Keeping tidy and on top of chores can be tough, even without having to run your own enterprise. While your home business might be booming, you might be left with a lot more to do on your weekends.
Chores shouldn’t be the most stressful part of your week – leave that to high-level client meetings or having to talk with one of your kid’s teachers. They also shouldn’t be the thing you dread the most about your weekends. It’s not fair to you to have to work through the entire week and then have to work through the entire weekend.
In this blog post, we’ll go over some strategies to help keep on top of chores during the week without sacrificing productivity. If you manage your time well during the week, you’ll be able to savour your weekend that much more.
Make Weekly Checklists
It’s always good to know which chores need to get done. Setting up a weekly chore chart or checklist can help schedule time to get them done.
You can start by making a must-do list of weekly chores, like laundry or vacuuming (though some of these might be twice per week). Once they’re done, check them off.
TwinsMommy has an excellent article, How to Manage Chores and Still Run a Booming Home Business. Her really neat “systems” to keep on top of household chores is fundamentally about finding a method that works best for you.
Set Daily Goals
Now that you have your checklist, you can use it to work on daily goals for your week. Maybe Tuesdays will be your laundry day, or maybe Wednesdays will be the clean-the-kitchen day.
Depending on how in-depth your list is, set one or two daily goals for things that are on your checklist. You’ll be surprised at how much you get done during the week if you hit that two-per-day mark.
It can also help to zone out some parts of your list: instead of vacuuming your entire house, vacuum one floor per day so you still focus on your work and not overload your time away from your desk.
Determine Real Expectations
Sometimes finishing your checklist or meeting all of your weekly chore goals isn’t possible. Maybe it’s a week that happens to have a lot of appointments or meetings, or maybe it was just a rough week in general.
This is totally okay: You should always keep your expectations for what gets done within your schedule. If you know that you have a busy week coming up, it’s perfectly reasonable to push some of the smaller chores to a different day.
After all, it’s hard to have a perfectly scheduled anything to begin with.
Have A Backup Plan
Your yard-work day has just been rained out, or you need to clean the living room instead of the kitchen because your child took some creative liberty with their finger paint. What’s the plan? Your back-up plan, of course!
Chances are there’s an alternative that can be swapped out on your checklist that uses a similar amount of time. Or, if you anticipate something causing a snag in your plan, get ahead of the game and move things around earlier.
The key part about the checklist is that it should get finished – the order is up to you.
Sync With Your Kids
Every parent knows that raising their kids takes up more time than anything during the week. Luckily, even children need some downtime. Whether it’s playing outside or taking a nap, you can use this time to get on top of some quick chores while you don’t have to keep too close of an eye on them.
The Harvard Business Review has a great article, A Guide for Working (From Home) Parents. It talks about managing your business around your kid’s activities. Making sure your kids are being social and active may not be a household chore but it can sometimes seem like one and is also still a must-do for parents.
Conclusion
In total, we now have five key tips to keeping up with your chores during your work week:
- Make Weekly Checklists
- Set Daily Goals
- Set Real Expectations
- Have a Backup Plan
- Sync With Your Kids
One of the best things you can do while doing these chores is to plug into some music or a new podcast. Looking for something new to listen to while still wanting to increase your professional knowledge? Check out The 10 Best Podcasts For The Working Mompreneur
