Modern homemaking tips for the beginner homemaker.
When people hear “homemaker” the first thing they often think about is a 1950’s housewife who spends all day at home baking pies and scrubbing floors.
Her house? It’s always clean. Her family? They have 100% of her attention, 100% of the time. Her schedule? It’s primed, perfected, and gets followed to a T. Her kitchen?
I’m sure this woman is out there somewhere, I just haven’t met her yet.
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I pride myself in my homemaking, but my home is rarely never perfect. Crumbs scatter the floor, the laundry piles up, and some nights we even eat frozen pizzas for dinner. (Gasp!) I have a to-do list that is far too long and value time spent with family over time spent getting that clean house we all desire.
But, I still consider myself a homemaker.
To be a homemaker doesn’t mean to be perfect. So, what does being a homemaker mean? Let’s take a look:
(See? There’s no mention of being perfect.)
Homemakers are in charge of taking care of their family, home, and children. There’s no manual that will tell you exactly how to do your job as a homemaker since every person is different. But, there are some tips and tricks that will help you learn how to be a good homemaker.
BEING A HOMEMAKER
Whether you’ve been homemaking for years or you’re brand new to the game, I want to share some of the best homemaking tips with you to help you learn how to be a homemaker, and exactly what you can do to learn about modern homemaking (in a skeptical world).
After getting married I quit my job to become a full-time housewife. I was quickly thrown into the role of being the primary keeper of our home with no experience.
Sure, it’s what I had wanted to do all my life, but it was something I really hadn’t prepared myself for in any way, shape, or form.
Just like everyone else, I had to learn how to be a good homemaker.
Whether you want to be an old-fashioned 1950’s homemaker or you’re looking for ways to be a modern homemaker, we all have to start somewhere. Homemaking is a learned skill, one that comes more naturally to some than others, but learned nonetheless.
HOMEMAKING IS NOT A COMPETITION
I see all too many women trying to “compete” in their homemaking. They always seem to want to have the cleanest homes, the tastiest meals, the biggest freezer stocked with baked goods, and the most well-behaved children.
But homemaking is not a competition.
Everyone has their own way and style of homemaking, it’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of deal.
We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and those will determine where we thrive in our homemaking.
MODERN HOMEMAKING TIPS TO MAKE MANAGING YOUR HOME EASIER
If you’re ready to have an easier time managing your home, while still keeping it clean, organized, and spending time with your family, these following tips will help you do just that.
1. FIND YOUR STRENGTHS
Just like I mentioned earlier, we all have different strengths. To find your area of strength in your homemaking, ask yourself what comes naturally to you? What do you enjoy doing the most?
Do you thrive at planning meals? Maybe you prefer to spend the day cleaning but don’t care much about making meals.
Whatever your homemaking strengths are, find them and use them. Those are the things that you’ll be able to get done easily every day – if you enjoy cooking, spending an afternoon prepping meals or making a delicious homecooked dinner won’t feel like work to you.
We don’t all have the same strengths. Your strengths will differ from the next person’s and that’s OKAY. You don’t have to have the same strengths as other people (how would we complement each other if we were all the same?).
2. DON’T IGNORE YOUR WEAKNESSES
That being said, knowing your strengths doesn’t give you a free pass to ignore your weaknesses. You may already know your areas of weakness, but if you don’t it’s time to learn them so you can work on bettering those areas.
Perhaps you don’t like organizing your home. If that’s the case, find ways to make home organization easier for you. Do things to keep your home organized throughout the day so you aren’t faced with a big mess to organize at the end of the day.
If you struggle with organization, my favorite organization course, The Organized Home teaches you how to organize your house with easy-to-implement steps and strategies you can use over and over again. For a limited time, you can get the course for 10% off with the code DELIBERATE10 click here to get the offer!
3. PRIORITIZE YOUR TASKS
Maybe mopping your floors twice a week is important to you. Or maybe it’s not. Prioritizing your daily tasks and learning which ones are important, and which ones don’t bother you if they get missed, will make your day a lot less chaotic.
This way you’ll know which tasks you need to get done daily and which ones don’t matter so much if they get put off (again).
4. DECLUTTER YOUR HOUSE
Many of us struggle with a cluttered home without even realizing it. When you look around the rooms of your house, how much stuff do you have (maybe it’s hidden away in a drawer) that you really don’t use or need?
All that stuff? It’s just clutter.
Learning how to declutter your house isn’t an easy task. The thought of decluttering is easy – but when it comes to actually decluttering? Well, that’s not so easy.
If you’re ready to get serious about decluttering and stop wasting your time, give the Kon Marie decluttering method a try.
5. GET UP EARLY
Getting into the habit of waking up early isn’t easy to do, but getting up before your kids on a regular basis is such a refreshing way to start your day off on the right foot.
There will be some points in our lives when waking up early just isn’t possible – like if you’re in the stage of newborns or little kids that keep you up for hours at night. But, if you are able to get up earlier than your kids in the morning you’ll get a head-start on your entire day. You could use that time in the morning to visit with your husband before he goes off to work, read a book, do devotions, or just spend some time by yourself planning out your day.
It doesn’t matter how you spend that time – the act in getting up early all in itself will help you feel more refreshed and ready to face your day.
If you really struggle to get up early in the mornings, try the Make Over Your Mornings course by Crystal Paine.
6. MAKE A LIST
I started feeling overwhelmed with everything that I had to do on a daily basis. I wasn’t overwhelmed with everything that had to get done – I was overwhelmed because there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything.
But that’s because I was often forgetting everything I needed to do until the evening when it was too late to do it.
So, I started making lists (like this one). Now I know exactly what needs to get done every day and I can get my to-do list complete as early in the day as possible, so I can spend the rest of my day with my family, NOT stressing about things that still need to get done.
7. DO THE THINGS ON THAT LIST
So you’ve made a list… now what?
Now it’s time to actually DO the things on the list you just made. That list isn’t meant to be a pretty piece of paper with some scribbles on it. It’s meant to be a guideline to help you get all your daily tasks done.
If you’re GREAT at making to-do lists but not so good at following through with them, this to-do list formula will help you make to-do lists that you can actually complete.
8. DO LITTLE BITS HERE AND THERE
All the tasks that homemakers have to do every day can be exhausting. Just looking at the long list of things to do is enough to make you want to forget about it.
To keep things manageable, I like to do small bits here and there. Instead of cleaning my entire house in one day, I break my cleaning schedule up over the week and do small tasks every day. This way I don’t have to carve several hours out of my day to clean – I can usually get it done in 30 minutes.
The same goes for laundry. I don’t like to spend all day doing nothing but loads and loads of laundry, so instead I have started to use a laundry schedule. I do smaller loads of laundry more frequently throughout the week, instead of one big day of nothing but laundry.
9. PLAN YOUR MEALS
I used to hate meal planning. I did everything in my power to avoid it. But avoiding meal planning resulted in many last-minute grocery store trips every week to pick up ingredients for supper, which resulted in spending $1,000 a month on groceries. For TWO people.
And, since we were on such a strict budget, that just wasn’t an option. So, I had to start getting serious about meal planning.
Since I’ve learned how to efficiently meal plan (this is the method I use), I have far less stress in my day. Now I always know what we’re having for supper well in advance. I’ve planned quick, 15-minute meals for the busy nights so we don’t get caught up in the drive-thru line.
If sitting down and making your own meal plans is something you’d rather not do, using a service like Eat at Home meal plans will make meal planning quick and easy – the only thing you’ll have to do is cook the meals. If you want to grab a simple meal planner instead of a whole meal planning service, I do love this one.
10. MAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF
A lot of homemakers are stay at home or work at home moms (though I understand not all homemakers are!). This means you spend the majority of most of your days at home with your kids.
Which also means, you NEED to carve some time out of your day to spend by yourself.
If you want to avoid mom-burnout, you need to take care of yourself. And taking care of yourself means spending even just five minutes of your day by yourself. Maybe that’s when your kids are napping, or when your husband gets home from work and you can escape from the house for a couple minutes to go for a walk or run an errand.
What you choose to do during your alone time doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something that refreshes and reenergizes you.
11. KEEP UP WITH LAUNDRY
Before I started using a laundry schedule, it was the end-all for me. I felt like every day I would spend ALL day doing nothing but laundry. Loading, switching, folding, and packing away.
That was my life. Until I realized there’s more to life than dirty laundry. (Really – I’m sure there is an end to laundry, I just haven’t found it yet.)
Now I do my laundry on set days, even if the mountain of dirty laundry hasn’t become overwhelming yet. Through my week I do frequent, smaller loads rather than less-frequent, massive loads of laundry, and it has been working GREAT. (I’ve been able to find my identity outside of being the laundry lady!)
12. KEEP YOUR HOME CLEANER BY KEEPING THE MESS OUT
Instead of having your kids track mud and dirt into your house and having to clean all that up on a daily basis, start keeping the mess out of your house.
To do this, you’ll need a shoe rack at your door and your kids will have to learn to take their shoes off before they get into the house and to neatly put them on the rack. This is the one I would recommend. My husband and I didn’t have much luck keeping the dirt out with this one (it was too small and easy to miss).
Another simple way you can keep messes out of your house is having your kids (and husband, and yourself) wash your hands anytime you come inside. This will eliminate those dirty little fingerprints from getting everywhere.
13. USE SCHEDULES
I already talked about how life-changing it has been to start using a laundry schedule, but what about the rest of your house? What about all your cleaning and home organization tasks? I like to use schedules for these things, too. (I might be a bit of a schedule junkie.)
If you’re ready to start making your days less busy by using schedules, sign up below to get the very popular free printable weekly cleaning schedule.
14. GIVE YOURSELF GRACE
No matter how hard you try, you can’t do it all – and that’s OKAY. You aren’t supposed to be able to do it all. Super-mom can’t even do it all.
Some days you’ll barely be able to do anything, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The sooner you can realize that those days will come, and the more grace you can extend yourself on those days, the better you’ll be.
If you aren’t able to do all your daily homemaker tasks, don’t stress about it. Tomorrow is a new day and a fresh start!
Homemaking is an important calling, and is something that we women should take seriously. By being a homemaker we can bless our families and friends in so many ways, so it’s time to embrace your role as a homemaker!
I’d love to hear from you – what are some of YOUR favorite modern homemaking tips and tricks?
Related:
5 Things Homemakers Do Every Day
8 House Cleaning Tips for Moms (How Even YOU Can Keep a Clean House)
8 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Become a Stay at Home Mom
How to Clean Every Room in Your House
