If you’re overwhelmed at home and have no idea where to even start, I’m going to share with you exactly what to do.
I’ll walk you through a simple 5 week plan that will have you feeling more peaceful and purposeful at home.
Focus on one habit each week and then add on the next habit. You will be stacking your habits each week.
Week 1: Clean Kitchen.
The first week, my challenge to you is to clean up the kitchen every night after dinner.
One of the best things in life is waking up to a clean kitchen in the mornings. That may seem like an exaggeration, but it literally changed my life!
The only way to do that is by going to bed with a clean kitchen.
Before I started this habit, I would leave the kitchen a mess after dinner and the next morning had to dig through the sink of dirty dishes to find a mug that I could wash out for my coffee.
It was so frustrating.
But when I made it my goal to wash the dishes every single night after dinner, I no longer had that problem.
And really cleaning up after dinner doesn’t have to take that long. You can probably finish it in less than 20 minutes especially if others are helping.
Sometimes we make household chores bigger in our heads than they actually are. Cleaning up your kitchen really doesn’t have to take long.
So that’s where I’d tell you to start. That single habit will make the biggest impact in your home because then your mornings will be easier and lighter.
Week 2: Morning Routine
In week 2 add in a simple morning routine. This doesn’t have to be complicated and you don’t have to wake up at 5:00 if you’ve been sleeping in til 8 or 9 every morning.
The main thing here is to start small and doable. Pick a reasonable time to wake up. That time has changed for me over the seasons.
Currently I wake up at 6. But it has taken me years to get there. When I was sleeping in until 8, I challenged myself to get up at 7:45 and then when that got easier, I started waking up at 7:30 and so forth.
So my point is to pick a get up at a time that you know you can do and will stick to.
Then choose 3 productive things to do each morning. I started with these:
- reading my Bible
- getting showered and dressed
- starting a load of laundry.
I didn’t make it complicated. I just stuck to those 3 things every day. And when you do those things instead of getting on your phone or staying in your pj’s for the morning, you are more motivated to do other productive things.
Week 3: Plan for Dinner
Have a plan for dinner 24 hours in advance or at least by that morning.
Don’t wait until 5:00 to come up with dinner. I used to do that and it never failed that I either didn’t have all the ingredients to make a meal or the meat was still frozen and I didn’t have time to defrost it.
Now what I do is I glance at my planner and see what I have written down for tomorrow’s nights dinner. Then I pull up meat from the freezer and put it in a dish in the fridge to thaw overnight.
I also make sure I have all the other ingredients needed.
Preparing in advance for dinner will save you so much stress and probably money because you won’t be ordering pizza or getting fast food.
I share more about simple meal planning in my course The Motivated Homemaker Blueprint along with other simple homemaking strategies and biblical mindset shifts you can make at home to find more peace and purpose.
Week 4: Laundry
This week you’ll build on the other weeks but you are adding in laundry. I talked a little about that in week 2 with your morning routine, but this week make it your goal to stay on top of the laundry every single day.
Complete the cycle. Wash, dry, fold, and put away.
A lot of times the laundry gets stuck in one of those steps. That’s when you end up with wet cloths in the washing machine that never got dried. Or piles of clean laundry sitting in baskets in the living room that never got folded or put away.
So this week, do at least one complete load a day so that you can stay on top of it and it doesn’t get out of hand.
Week 5: Mindset
Now comes one of the most important parts of managing your home and that is your mindset.
Having cleaning routines and meal planning is all important, but you will quickly fizzle out if you don’t remember why you’re doing all of it.
Why do you make the meals?
Why do you clean the floors?
Why do you fold the laundry again and again?
It’s not just to check those things off your list.
Those ordinary, mundane tasks are for the people you love. You are literally creating a home for your family to live in and to grow and flourish.
You are doing those things to serve your family and not only them but also the Lord. Colossians 3:24 reminds us that it is the Lord Christ we are serving and should be doing them with our whole hearts.
When I remember this, my “have to’s” become “get to’s”. Instead of saying I have to wash the dishes. I get to wash the dishes.
I have a family to feed, money to buy groceries, and hot water and soap. Those are all reasons I get to do the dishes.
If you follow through on all of these things, you will see a huge difference in your home and start to feel much more peace.
And if you’d like more guidance, sign up for The Simplified Homemaker’s Checklist.