As a business owner and working mom, it can often be hard for me to keep up with household duties. I’ve posted before about the expectations – false no doubt – that I’ve set for myself. I’m sure you can relate to the sentiment of feeling like there’s just not enough time in the week. When you’re working during the day and on weekdays, you want to use nights and weekends to spend time with the family. That is when I’d like to take a trip to the zoo, the park, or just enjoy a movie with the family! Sometimes, the weekends are full of necessary trips, though – errands you can’t complete during the week (i.e., grocery shopping). So, what’s a busy mom to do? I’m not sure I have a final solution that works for everyone, but I’ve been trying something for a while that seems to be helping.
What can working moms do to manage the housework?
I’ve set up a weekly chore schedule and broken down the housework to a little each day – there’s even a day off!
Here’s my weekly cleaning schedule:
- Sunday: clean bathrooms
- Monday: wash laundry
- Tuesday: fold laundry
- Wednesday: sweep & mop
- Thursday: vacuum
- Friday: OFF day
- Saturday: change bed sheets
Plus, every day is declutter day, since this can be done simultaneously with the other chores. That means, putting away toys, clearing the day’s mail, and other small tasks. The chores scheduled on the weekend can be done quickly in the morning before heading out for the day. 😉
To keep track of the cleaning schedule, I write down each day’s task on our family’s calendar. This helps everyone see it and encourages the rest of the household to pitch in.
By breaking down the housework into smaller daily tasks, it seems to make things a bit more manageable. By the time the weekend rolls around, there’s less to do!
How do you manage your housework?
To keep the balance and sanity in my home I have set for myself a cleaning/organizing routine. We barely ever use the dish washer because before and after each meal I wash the dishes that way there are only a handful at each time. Then on different days of the week I go about doing a different task. One day it is the bathrooms, another laundry and another dusting & moping, etc. So far it has worked out great. By the time the weekend comes around I have everything all caught up. If there are any projects around the house we will do them together Saturday morning. After that I have time for the family and catching up on my blog.
Sounds like you have a routine similar to the schedule above. I find it makes it a bit more manageable.
I absolutely HATE laundry. So instead of spending a whole day doing laundry I do a little every day. One load a day takes me about 15-20 minutes of folding (which is the part I dislike) so it's not so bad and our laundry is almost always done.
OMG – I hate folding too. I'm torn between doing a load every day or just getting it out of the way at once. I don't know if I could think about laundry every single day. lol
I don't have a routine which might explain why my house is a mess! The set schedule (with a day off even) seems like a great idea and definitely something I should do.
It's worth a try to see if it works for you. It doesn't work for everybody, but it makes it a little more manageable, I think.
I too hate laundry but find it alot easier to do a couple of loads every day. I put a load in in the morning and when I get home I put that load in the dryer and add another load to the washer. I fold and put it away instantly. The loads are smaller therefor are quicker to do. I have four kids and when they get home they each have a designated shared living area to pick up, tidy and clean(only takes them about 15 minutes), then they can choose to do their homework or play and do hw after dinner. The kids have to pick up their rooms and pick out their clothes for the next day before they go to bed. Since kids will be kids I do set some sort of standard to how I want things done ( age appropriate ) but they don’t do as good as I prefer so I have sectioned my home into 7 areas and each day I clean and organize that section of the day Example…Monday- master bedroom
Tuesday – oldest son’s room, Wednesday- Daughter’s room, Thursday- the 2 little one’s room, Friday- the 2 bathrooms and hallway closets ( linen closet and game closet), Saturday- living room and yard work( I also do my grocery shopping and the meal planning for the following week), Sunday- Kitchen and dining room, garage and car. The days I do a bedroom I do the sheets too! It seems like a lot but when you are consistent the actual job only takes minutes and it is about maintaining an organized clean home, if you skip a day it’s okay you just make up for it next week!
It sounds like you have a great system and cleaning schedule in place! Thanks for sharing.
Cleaning is no easy task but keeping the house clean is even harder in my home. It’s helpful for us to devote time to cleaning house on Saturday mornings or Friday evenings. Every person is assigned a task and we get done much faster.
That’s a great method! I know some people prefer to clean on the weekends, but others prefer to do a bit each day so they can have fun on the weekends. Whatever works for your family is perfect!
Your calendar link goes to a XXX site…thought you should know!
Thanks so much for letting me know! Looks like the site got taken down and didn’t redirect. I’ve removed the link. 🙂