Habits are the building blocks of who we will become. What kind of a homemaker do you want to be?

Every child has been asked the question what do you want to be when you grow up. While we are no longer children and responsibilities often way heavy on our shoulders and hearts, the question still applies to us as homemakers. 

What kind of a homemaker do you want to be when you are a grandma?

Ok, that’s a long ways away for most of us, but seriously, what kind of a homemaker do you want to be? A productive one? A happy one? A skilled one?

The habits we cultivate whether good or bad are the making of us. 

I think most of us want to be effective homemakers, ones that get all the chores done day in and day out, but ones that also create a good and beautiful home where we and our loved ones flourish. In the words of Sally Clarkson, “a life-giving home”!

We long to be homemakers that effectively cultivate something practical but lovely. Something good. Something virtuous. 

Habits are the building blocks for this dream. As we live out our days getting our hands dirty in the thick of homemaking yet mindful to intentionally cultivate good habits, we slowly start to see our dream of becoming a highly effective homemaker unfold before us. 

It doesn’t happen in a day and it’s often very hard work, but cultivating habits are what will make this dream come true. 

We all have days where we are less than effective so I don’t want to sound like I have everything figured out and can give you the magic formula for being an effective homemaker. 

I’m still a young homemaker and have so much more to learn, but here are 11 habits that make up my most successful and effective days as a homemaker. 

Unload the dishwasher around breakfast time

Making a habit of putting away the clean dishes around breakfast time is a great way to get a headstart on your days work. The absolute best time to do this is before breakfast, but I give myself the flexibility to at least do it somewhere around breakfast time either before, while I’m making breakfast, or afterwards. Homemakers can’t account for everything so we have to be flexible. 

On my most productive days I’ve also gone ahead and loaded the breakfast dishes in after breakfast as well, but at least getting the dry clean dishes put away at the beginning of the day is a really good start. 

Start one load of laundry everyday

Whether you get to fold and put away that same day or not, at least getting a load, started, this keeps the ball rolling. At some point, it will get moved over to the dryer because you’ll need to wash another load and then it’ll eventually get folded and put away because then you’ll need a laundry basket at some point.

As long as you make the habit of at least starting one load every day, this will keep things moving and things will eventually get done. 

It’s definitely hard to get a load started if I have to head out of the house during the morning time or if it’s Sunday and I need to head to church so I don’t always get a load started every single day. However, I feel the most productive when I do even on Sundays. 

Reflect and devote your heart and home

Whether you get some time in the morning or during nap time, or in the evening after the kids, go to bed, taking a few moments to stop and reflect on God and his word will inspire and motivate you to create a more sacred home. my most productive days are ones that I at some point spent some time in the Bible reading, reflecting on what I read, and devoting my heart and home to him. 

This really affects my overall spirit throughout the day as a homemaker. Carving out some time really helps me be more calm and gentle, kind and compassionate, and all the things that a mother needs to be in order to mother her children and make a good and beautiful home where her family can flourish.

Meditate on scripture

Let’s be honest. There are some days where we just don’t get to sit down and spend some time in God’s word. Another necessary virtuous habit that I am learning to cultivate is to take a scripture along with me during the day to think about, and to draw strength from in those tense and very frustrating, moments of motherhood. 

This is a very old habit that Christians have been doing since forever. It is highly effective in helping anyone, not just homemakers live out their days with Christ-likeness. 

I especially love memorizing verses about God being my strength and refuge, because these are two things that I almost always need on any given day. 

Although I truly enjoy getting to sit down for some reflection and devotion time, some days I only have time for a verse or two or I simply get distracted, and it never happens. Having a verse that I have already memorized to think on while I’m doing dishes or folding laundry helps me have the spiritual strength I need for that day. 

Putter

This is the best daily cleaning and organizing habit! 

Puttering essentially means to go around doing things without necessarily having a specific plan in mind. You just see what needs to be done and you start doing it.

I finally got tired of trying to make a weekly cleaning schedule work. I am a mom of three children so my life has to be super flexible. It was so stressful, trying to keep up with a set plan and things were not getting done like they should. 

When I first came across the old-fashioned idea of puttering I thought it was a nice idea, but it didn’t appear to be very productive. Just going around doing things seems like the harder way to get things accomplished. 

You’ve probably heard the adage, “The failure to plan is a plan to fail.” I thought I would have to be seriously undisciplined, and just throw all planning and everything out the window if I was going to putter. 

But the truth is puttering is just a super flexible plan. The plan is to get things tidied up and in order and puttering it’s just how you get it accomplished. 

Instead of sitting down to make a list of all the things that need to get done, let the house speak for itself. I love making lists, but I’m really bad about carrying them out. 

Learning to putter to simply walk into a room and see what needs to be done and start doing it, this is how I have learned to keep house productively  without a to do list.

Want to know more? Check out my systems and routines e-book!

Plan your day out every morning

The idea of planning out your week has always intrigued me, but it has never been a successful homemaking habit. It simply does not work for me, but when I searched around on the Internet and on other homemaking blogs, trying to figure out time management, all that I saw was taking some time once a week to plan out your week, including a weekly meal plan. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love to plan almost to a fault. I just really really struggle with sticking to my plan. 

I thought I was just undisciplined and needed to  work on it but I never could make weekly planning work for me. 

When I came across an old homemaking book with this idea of planning out my day the day of, I was sold! Weekly planning? No can-do. Daily planning? Now that’s feasible!

Basically, at some point in the morning before I get started on chores, I pull out my planner, take a few minutes to think about what needs to happen that day and make a rough plan for it.

On the days that I’m home (which is most days), I mostly just make a rough meal plan for that day and then putter around getting things done. When I do need to get out of the house for whatever reason, it is helpful to have a more definitive plan of what needs to happen when to make sure that we get out the door on time. 

My homemaking systems and habits that I have cultivated honestly hold every thing else that I possibly need to do as a homemaker and you can read more about that here!

Reset the house before you leave

Getting out the door with kids can be a real struggle, but coming back worn out from running errands to a house that is messy is simply depressing!

A really productive habit to cultivate is taking a few minutes to reset at least the first couple of rooms that will see you when we walk into the house. Primarily, this is the kitchen, dining room, and living room area for me. 

The goal here is not to get everything in perfect order but to at least get the toys put away, Throw pillows back in their spots (they are called throw pillows for a reason, lol), and carry any dirty dishes towards the sink. 

It makes the home feel just a little more fresh and calm. 

Don’t carry your phone around

Let’s face it. Phones are distracting. It’s not necessarily social media, or YouTube that are distracting us from life and homemaking. It’s the fact that we can carry these super addicting distractions around with us wherever we go. 

It takes very little effort to whip your phone out of your pocket and look something up or sit on the couch and scroll. 

Social media, YouTube, and other apps can be really helpful tools to help you cultivate a good and beautiful life where you and yours flourish. They, however, can be really addicting and huge distractions from the life going on around us. 

It’s rarely a beautiful moment when I pull out my phone when the kids are around. They just know that my attention is no longer on them and they dislike it very much. 

It’s easier for the kids to think they can get away with stuff when I’m not aware of what they’re doing because I’m on my phone. It is also extremely easy to be frustrated when my kids try to get my attention because they need my help but I’m distracted with whatever I’m doing on my phone. 

I like doing things on my phone. I like the addictive distractions it creates and they are not in errantly bad. They can be useful tools when done at the right time and with limitations. 

It’s just so hard to not want the distraction when it is so readily available because I keep my phone with me all the time. 

Here’s how I am balancing having a phone around while still being productive…

• Turning off notifications, except for the text messages of a select few Friends or family
• Purposing not to use my phone when it’s time to be doing something else
• Giving myself a set time to use my phone
• Leaving my phone on the kitchen counter

Even though I have never been super addicted to social media, there are a lot of other distractions that phones create too like looking some thing up real quick or watching a YouTube video. 

If we aren’t purposeful about our phone usage as homemakers, it will be very hard to have successful days. 

Reset the kitchen every night

I try to clean up the kitchen every meal, but some days it doesn’t happen. That’s okay though because I have built in my homemaking system a failsafe by resetting the kitchen every night. This ensures that we will have clean dishes to use the next day. 

While I am striving to do dishes after every meal so that it doesn’t all pile up after dinner, life happens and this doesn’t get done. At the end of the day, however, the dishes are washed and we have clean dishes the next day. That’s what is important. 

The habit of resetting the kitchen is more than just doing the dishes. It also includes…

• clearing off and wiping down the table
• sweeping the kitchen and dinning room area
• organizing and wiping down the countertops. 

The kitchen is my primary workspace as a homemaker so to be effective and not overwhelmed, I try to get my space in order at least by the end of each day. 

Pivot as needed

This sounds like it belongs more in a list of homemaking tips, but it’s something that I really had to work on. It’s a habit that I had to cultivate. 

We can try our best to plan and coerce our days in a certain direction, but the reality is that we have to be flexible. Children need to be held and helped. Unforseen messes cleaned up. 

Often, a moment of quiet is necessary to redirect our spirit away from frustration back into a place of serenity. 

Homemakers have to learn to pivot or change direction smoothly despite what they want to accomplish with their time. The truth is that it isn’t our time. We are mere stewards of the gift of life that has been granted to us. 

To consistently sacrifice our desires is hard though. It’s down right maddening at times, but we must cultivate the habit of pivoting as necessary. Things will all work out. 

Eventually, the laundry gets done, everyone eats, the dishes get washed, and we all go to asleep. Day after day, the cycle begins and ends. The necessary things of life are accomplished perhaps not as we want to do them, but nonetheless accomplished. 

We have to learn to accept this and pivot as our duty demands. 

Keep Sabbatical moments

Especially in the years of motherhood, homemakers are on call 24/7 and it is hard to find time for ourselves. It is even more necessary that we find rest in these seasons. 

Ideally, we would have a day of rest or a sabbath as the timeless principle is called, but this is nearly impossible. Even on days that we try to call our sabbaths, we are still required to cook and clean and care for our household. 

Finding a whole day of rest has been nearly impossible for me, but I have found it effective to keep sabbatical moments. 

There are little pockets of time in our days that are more quiet like nap times or after the kids go to bed. We must guard these times for the welfare of our souls. 

These are glorious moments of quiet and peace that restore our spirit and rejuvenate us to continue homemaking when our duties call. I can’t predict which naptimes the kids will choose to sleep the entire time, but in most weeks, there is always a few long moments of rest somewhere in that time frame. 

Also, my husband so sweetly allows me to get out of the house and go off somewhere other than home during naptimes on his day off.  Ideally, I go to the library, but sometimes it’s closed so I might go on some solo adventure and…

• Wander around an antique store
• Go grocery shopping all by myself
• Check out a new shop
• Drive to a park and just sit in the car, lol

In this busy season of mothering little ones, getting alone time is becoming absolutely necessary for my sanity. 

To be an effective homemaker day and day out, it is necessary to cultivate the habit of keeping moments of rest. 

Final Thoughts!

I hope you enjoyed perusing my list of habits! I’m not saying I’m perfect or have everything figured out, but these are the core things that help me in my role as a homemaker. 

My most productive and fulfilling seasons are when these 11 habits happen.

Keep in mind though that I didn’t develop these over night. The productive season that I get to enjoy right now is the fruit of many seasons working hard to cultivate these habits.

If you are in a rough season where it’s hard to be a productive homemaker, take life for where you are at. Work on what you can and give yourself lots of grace.

Slow and steady wins the race.

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