Do you ever feel like there are just not enough hours in the day? No matter how hard you try, you feel like you never get anything accomplished. You are spinning your wheels and feeling overwhelmed every single day. If so, you are one of many women who could benefit from a simple home management routine.
And, it’s actually more “simple” to start a routine than you might think!
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What is a home management routine?
A home management routine is a system that is put in place to help you get all your daily tasks done. It’s really not complicated, but rather just serves as a guide to help you form proper management habits.
Once good habits are formed, you probably won’t even need a management routine anymore. It will just be second nature to use the system you have already established.
A good home management routine will outline the daily and weekly tasks that need to get done, the day of the week you will do them, and the supplies you will keep on hand.
You will begin by simply listing out all the tasks you need to accomplish on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These tasks will vary based on your family’s needs. But, for many of us, there are a lot of similarities in our home management tasks.
For example, you will probably need to keep everything picked up off the floors, clean off your counter tops, pick up used towels from the bathroom, load the dishwasher, do a load of laundry, and fix meals on a daily basis.
Weekly, you might need to vacuum, mop the floors, deep clean the bathrooms, dust all the surfaces in your home, wash your bed linens, run to the grocery store, meal prep, etc.
And, on a monthly basis you may wipe down baseboards, descale your dishwasher, deep clean your fridge, wipe down the washing machine and dryer, wash all your rugs, wash the carpets, and other similar tasks.
As you can see, a homemaker juggles many tasks at all times! And, having a simple home management routine in place can help you establish good habits and keep track of all the responsibilities.
The Benefits of a Simple Home Management Routine
Once you have established good habits for home management, it will require minimal effort to keep your home tidy and your clutter under control.
One of my biggest anxiety-inducing moments is when someone stops by my home unexpectedly.
You know what I’m talking about, right?!
The house is a complete disaster because you haven’t had time to get around to everything. It looks like a complete mess with clutter on all the countertops and floors. And, you’re embarrassed to invite your guests in, so you meet them outside to talk in the driveway instead.
It’s a totally normal scenario to happen to the best of us. But, it doesn’t have to be that way all the time. By keeping up with simple home management systems, you can rotate through tasks on different days of the week so that your home stays consistently tidy and manageable.
You CAN have a visitor-ready home on the drop of a dime by following these easy home management tips!
Home management routine template
It’s easy to create your own home management system by using this free template. Simply download the template, and follow the 3 simple steps below to begin forming your own daily routines.
I keep my home management plan inside a home management binder in my kitchen. It is easily accessible so I can refer to it whenever I need to. If I forget what tasks I need to be doing or get off track with my habits, I can always open the binder and refresh myself on the goals I have set.
The good news is this is a super simple way to manage household chores that requires little time to prepare!
3 Steps to a Simple Home Management Routine
Step 1: Assign a “theme” to each day
Part of the obstacle to keeping a tidy home is overwhelm. There is so much to do in a day that you very easily become distracted, and your mind goes off in a million different directions.
When you dedicate one weekly task to each day of the week, you don’t have to think about all the things you should be doing. You just think about one single task, knowing that there is a specific time already planned to think about all the others.
An example of assigning a theme day would be “vacuum Thursday.” Vacuuming is a weekly task that you do around your home, so you are going to pick a consistent day of the week to do that task. Every Thursday, you will vacuum. You won’t worry about vacuuming on Monday or Wednesday, because you already know it will be done on Thursday.
Why have theme days?
Assigning cleaning tasks to each day of the week will greatly reduce overwhelm in keeping an organized home. You are able to focus on a singular area of home management rather than keeping a constant to-do list in your mind.
This strategy has completely altered my cleaning routine. Instead of waiting for an area to become so messy that I feel the need to clean it, I am continuously cleaning everything on a rotating basis throughout the week. Mess doesn’t have the chance to accumulate because I am staying on top of it on assigned days.
Using this strategy also reduces the amount of time I spend on cleaning and gives me more free time. Since areas of my home don’t have the chance to get out of control, I don’t have to spend as much time cleaning them each day.
Every Monday, I clean the bathrooms. Since I have this routine and stick with it, the bathrooms never get too overwhelmingly dirty. I only have to spend about 15 minutes deep cleaning each bathroom, which means it takes me less than an hour to clean them every week.
My Simple Home Management Routine:
I have adapted this cleaning schedule using Clean Mama’s strategy. Check her out for more tips & tricks!
Monday: Deep clean the bathrooms.
Tuesday: Mop the floors. (My absolute favorite vacuum/mop!)
Wednesday: Dust all surfaces in the home.
Thursday: Vacuum
Friday: Deep clean the kitchen
Saturday: Wash the bed linens
Sunday: Do just the daily activities (keep floors & counters clean, do a load of laundry, wash dishes, make beds.)
Step 2: Gather all your supplies in one easily accessible location
There is no worse feeling than getting all geared up and motivated to clean something and then realizing you don’t have what you need to do it. You reason that you will do it as soon as you get the chance to pick up supplies. But, the motivation doesn’t come back for several days or weeks, and the mess just keeps accumulating.
Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of not being prepared. It’s really simple to keep track of the supplies you need once you have a system in place.
For instance, I keep a caddy filled with all my bathroom cleaning supplies under my bathroom sink. When I go to clean the bathrooms, I just grab the caddy and have everything I need. I keep shower cleaner, glass cleaner, toilet cleaner, microfiber towels, and sponges in my caddy at all times. It’s truly the best thing I’ve done for my household management system that didn’t require much effort at all.
Step 3: Consistency is key
The best way to improve your home management skills is by staying consistent with your routine. It may not feel like your system is working the first week, or even month, that you implement it.
You may feel burnout in your weekly routines if you’re trying to do too much too soon. It will take some adjusting to finally hit your stride.
But, you must be consistent in your home management work to see a difference at the end of the day.
Assigning theme days, keeping a list of monthly cleaning tasks to rotate through, and always completing your daily tasks are ways to build consistency. And, building consistency will result in a clean home.
Staying consistent will also keep your home manageable and give you more quality time to do the activities you love!
Building Good Habits As Full Time Stay-At-Home Moms
Not only will a simple home management routine help you keep your home life organized, but it will also help you build habits that are so important for the whole family.
You can read about the 10 Habits of A Successful Homemaker for practical tips on building habits for stay-at-home moms. One of my favorite habits to establish that makes me more productive with my cleaning routine is my mom morning routine.
Having a consistent morning routine as a mom will help you get a good start to your day and be the most productive you can be. It’s also a great way to start snowballing habits that will drastically improve your time management.
You can also check out this blog post on How to Create a Weekly Homemaking Schedule for more simple home management tips! I share my weekly homemaking schedule as well as help you create a schedule that will work for your entire family.
Whether you have young children, grown children, or no children, you can greatly benefit from establishing a simple home management routine right away!
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