Most people know what personal hygiene involves. The harder part is noticing which pieces quietly drop out of a week, and that is what this checklist shows you. It is a card for the bathroom mirror with daily, weekly and monthly lists. You check lines off as you go, each list starts fresh by itself, and a panel under the card reads the past seven days back to you.

What goes on the card, and how often

The card starts with lines you can keep, drop or add to. Where a health organization gives a number, the card follows it; where the answer depends on you, it asks you to choose.

• Teeth. The American Dental Association says to brush twice a day with a soft-bristled brush and to clean between your teeth once a day (ADA, Brushing Your Teeth). Hence two brushing lines and one for floss. The same page says to replace your toothbrush every three or four months, or sooner once the bristles fray, so the monthly list has a line for looking yours over.
• Face. The American Academy of Dermatology puts face washing at twice a day, morning and night, plus as soon as you can after heavy sweating (AAD, Face washing 101). It words twice a day as a limit, not a target.
• Hair. The AAD says to wash based on how oily your hair gets: every day can suit straight hair with an oily scalp, while dry, textured, curly or thick hair can go longer, washed when needed and at least every two to three weeks (AAD, Tips for healthy hair). So hair sits on the weekly list with a number you set, from once to seven times a week.
• Hands. Handwashing doesn't fit a once-a-day box. The CDC names key moments instead, such as before eating, after using the toilet and after blowing your nose, and asks for at least twenty seconds of scrubbing each time (CDC, About Handwashing). The suggestions include a line for washing hands before meals.
• Sheets, towels and nails. None of the pages above sets a schedule for bedding or towels, so the card starts both at once a week and leaves the rhythm to you. Fingernails start weekly and toenails monthly; move either as needed.

How the card works

Tap a line when it's done and it gets crossed through. The daily list resets on your own calendar date, the weekly list every Monday and the monthly list on the first, so nothing needs clearing by hand. Marks stay with the day they were made: if the card is still open past midnight, your first tap turns it to the new date instead of marking the old one.

A weekly line with a number, like hair, fills a row of dots as the week goes on, and once it has had its planned turns the card says so. Each list has a cap, ten daily lines, six weekly and five monthly, so the card stays readable at a glance. Taking a line off removes its marks too, and every count follows.

Reading what slips

The panel under the card looks at the seven days before today. Each day becomes a tile that fills with the share of your daily list you checked, so thin days stand out. Below the tiles, the card names the line that slips most and the exact days it slipped, lists what held every day, and notes any weekly line that fell short last week.

Read it as information about your week, not as a grade. If floss keeps slipping on nights you get home late, the ADA's once a day comes with no hour attached, so the morning counts too. If showers drop out on weekends, pair one with something you already do then. A line that almost never gets checked may belong on another list, or off the card.

Days with no marks at all are left out, not counted as misses, since the card can't know what happened on a day you didn't open it.

Hard days

Some days the full list is out of reach, whether from illness, grief, exhaustion or a heavy mood. Mark the day as hard and the card keeps your hard-day minimum in full view while everything else goes quiet. Choose up to three lines for that minimum on a steadier day, such as brushing at night, deodorant and clean underwear. When a hard day comes, finishing those three is enough, and later the panel tells you whether the minimum held and what went first.

If basic care has felt out of reach for weeks rather than days, that is worth raising with a doctor or therapist. It says nothing bad about your character, and they can help you figure out what is getting in the way.

When to use it

Open the card by the sink morning and night, and read the panel once a week. If mornings are where everything slips, the Morning Routine Checklist gives each step its honest minutes and works out when to get up. If you meant bedtime habits, the Sleep Hygiene Quiz scores that other kind of hygiene. For water, movement and time with people, the Self-Care Checklist covers the care that lives outside the bathroom.