Learn how to improve your homemaking with these simple tips!
Every homemaker wants to know how they can be better at what they do. Homemaking is a great responsibility with so many little things to manage, especially if you work full time outside of the home. No matter how good you get at homemaking, there is always more that you can learn and improve on.
Every season of life is different, too. Just when you think you have got it all down, something changes and throws everything off.
If you are a stay-at-home mom, this is especially true. There is no way for you to know how each season will go with each individual child in your home. Their personalities and your personality add so many factors into it as well.
As you get better at one thing, it is time to shift gears and focus on something else. I have compiled my best list of homemaking tips for you so that you can be refreshed in your homemaking journey and continue to create a place for you and your family to flourish.
Here is an outline of the main tips that are covered here.
- Wake up early.
- Cultivate virtue.
- Stay energized.
- Plan ahead.
- Be consistent.
- Have hobbies.
- Be efficient.
- Simplify larger tasks.
- Treat it like a job.
- Have set times to do chores.
- Have break times.
- Have a set time to end your chores.
- Reward yourself.
- Prioritize being at home.
- Learn new skills.
- Make it unique.
- Make food from scratch.
Now let’s dig a little deeper into these tried and true homemaking tips!
Wake up early
Waking up earlier will make homemaking easier. With children this is hard, but necessary. You can’t count on them not waking up earlier than expected.
Mine are notorious for interrupting my morning time, but I still find that if I plan to at least shower and make breakfast before they get up, then we are off to a good start.
This only takes about 30 minutes or so depending on what I make for breakfast, but my tried and true routine is to wake up an hour before they do so that I can get some personal time in as well.
If I wake up before the children do, then I am more prepared for them and the morning is a lot easier.
Stay Energized
Moms work hard all day long, especially if they have a large family. No matter what stage or season of life you are in, there are always more things to do.
If you don’t take care of your home without taking care of yourself, eventually, you will burn out.
Simple ways to stay energized are…
- Caffeine – A little coffee, tea, and even chocolate is a great way to get a little boost of energy. Just make sure you eat some protein with it to keep yourself from crashing later.
- Snacks – If you are running out of energy, maybe you need more fuel.
- Adrenal Cocktail – This is also known as a mocktail which means it does not contain alcohol. It is a simple concoction with orange juice and salt among other things that can help balance out your stress hormones and help you feel better throughout the day. This is an easy way to get those necessary electrolytes that you lose as you are working out or doing daily chores.
Plan ahead
If you know what is coming up in your day, you will be more prepared and won’t be running around last minute like a chicken with its head cut off.
It’s really hard to flourish if there is no plan in place so that daily tasks and monthly chores can run smoothly. Taking time to plan ahead can really improve how your home is kept, how it’s run, and even how you feel as a person.
Finding what works for you can be hard. It takes a good bit of experimenting and tweaking until you get the hang of the flow of things like cleaning the bathroom or meal planning, not to mention laundry and dishes.
Planning can save you a lot of time and a lot of stress. What mom needs more stress?
Make a cleaning schedule or a list of tasks for your household chores. Make some chore charts. Have a morning routine.
Take the time. PLAN! Even if this is one of the only homemaking tips you take away, this one thing will still make a big difference in your life.
Be consistent
When you have found your groove, try to be as consistent at sticking to the routine you have in place. Being consistent helps keep unnecessary random factors from breaking your routine.
Don’t stress over it though. If something needs to slide to the side in order for something more important to happen, let it slide. This is the beauty of being a homemaker! You are in charge of the time.
Have hobbies
Don’t neglect your passions!
Letting your hobbies and passions be pushed aside permanently for the sake of housework is not healthy. As with everything, there needs to be a balance of getting work done and doing something you enjoy.
The best way to balance this is to carve out specific times every day or several times a week for you to do something that brings you joy.
If you don’t have a hobby, you need to get one. This doesn’t mean that it has to be totally unrelated to homemaking. It just means that you find something that brings you joy.
There are plenty of things that are connected to homemaking that you could incorporate into your schedule as a hobby. Some people really enjoy cooking and baking. Others enjoy gardening and sewing.
I actually really enjoy organizing things. It makes me so happy to have everything neat and in its place.
These are easy things that you already do and if you find them enjoyable, maybe plan to give them some extra time and really get into it.
Having hobby time can help you get through the mundane or difficult things about homemaking. When there is something to look forward to that brings you immense joy, things will be easier.
Hey Friend!
Does housework overwhelm you to the point of discouragement? Do you wish you could finally get on top of it all? Do you have the homemaking dream of keeping your home in order, but struggle to actually do so on a day-to-day basis?
Are you struggling to manage your time at home?
Check out my new eBook Systems & Routines: Simple Time Management for Homemakers! It includes all that I have learned about systems and routines and how they have helped me manage my time and home well!
Cultivate virtue
The most important thing and best homemaking tip I can give you to be a successful homemaker is to cultivate virtue.
Ultimately, what makes a good homemaker is what is inside her. The virtue of a homemaker goes beyond the virtues of Aristotle which are prudence, temperance, justice, and courage; and also embraces the three Christian virtues of Faith, hope, and love. There is an inner beauty to someone who is kind, loving, compassionate, but also hard working and wise.
There is goodness and a beauty to be seen that is very attractive to other people. A virtuous woman draws other people to something greater than herself with an irresistible goodness in the way she carries herself, talks, addresses issues, and even does housekeeping.
I like to think of virtue as the good that propels good. When you are virtuous now, it sets you up to be virtuous in the future because you are creating the habit of choosing virtue in the moment.
This is easily seen in the emotions of a homemaker. It is really hard to be joyful all the time, to be in the spirit of thanking God and praising him for all that he has blessed you with. The virtue of patience comes hard especially when you have little children running around getting under your feet when you are trying to make dinner or simply fold the clothes.
Choosing to be virtuous in those moments even when you don’t feel like it, makes it easier to choose virtue the next time and the next time until it becomes an engrained habit into your character.
It’s hard, very hard, but so worth it. It takes a lot of intentional decisions right in the middle of things happening to be virtuous.
To set yourself up for success, choose ahead of time that you are going to be virtuous like the woman in Proverbs 31.
Be efficient
Efficiency does not mean doing something fast. We have somehow associated these two words together until efficiency has become the bad guy to running a household in a healthy and sustainable way.
The word efficient means to be effective or productive. These can look like doing things super fast, but in the long run, always doing things as fast as possible is not the most sustainable way to live.
Doing things at a slow pace where you enjoy what you are doing and can take pride in your work instead of just doing things to check them off the to-do list, is still efficient. Besides, it’s better to do this then run around like a chicken with its head cut off.
Simplify larger tasks
If you get stressed out easily, then you need this homemaking tip!
If there is a bigger or less agreeable task that needs to be done, take some time to stop and evaluate the task. A good thing to do is to break it down into the individual different steps and see if you can’t simplify it.
As a new homemaker, I did a lot of things the hard way.
For example, something I struggled with was doing the laundry. It was hard for me to not get stressed if I did it all in one day.
A load of laundry can be an easy task! It should be an easy task!
I have learned to take the whole process of doing laundry apart, break it down into simple steps, and figure out what is unnecessary that I can do away with so that I get it more done in less time. You can read more about my process over here in Laundry Tips for Beginners.
Treat homemaking like a job.
Treating your responsibilities as your job can be very helpful in your homemaking journey. This allows you to set boundaries and be done at a certain time. Here are some ways to do that.
Have set times to do chores
What I like to do is to have a set time every morning that I start my housekeeping. It usually isn’t an actual time, but more of a rhythm or routine. When breakfast is over, it is time to start working.
Have break times
Don’t run yourself ragged by being a go-getter that doesn’t know how to slow down and sit for a while. A really helpful strategy is to have a time blocking routine. Have a set time or choose a stopping spot in the middle of a bigger task to stop and take a breather. Eat a snack or get some coffee. Enjoy a little time of relaxing before getting up to do some more.
Have a set time to be done for the day
This is a great homemaking tip because once you reach that designated time, you are done for the day and it feels great!
It has been very helpful for me to be done once the children go to bed. After they have been tucked in for the night, I don’t do any more work. It can wait till tomorrow.
Reward yourself
Someone who works a regular job gets paid. It can be helpful for you as a homemaker to reward yourself while you are doing certain tasks that you don’t especially enjoy. This can look like eating some chocolate or fixing your favorite lunch.
It’s okay to pamper yourself a little bit. You work overtime as it is.
Prioritize being at home
Social media can make homemakers feel like they have to be as social as if they were single. This is not the case. In fact, you will most likely flourish if you are not. It’s okay to prioritize your home and stay home so that you can get things done, spend time with your children, or even just be less stressed.
There is nothing wrong with this and it actually is a very wise approach to homemaking especially in the season when you have little children.
This does not in any mean that you are a terrible homemaker if you do choose to go out and do things. To each their own.
The point I am trying to make is that you don’t need to feel bad if you don’t want to.
Learn new skills
Homemakers several generations ago knew how to do so many things that sadly have not been handed down. Convenience has robbed us of a lot of knowledge that our grandmothers mastered. Because of this, homes are not as sustainable or as healthy as they could be.
Searching for a more quality life, many of us young women have turned back to learn from previous generations how to create a home that is self-sustainable.
Some homemaking skills are…
- Bread Making
- Sewing
- Cooking from scratch
- Growing your own food
- Preserving your homegrown food
- Herbal Remedies
- Flower Gardening
Make it unique
There will be no home like yours because you are the homemaker. Each home takes on the personality of those that live inside it. Let it be unique.
Let the decor, the scent, the way it runs be your own. It does not have to be nor will it look like other people’s homes.
It’s yours. Let it come to life with your unique tastes and passions.
Make food from scratch
Cooking from scratch is not as common as it used to be. So much is pre-packaged and preserved with additives that are not very healthy for you.
Learning to make healthy and delicious food in your own kitchen is not as hard it seems and it doesn’t take much time to actually make full meals. It just takes time and practice to cultivate this skill and get efficient at it.
Just because it is from scratch does not necessarily mean that it will be delicious and healthy. Take the time to learn what healthy food is and how to make it in a way that is appealing and tasty to your family.
This is why I write about Pro metabolic eating and new recipes. Being gluten-free, I have been on my own journey seeking true health and have some answers in this “new” yet old-fashioned way of living.
The good news is that you can find almost everything you need at your local grocery store and it this way of living is great for every family member including babies learning to eat food for the first time. Find out for yourself!
Related: Pro metabolic Diet
Related: Recipes
Final thoughts!
Did you find these simple things to be helpful homemaking tips? Let me know which one was the most relevant to you in the comments below.
Our days are filled with basic chores and often times mundane tasks. No matter the amount of time we think we have, a woman’s work is never done.
Take these simple tips and and improve your homemaking!
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I’m such a big fan of your blog! I especially love your comment about making food from scratch. That is something I’ve wanted to do more of for a while, and I think you’ve convinced me to start! Thank you so much for sharing!
Ah, yay! You’ll love it!