for laundry stripping!)
- Magic Erasers (love this for oven tops, bathtubs and shower doors)
- Reusable Cloths (instead of paper towels!)
- Broom
- Mop
- Toilet Brush
- Toilet Bowl Cleaner
- Glass Cleaner
- All Purpose Cleaner
- Stainless Steel Cleaner
Zone Cleaning Printable
Here’s a free printable you can use to get you started using the 5 zone example above. If you don’t need 5 zones, feel free to just ignore that section or modify it as needed.
Zone Cleaning Apps
There are a few apps that can handle zone cleaning pretty well. Both are a small one time fee, but well worth it. If you like having a schedule with the convenience of having it digital, an app to manage your zone cleaning is the way to go.
What if I Finish my Zone Cleaning Early?
Giiiiiirl, celebrate!
If you find yourself finishing early during your daily zone cleaning, reconsider adding a quick decluttering sesh to your daily zones or another specific task you weren’t doing before.
You can easily add in a 15 minute decluttering session to the zone you are cleaning that day. Just follow the rule we set in the beginning…only take out as much as you can get done in the timeframe you set. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself having to spend extra time just putting things back.
How to Involve the Family with Zone Cleaning
When you break down each zone with the tasks you’d like to get done on a routine basis, it’s easy enough to delegate out each daily task to a member of the family as their daily chores. Feel free to add in some simple tasks for the younger crowd so they can get involved with cleaning early on. The earlier the better!
You may not delegate something every single day, but it’s still a good idea to ask for help so you aren’t overwhelmed.
The easiest way to get the family involved in this type of cleaning is to print out your current zone cleaning schedule and each individual gets assigned to zones or tasks within each zone. That way everyone builds the habit of daily cleaning, everyone helps out, and no one goes to bed if all the zones aren’t done.
Zone cleaning can definitely be turned into a family game or at minimum create a sense of teamwork. If you prepare everyone ahead of time and commit to this together, it can turn into a positive bonding experience.
How Will You Implement Zone Cleaning at Home?
Now that you know what zone cleaning is, the benefits of zone cleaning and how to implement zone cleaning into your own home, you are well on your way to success! Make sure you put your new zone cleaning schedule up on your family command center for visibility!
I’d love to hear from you on how you are planning to implement zone cleaning tasks at home and any great ideas you may have for your home. Please share with me anything from your plans to your fears of this new system.
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I’ve never heard of zone cleaning before, but I love the idea of it. I get so burnt out from cleaning my home for like 8 hours every week, and then I’ll get sick of doing it and have to call a maid, carpet cleaner, and other professionals to clean for me. Zone cleaning seems so much more manageable. I’m definitely going to start using this process!
Hi Sarah! I’m glad to hear you found the post useful. Zone cleaning is definitely a method of cleaning that can help you gain control of routine cleaning. Glad you enjoyed it!
Hey! I’m a soon-to-be FTM and I’ve been overtired, with zero energy to clean! And I guess it’ll be worse when baby comes. I hope this zone cleaning method help me get the pressure off cleaning the entire house at once, and stop half-assing it. Thank you for this post!! 🤗
Hey mama, congrats! Yes, the tiredness is a real thing! This is a method that tends to help those that need to focus on one thing at a time so they aren’t overwhelmed by the entire home. I hope it helps you put your home into sections and tackle it in a new way! Good luck with the little one and thank you so much for stopping by!