Daily Cleaning Checklist

The 15-minute daily routine

1. Make the bed (1 min).
2. Wipe kitchen counters after every meal (3 min total).
3. Do the dishes or load the dishwasher (5 min).
4. Quick tidy of living room — surfaces, cushions, pet toys (3 min).
5. Hang up clothes / put dirty laundry in the basket (2 min).
6. Wipe the bathroom sink dry after use (30 sec).

That's it. 15 minutes spread across the day. Do this and you'll never need a "panic clean" again.

Why it works

Mess compounds. Two days of skipped dishes means scrubbed-on food. A week of skipped tidying means a full Saturday of work. The daily checklist isn't about being a clean freak — it's aboutpreventing the compounding.

The 10-minute daily reset

The single most effective daily routine is a 10-minute "kitchen reset" before bed: counters wiped, sink empty, dishwasher running or empty, one tidy of visible surfaces. Done daily, this prevents almost every "the kitchen is a disaster" weekend recovery. It is the cheapest cleaning habit you can build, by an order of magnitude.

Daily vs weekly: what actually goes daily

• Counters, sink, visible kitchen tidy.
• Beds made (optional, debatable, do what works).
• Quick floor sweep in high-traffic rooms if you have pets or kids.
• Anything else — bathroom, vacuuming, dusting — is weekly or less. Don't try to daily everything; you will burn out.

How fairness is calculated

Behind the scenes, every chore gets a numeric weight from its effort (small / medium / large), frequency, and a difficulty modifier for the genuinely unpleasant tasks. The algorithm distributes weight across people, not chore counts — three counter wipes do not equal one toilet scrub, and the schedule respects that. Annoying tasks rotate separately so the same person never gets the bin two weeks running. Full details on the methodology page.

FAQ