Forever ago when I was a young mom, I went to a meeting about how to keep your house clean continually. The lady that taught the class was a genius and a little bit of a perfectionist, and probably OCD all rolled into one.
But the more I listened to her method the more I understood how much more organized she was than I. Why would you save all the deep cleaning jobs just for Spring Cleaning? Why not divide them up and do them throughout the year? That’s what this binder will help you do.
She said that if you check off the chores for each day BEFORE you do anything else (you can’t even answer the phone) your housework will always be done and your house will always be clean. She called it the “brain box” because she used 3×5 cards in a box instead of a binder.
Well, I took that idea and ran with it. I customized it to fit my family’s needs. You can use them too because they are available as a DOWNLOAD for only $4.99 for all my readers!
Let me tell you, this binder has EVERYTHING you can think of around your house that needs to be cleaned listed, and scheduled. It’s amazing some of the things I never even thought about cleaning. There is also plenty of empty space for you to write in your own chores too.
These lists include:
- Daily Cleaning Checklists
- Weekly Cleaning Checklists
- Monthly Cleaning Checklists
- Bi-Yearly Cleaning Checklists
- Bill checklists
- Daily Dishes Assignment Sheet
- Dinner Menu Planner
- A 1-2 inch binder with clear plastic sleeves on the outside for your pretty binder cover
- About 18 clear plastic binder sleeves
- Dry erase markers
- Printable Calendar pages like THESE from I Heart Naptime
Add the binder cover to the front sleeve of the binder. Add the pages to the plastic sleeves.
Follow this order for the papers in your binder:
-Dishes
-Dinners (use pen on these so they don’t get erased, so copy multiples for different weeks)
-Monday-Saturday Cleaning lists.
-Current Month printable that you wrote the “scrub” jobs on. Schedule the scrub jobs in ink on the paper for these. Only add scrub jobs to day’s you know you’ll have extra time or extra helpers.
-Bills
-Monthly Scrub Jobs
-January-December job papers
-Bi-Yearly Scrub Jobs
-Yearly Scrub Jobs
-The rest of the calendar printables for later use
-Assign one person the dishes for each day. Write their name in ink directly on the paper. You can keep this in the binder or display it on the fridge so everyone knows when it’s their day.
-Dinner planner requires multiple copies so you can use a new one each week. OR you can use the THIN Post-It Notes to plan the menu and stick them right next to the day.
-Use the daily chore lists by opening up the binder every day and doing what is on the list. I have left blank spaces to add things your family needs. Like practicing piano, feeding pets, etc. You can do these lists yourself or distribute them among the family. I’m all for the second option here. Teach your kids to work. When the job is completed, add a check mark beside the job so you know it’s done. Leave the binder open on the counter until the jobs are done, so you know it’s not time to stop yet.
-Check the current calendar and see if any “scrub” jobs are assigned for that day, and do them.
-At the end of each month, throw away the previous month’s calendar and move forward the current month. Add the Monthly Scrub jobs, Bi-Yearly, Yearly, and Specific Month jobs to the new calendar. Feel free to color code the ink so certain people in your home are assigned to a specific job. Add the scrub jobs to a day you know you will have extra time or help.
-Use the bills checklist each time you pay bills to make sure you don’t forget any. Keep your credit score up! Yay!
If you don’t want to use a binder, you could always use a ring and hang it from a hook since you are using plastic binder sleeves.
NOW are you ready to get started? Click HERE to purchase these 19-page Ultimate Cleaning Binder Printables for only $4.99!
I hope you enjoy these. I put a whole lot of work into them because I love my readers! Now go and get a clean house!
The lists you’ve created are so colorful and cheerful. Can I download it from somewhere, because I’m one of the messy mums and have no idea how to deal with the chaos at home. 🙂
Yes Jessica, the links to download them from google docs are in the post. Thanks so much!
I downloaded these printables but couldn’t print them. Any suggestions.
I got it! Figured it out all by myself haha. Thanks for the printables.
Can you help me figure out how to print? I can’t wait to start using this method…and right now the only thing that is stopping me is the PRINT button. Thank you.
Sure Jennifer. First you need to download them by clicking on the icon that looks like an arrow pointing down to a line. It’s at the top of the download page here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzzyOkNnk2f8eU9tallMWnQxc00/edit. Once you have downloaded the folder, you will need to unzip it by right clicking on it and choosing extract. Then you can open them on your computer and print them. Let me know if you need any more help.
Sorry, I was at girls camp when you left this message! I’m glad you got it figured out!
Great post! We are linking to this particularly great article
on our website. Keep up the good writing.
I love it when people share there ideas, on such kind of a post. thanks for sharing it.
Thank you! Very cool
You mention a yearly job sheet on the instructions but I don’t see one in the list of downloads. There are two bi-yearly but no yearly. Am I missing something?
Hi Jamie. I just checked to make sure, there is not a yearly checklist, just 2 Bi-yearly Checklists. Thanks for catching that!
These are absolutely great! I have my binder made and ready to go! I had to do a little tweaking since my kids have four paws but it was a great place to start! Thank you so much for sharing!
Great Morgan, I’m glad you were able to adapt it for you! Thanks!
It won’t let me download the files
I’ll email them to you Beth. After you enter your email it reveals a link to open the files in google docs. Then you can download them and extract them.
I tried subscribing to your blog so that I could get access to the Brain Box Binder, but for some reason it’s not allowing me. I’ve tried it multiple times, maybe you can see the subscription on your end? Please let me know if I need to do something different. I appreciate you sharing your hard work! Thanks so much!
Hi Karissa, please check your email.
Can we no longer get access to this? Not seeing a link and LOVE this idea!
You just need to subscribe to my newsletter using the form above, then once you confirm your email address, you’ll get a link to download the papers.