Alpacto › Free printables › Cleaning
Free cleaning printables: schedules, checklists and zones
Four cleaning printables for a home that two people share: a weekly schedule, a checklist by room, a small-steps version, and a spring list for the once-a-year jobs. Every sheet has a line for who owns the job, prints in US Letter and A4, and asks for no email.
In short
A week to plan and two names to write in: the cleaning schedule. What exactly counts as clean in each room: the checklist by room.
A day when starting is the problem: the small-steps sheet. The jobs you do once a year: the spring list. Slower than all four: the zones sheet, five zones over five weeks, fifteen minutes a day.
The four cleaning printables in this group
Weekly cleaning schedule
One week on one page: each day gets an area, a name and a line for what “done” means. A big job that did not fit moves to next week on purpose, instead of being carried over as a failure. The schedule and its example.
Cleaning checklist by room
Six areas of the home, each on three rhythms. Daily jobs get a box for every weekday; weekly and monthly ones get a single box. Every room carries a Who line, so a room is owned rather than noticed. Free PDF: US Letter · A4.
ADHD cleaning checklist
One zone at a time, in tasks of five to fifteen minutes. You guess the minutes for each and tick Done, and the page is finished when those rows are. Printed at the foot of the small-steps sheet: one ticked row still counts.
Spring cleaning checklist
The once-a-year jobs across eight areas and four weekends: the extractor filter, the vents, the wardrobe change, the gutters. Each area has a Who, and three columns at the foot collect what turns up: donate, toss, fix. Free PDF: US Letter · A4.
Cleaning Zones, the companion sheet
Five zones, one a week, fifteen minutes a day by the timer. The day cells take initials rather than a tick, so you can see whether the quarter of an hour is always the same person. It is zone cleaning the way FlyLady readers do it.
Schedule or checklist: which one you need
Cleaning printables get called schedules and checklists as if the two words meant one thing. They answer different questions:
- A schedule answers who and when. Print it when the argument is about fairness, because the names sit in the grid where both of you can count them.
- A checklist answers what exactly. Print it when the argument is about standards, when “I cleaned the kitchen” and “the kitchen is clean” turn out to be different jobs.
- A week or a project. The schedule and the checklist run weekly; the spring list is one project split across four weekends, with an end you can see.
- When starting is the problem, neither helps: the small-steps sheet asks for one zone and tasks you can finish before the timer rings.
The cleaning rules people ask about, and where they come from
The 20/10 rule has an address. The Unf*ck Your Habitat site defines it on its own page: twenty minutes of work (cleaning, studying, whatever needs doing), then a ten-minute break. It is the only one of the three with an author you can check.
The 5-5-5 and 6/10 rules do not. Search either one and the first page of Google is company blogs and social posts. Their definitions disagree: 5-5-5 is five minutes in five spots on one page and five things to get rid of on the next.
What survives all three is smaller than any of them: a timer, and a point at which you stop. The zones sheet prints fifteen minutes a day and the rule to stop when it rings. The small-steps sheet asks you to guess the minutes first, so the guess is what you check.
Questions people ask
What is the 20/10 rule for cleaning?
Twenty minutes of work (cleaning, studying, whatever needs doing), then a ten-minute break. It comes from the Unf*ck Your Habitat system, which defines it that way on its own site. It is written for days when a whole hour is not going to happen.
What is the 5-5-5 rule for cleaning?
There are two versions in circulation: five minutes each in five different spots, or five things to throw out, five to donate and five to put back where they live. No single author owns it, so pick whichever version you will actually do.
What is the 6/10 rule for cleaning houses?
Six daily habits and ten weekly jobs, in the version that circulates on social media. The lists change from post to post, and none of the pages explaining it names a source. The checklist by room does the same split with the rooms named.
Is there a free printable Airbnb cleaning checklist available?
Not in this group. These sheets are drawn for a home people live in, where the point is who owns which area. A turnover checklist is a different job, written for whoever arrives after the guests leave.
When the schedule needs to remind somebody
A printed week works until one of you has to chase the other about Thursday. In Alpacto the same row becomes a pact you both see: the area, what counts as done, the day, and coins that buy rewards from a list the two of you wrote.