When it comes to your home and life the easier you make it the better it is for you and your family. Improving your home management skills will do just that, not only will you feel better about your home, but it will make living in your home less complicated and a lot less stressful.
These 15 different skills that you need to manage your home and life are key to ensure that every aspect of your home is looked after to your best ability.
Some areas you might need more work than others and that’s OK it’s about finding the right balance for you.
Further Reading
- Simple Tips And Ideas On How To Get An Organized Home
- It’s Easy To Make A Budget
- Check out my digital downloadable Cleaning Printables
- How To Use A Planner To Stay Organized And On Time
- Cozi Planner
Improving Your Home Management Skills
When it comes to home management there are so many different aspects in looking after a home that sometimes you feel like you wear a multitude of different hats and that not only do you need to know the basics in cleaning, home maintenance, finance but you also need to know how to meal plan do laundry and the worst of the lot, paperwork!
But what is home management?
I like the description that Jessica from Life As Mom describes it as ‘successful home management is organizing all these areas in a way that fits your family’s needs’, I think this is a great way to think about your family as a whole unit and how every aspect of your lives revolve around your home and family and making this as easy as possible is key to having a great home management system.
It’s how to look after your home and home life, it’s bringing all the aspects of caring for your home and family under one umbrella.
The benefits of home management systems that encompasses the whole family out-rank any system that forgets any one of these areas, they are what makes a house a home.
There is so much you are expected to know and it’s overwhelming and scary and having somewhere that helps and guides you in these areas is key.
1: How To Deal With Home Organization
You need to have some sort of organization system in your home, you need to have homes for the things that you own and that your family owns. This gives them a place where they belong and have somewhere to go.
Without having homes for the things in your home it’s difficult to keep your home looking clean and tidy?
Getting your home to the point where everything has its own home takes time. You have to learn a new skill of organizing your home and this isn’t going to happen overnight, it will take time and practice to get it right.
Changing How You Organize
If you decide to take a new approach to organizing this will take time to pull everything together and it will be stressful.
Not only are you looking at setting up a new system for all family members to follow but you are dealing with this whilst trying to live, and this isn’t always easy.
It’s easy to get frustrated and annoyed when things aren’t put away. You will be tested to the limits with your children and even your partner but sticking with it can and will in the long run make your home run smoothly.
If you are looking for more help on this topic check out my article: Simple Tips And Ideas On How To Get An Organized Home
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Resources For Organizng
- Marie Kondo’s book Life hanging Magic Of Tidying Up
- Cube closet organizer
2: Getting Your Home Clean
One key area you have to tackle is how clean you want your home and whose job it is? When my kids were growing up, I did everything around the home and garden. I was home all day and my husband worked.
When I went out to work, I needed help and that meant that how we divided up the cleaning and tidying of the home changed.
What works now might not work long-term and you might have to tweak how you do things but that’s OK and is a part of the changing circumstances in life.
Learning how to clean your home and to keep it clean is not something I was taught, it’s something I learned as I was growing up. But cleaning your home as a child and having your own home to clean is something very different.
Learning How To Clean
When it comes to cleaning, I was very much in-charge of this area, it’s something I love to do but also being in military accommodation for many years it was expected as well.
But in the beginning it was tough, I had to learn how to clean and what needed doing and when I think this is why I loved it, it was my home and cleaning it felt right, living in a clean home feels good to me.
It doesn’t matter what the house looked like as long as it was clean to my standards then I could make the best of anywhere.
But You Have To Teach How To Clean
If you decide that you want to share the cleaning with other family members remember to show them what they need to do.
Cleaning is something you have to learn to be able to do it well, for most people it’s not a natural process.
If you are looking for help on working out what you need to clean and when you must check out my cleaning printable pack. It’s a digital download so you can get started on cleaning your home straight away.
Resources For Cleaning
- Shark Vacuum
- Swan Powerplush cordless vacuum
- Microfiber cleaning cloths
- Cleaning product suitable for the area
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3: Money And Budgeting
You have to have a handle on your money, it’s important to pay your bills and to ensure that you have food on the table.
Getting into the habit of creating a budget and sticking to your budget is part of your home management skills you need to learn.
For many people learning to budget is difficult, I’ve seen it first-hand when I worked in a bank, it’s hard to look at your money and assign a task that it needs to do.
But looking after money and the household bills is an important home management skill you need to learn.
If you are looking for more help with creating a budget, check out It’s Easy To Make A Budget.
Resources For Budgeting
- Dave Ramsey’s book: The Total Money Makeover
- Budgeting planner to help you plan your money
4: Planning With Your Family
When it comes to home management there is more to this than you might at first consider. Planning is important to make everyone’s schedule work together.
This includes doctors’ appointments and school holiday’s they all fall into the category of planning and getting your home organized.
To run an affective home you need to know what you need to do and when, this isn’t as easy as it sounds there is a lot more work involved to get it running smoothly.
If you are looking for an electronic calendar that your whole family can use, then you must check out the Cozi Family planner. It’s free and the whole purpose of the planner is to get the whole family’s calendar in one place.
If you prefer a paper planner you need to check out, How To Use A Planner To Stay Organized And On Time.
5: Spending Time With Your Family
Having time to do the fun stuff as a family is so important and often overlooked.
You won’t get the time again with family and making this time a priority will improve communication and relationships. Making family time special will allow you to make your family feel important and part of the process of home life.
It’s about connecting with your family and making memories that are special and important that they can look back on.
Making your family a priority will ensure that you are all on the same page and able to communicate with each other when life throws one of those unexpected curve balls.
6: Meal Planning
Knowing what you are having to eat each night is important in any household. But when you have a family making sure that everyone is getting a good balanced diet and on a budget is important.
It’s not as simple as rummaging through the freezer right before you need to prepare the evening meal, it’s about planning what you can eat and getting a variety into your diet that takes into account favourite meals and home cooking.
Cooking meals at home is something that seems to be declining, but it’s a skill that you should develop as it can save you a lot of money and this is always important when managing a home.
How you plan your meals will depend on your family, you can use a planning pad or a weekly white board where you can add your meals to.
7: Dealing With Mail Or Post
Unless you deal with post as soon as it comes into the home it can quickly take over your home, but also there is the possibility of missing some important information or even missing the payment on a bill which can cause late payment fees.
You have to create a system that allows you to deal with mail when it turns up so that you aren’t stuffing it into a drawer and forgetting about it.
Or just throwing it away without checking what’s inside. You have to create a system that works for you and your family.
Take into consideration who opens the mail, who pays the bills and what systems do you have in place for organizing the mail you need to keep and shredding the post that isn’t something you need to keep.
Keeping on top of the mail is key to minimizing the paper that comes into your home. Having a home for the mail that comes into your home could also help, something like this mail organizer would be good.
8: Who Does The Laundry
Laundry is one of those jobs that if you don’t do regularly it builds up quickly and you end up with no clothes and that is annoying.
However, in my opinion, it’s not just about throwing it all into a machine and then hoping it comes out looking fine.
There are processes that you need to consider, including sorting the washing into different categories and who’s responsible for doing the laundry and putting it away when it’s clean.
Where you put dirty laundry and where you put clean laundry before putting it away is important too.
Having a system that ensures that you have your laundry done is an important part of home management.
9: Home Maintenance
Keeping your home in tip-top shape means your home is being looked after and maintained.
This is something that you have to do as homeowners, if you are renting then this is something you need to discuss with your landlord.
But keeping your home in good working order is key to ensuring that you home will continue to keep a roof over your head. You can’t neglect home maintenance it’s a key part in your home management upkeep.
10: Dealing With Paperwork
The amount of paper coming into your home can be a lot! If you don’t keep on top of your paperwork you can quickly find yourself drowning in paper.
It’s about finding the right system that works for you and your family. There is a lot of examples of going paper free and just having images of your important documents stored on the cloud or on an external hard drive.
This is not something I’m comfortable with yet, I prefer to have files and keep paper copies, but I can see this changing in the future.
11: Sorting Out Your Garden And Yard Work
Have you plans in place on who helps to keep the garden up to scratch?
I love being outdoors, I would rather be cutting the grass than stuck inside cooking dinner. This was often a trade that I did with my husband when the children where little. I would cut the grass if he cooked the evening meal.
It gave me a break from the children and him quality time cooking the evening meal. It worked great for us for many years.
Since the children have left home, we are making changes in the garden, it doesn’t need to be kid friendly, it can now be adult friendly and it’s starting to look good.
Having a plan for your garden and yard work is important not only for the practical sides of having a useable outside space but also as part of the maintenance of the home.
12: Looking After Your Own Health
You can’t look after anyone if you run yourself into the ground. Take the time to put your needs first even occasionally.
Running a home is only going to be effective if you are looking after you first, you must put your own health and well-being first.
You can’t look after the rest of your family properly if you aren’t feeling well.
13: Getting The Help You Need
If you want others to help you around the home, you must set this up as you go. If you do all the items and then suddenly you want help then the transition will be more difficult, I know I’ve been there.
I did everything, I was happy doing it. I wanted to live in the perfectly clean home, done my way.
When I started working, I quickly realized I needed help and it was more difficult to persuade my children to do tasks, it wasn’t something they had been asked to do before and they found it difficult.
I found it difficult too, I had to let other people do tasks that weren’t up to my standards, I had to let my perfection go. It doesn’t make someone want to do something if you are constantly going over what they have done.
You are creating household routines that will help you as a family to live and work under one roof together.
14: Grocery Shopping Is Part Of The Process
When it comes to grocery shopping you either hate it or love it, there is no mix in-between, however you still need to get food in and you need a way that works for your family on getting the items that you need home.
Whether you do this as a family or individually you will need a shopping list to work from.
But this is where we had a problem, I’m terrible at picking up the shopping list, I would leave it on the counter and hope that I had brought everything we needed.
So, to help me we have converted to an electronic shopping list, one that is on both of our phones.
The Cozi app is great for this as you are able to share the list with all family members and this allows different items to be added.
15: Creating Routines And Schedules
Without routines you will struggle to get things done.
They are the most important thing that you can set up for yourself and encourage your children to have routines too. This will help them to get the tasks they need to do done too.
Having a morning and an evening routine will help you get things done on autopilot and without really thinking about them.
They also make the morning start off better as you are more prepared for the day.
It’s a way to trick yourself into getting things that you need to do regularly done. You complete the task at a certain time in the day and then it’s done.
Habits can take a well to set up so it’s important to track your routines that you are trying to build but typically you should start to remember your routines within a week or two.
For your cleaning try using printables, like mine to help you start to organize your cleaning schedule.
Let’s Recap…
Having home management skills are important and they will help create the home that you want and love.
Home management is vast, there are so many different aspects to keeping your home running smoothly that often it can become stressful if one or more areas aren’t under control.
By looking at your home as a whole and getting the balance right in all areas it will help you create the home life that you are looking for, one with a lot less stress and a lot more fun and enjoyment.
I hope I’ve expressed the importance of home management that will make a difference in your life.
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