Running a household can be something of a heavy task, particularly if you have a career, a family and hobbies to take care of on top of that. Sometimes, it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day, and that somewhat frustrated feeling goes double when we look around at the end of the day and feel like we’ve just wasted 24 hours!
You don’t have to be wasteful – all you need is a simple plan and some routines in your life. How do you go about doing this? Well, it’s all about finding your priorities and figuring out what they mean to you – as well as how they can be optimised.
It might take a little time to truly and effectively understand your requirements in this regard, but if you do, you’re much more likely to find success.
To begin with, we’d certainly recommend considering just how much time you have to apply in pursuit of your goals. If you have an hour in the morning before work, use that as a basis.
Here are three things to consider to help make your household routines feel more productive, and convenient.
1. Choose Days For Specific Chores
It’s much easier taking care of a household when you know what you have to do and when you have to do it. This way, you don’t have to feel as though you can only care for your household when it’s out of shape or when certain issues need seeing to.
You might decide that Sunday is the day you vacuum, for instance, and stick to that. This can help you set times for it, even for relatively annoying jobs like continual laundry. In the long run, you’ll notice a difference, and with audiobooks or podcasts, this time can fly by.
Our advice though is to plan out your week and plan those chores and start to get into a routine that works for your and your lifestyle. A clean home is a happy home, so plan your week and get those chores ticked off!
2. Don’t Forget Your Pets
We’re fortunate to have a dog, pony and donkey, and consider them a big part of the family. So we like to plan some of our household activities around the animals, especially in the warmer weather when we can spend more time outdoors with them (well, the pony and donkey are outdoor all year but during the warmer months we can spend more time in the field with them).
A lot of caring for animals and pets revolves around when they eat – like us humans, it’s important to ensure your pet eats regularly. And not only that, but they eat the right food. Our dog requires grain-free food so we often need to shop around to find alternatives for him to try. You can read the most informative Freshpet reviews online to find the right food for your own pet.
3. Enlist Help From Your Family
Of course, it’s important not to feel like the only workhorse in the household. Asking your family to help is important, because it helps them know what their own responsibilities are.
For instance, you might teach your children how to properly wash their bedsheets and clean their room at the end of the week, with small little rewards (or small little punishments) that go hand in hand with a job well done or a job not done.
This way, you only need to inspect how well the job has been done, rather than spending that time yourself. It’s only healthy to do this, so don’t worry about being overbearing.
Our approach to household chores is very much a joint effort, and while Lewis is still only 3, he’s quickly learning the importance of tidying up after himself and cleaning up as he goes. Let’s hope this continues as he grows older 🙂
Got Something to Add?
How do you get more organised with your household chores and routines? Let us know in the comments section below.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
Helen, Nial and Lewis.
Welcome to Pikalily, an award-winning food, travel and lifestyle blog. We are Nial and Helen, a happily married couple from Northern Ireland, who share a passion for food and travel among many things. We became parents to our beautiful boy Lewis in 2017. Follow our adventures through the blog.
