home management

Before Jill was born, I started looking more seriously into the topic of home management. I knew I needed to get my act together because unlike several years ago when I had a bunch of babies at home and it was ok for everyone to stay in pajamas all day, now is different. The big kids have commitments and obligations. There's homework, practices, and appointments. My ship (our home) needs to be in working order!

I did a lot of googling and looking for guru's on YouTube, but ultimately landed on this book, Home Management by Kim Brenneman. It's solid gold. Honestly, it's a bit boring at times as a read, but the wisdom she shares is so valuable. My suggestion would be to go through it slowly and chew on it bit by bit. I wish I had this as a younger mom. 

My 2 biggest takeaways:

1. Create a home management binder.  This will hold all the important information you need to reference regularly. Mine has our budget, home repair lists, family meeting notes, and a personal category. It's so great to have everything in one place. Also, this is the place to put all the plans, habits, and details about your days of the week. See below.

2. Create a days of the week schedule. This is mine.

Monday cleaning

Tuesday errands

Wednesday office

Thursday laundry + kitchen

Friday fun! or catch up day

This doesn't mean that I only clean on Mondays or that I do paper work all day Wednesday, it just shows me where to lean in and address issues. It gives each major category a proper day, a time slot to be handled. 

Before this method something like ironing would just dangle out there, a task never to be done, because I hate it. But now, it has a day - Thursday. 

As a homemaker nothing ever feels finished, "a woman's work is never done." This schedule gives me a sense of accomplishment. Whoo hoo! 

I love this paragraph on page 125

God did not create everything in the universe in one day. He took six days to do it in an orderly manner. He divided the creative work among the first six days of the week, focusing on creating specific parts of the universe and specific animal kinds on specific days. Then God rested on the seventh day. He didn't have to do it like this, but he did, and it sets a pattern for us to do the same. Focusing on one area of the home on a weekly basis keeps it under control. We are not so tempted to postpone certain housekeeping tasks forever when we have a day set aside to tackle them specifically. 

Some other tools I use for schedule organization....At a Glance calendar, always, and this Weekly Planner Notepad.