Maple Grove Farm - Home Organization

2007-Aug-27

Home Organization

I have been blogging for more than a year now and have been thinking about what more I can write about. After hosting the missionaries this weekend, the wife commented that our house was clean for having five children and that she noticed I had lots of lists. We talked briefly and I thought that maybe I should share about how I run a family of seven, living on a 10 acre farm, in a 3600 square foot house, and working full time.

The basic home management principles I apply are 1) use every minute, working towards my goals 2) keeping up is better than digging out 3) routines, routines, and more routines.

The first principle is using every minute working towards my goals. Whether it is canning green beans by breaking it up into smaller task like snapping them in the spare minutes before dinner or it is hugging my children when they are crying, each of these tasks represent important goals. I try to find small tasks to fill spare moments. However, I balance this with taking time out to meet needs of family members when they have that need.

I have read some recent studies that say multi-tasking detracts from our abilities to accomplish tasks efficiently and effectively. I must agree. I find myself more overwhelmed when trying to do more than one action item at a time. However, I use a modified version of multi-tasking. I work on one item but I do it with one or two children. This allows me to have time to talk to them and spend time finding out about how they are doing while still completing tasks. It also teaches my children responsibility and hard work.

Examples of working together. My daughters helped me can the peaches this weekend and we spent time together talking and laughing. My three-year-old son sat and snapped green beans with me and told me he had a good day. My two-year-old son talks to me while we make my bed - he pulls up the sheets and hands me the pillows. We find these little moments together.

The second principle applies to the idea of keeping up on things. I try to spend a few moments entering receipts in the computer to balance the checkbook instead of spending half a day entering items. (This is one of my most challenging things.) I try to pick up items that I see need to be put away instead of stepping over them. We do two loads of laundry every day so that we don't have to do laundry all day Saturday. We clean up after every meal and do our cleaning a little at a time.

The last principle is routines. I love routines. We have chores lists so every day we do the same things. We have a daily routine. We have a cleaning routine. We have a morning routine and bed time routines. I'll share more about these later. But I group things together on lists and in my head so that we are working on a routine at all times.

In future posts I plan on sharing about preparing for back-school, my book of household management, menu planning and grocery shopping, working by the seasons, and preparing for the holidays. Yes, I said holidays. I am already starting to prepare.