Written by Pamm Clark
When you have a daycare and/or homeschool in your home, the housework can be overwhelming and never-ending! I've been told that having a daycare will double your housework; so if you normally run your dishwasher once a day, you'll have to run it twice a day because of daycare. I believe homeschooling adds to it all, too.
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It's taken me a long time figure this out. One thing I've realized is that the way of dealing with housework depends greatly on what "season of life" you are in. Housework will always be there. It doesn't matter what stage in life you are in, everyone has to deal with housework. |
| When my children were small, I start to incorporate them into as much of the housework as possible. At first it was frustrating because I knew I do it faster and up to my standards, but the pay-off as they got older and better at it was wonderful! Now that they're grown, I'm back to doing almost everything again. |
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If you have children,
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for ideas on how to incorporate them.
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When it became my responsibility to do most of the housework again (our kids grew up!), I held on to the Friday night schedule that would spill over to the weekend and before I knew it, I was working seven days a week! Then I realized that I need to "Work on Work Days." With this in mind, I've come up with this housework schedule: |
Things I work on daily are dishes and keeping the ktichen clean. |
| Monday |
Laundry
Brush Dogs |
| Tuesday |
Change Sheets
& Vacuum |
| Wednesday |
Brush Dogs
Change fish water
Clean backyard |
| Thursday |
Laundry
Clean bathroom |
| Friday |
Brush Dogs
Daycare Laundry
Mop Floors |
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Half the battle is how you set things up. I have NO knick-knacks sitting around to dust, toy storage is kept simple, I try to not accumulate lots of things to have to manage. I work hard during my work day to get all the housework done and have dinner cooked before the last child leaves. I now cherish my evening and weekend hours off! It's not much to brush out the dogs before the first child arrives or to switch the laundry while the children are playing nicely or to make dinner while it's evening TV time for the daycare children.
I try not to get frustrated if things don't go right or I have a bad day. If I miss changing my sheets on Tuesday, I'll do it on Wednesday. If the laundry doesn't get put away on Monday, I'll do that on Tueday during nap.
I watched a show years ago where the woman suggested to a busy mom that she work on cleaning for 5-10 mintues at a time. I was thinking what eveyrone else is: How can anything get done?! Well, I've been putting that principle into action and guess what? IT WORKS! I use it for my schedule above as well as major jobs I want to get done. If I have to clear off my desk, I look for a moment to work on it. I sometimes get two or three minutes or all the way up to ten or fifteen minutes at one time. Two or three times during the day and before I know it, the job is done.
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So, on top of my usual housework, some days I have an alternate goal such as clear my desk, clean out some toys, wipe down the walls, clean all the door jams, wipe out the fridge, organize the kitchen cupboards, clean the outside toys, or whatever. I will work a few minutes here and there and in a day or two, my job is done and I haven't given up my "down time". |
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Something else I have worked on is teaching the daycare children to clean up before lunch and before they go home. Again, when new children start this process it takes time to teach them, but once they catch on, it goes smoothly. I even involve the children for our Toy Wash & Swap.
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