The Homemaker’s Day: A Simple Framework You Can Actually Follow

Inside: How to build a daily routine as a homemaker to give you structure in all the right ways.

The good news? There’s no one telling you how to structure your day. The bad news? There’s no one telling you how to structure your day. This means you could waste your time or spend it well, and no one is watching over you to correct it.

So let’s be our own boss (in a good way), and set up a daily routine that makes each day feel like a win.

Why A Daily Routine Matters

A routine isn’t just about getting things done, or you’d just need a to-do list. A good routine will keep you busy but not overwhelmed and make sure you’re balancing personal time with being productive. You’ll feel more in control, reduce decision fatigue, and never wonder what exactly it is that you should be doing.

Sound good? Let’s make one for you.

Dividing the Day

We will explore them one at a time.

Each section of your day should include a task for your home and family and (don’t forget this one!) something for you.

Part One: Your Early Mornings

You’re awake and you might be the only one. Yay! I know that when you have very young children it’s hard to wake up early. But if you can be there first one up, it will set you up for success.

Remember, before anyone else is up is a time block of its own. You’ll have a better day if you don’t miss it.

From the tasks, below, pick 3-6. Of course, these are just ideas. You might have things that make way more sense than these. The important thing is to balance some for you, some for the house, some for the family.

• Start a load of laundry.
• Unload the dishwasher.
• Do quick wipe-down of bathroom surfaces.
• Make lunchboxes or snacks for later in the day.
• Enjoy a cup of coffee or tea in solitude.
• Write in a journal or plan the day’s tasks.
• Read a book.
• Water your plants.
• Tidy up common areas and light a candle.

You aren’t doing all of these things! Just pick the ones that will move the needle the most for you. If you’d like to, you can build out a structured morning routine too that fits into your day. But you don’t have to.

Part Two: Mid-Morning Focus

This your main chunk of time for most people, before dinner prep and activities and school pickup takes over. And this is time of day that will change the most from day to day depending on what you’re focused on.

If you want a very home-centered routine, you might have a focus for each day of the week that rates around your home (like a gardening day, baking day, etc.)

If you have young children, you might want to take them out every day at this time to play outside, go to a playground, go to the library, etc.

This might be a time that varies a lot and Mondays you volunteer somewhere, Tuesdays you run errands, Wednesdays you do playdates.

You might homeschool and this is when there largest part of hands-on instruction happens.

Or you might have a lot of hobbies and you dedicate this time to sewing or scrapbooking or photography.

It doesn’t matter what you do, but I hope you use this time to do something “bigger”, something that won’t be undone by the next day.

Remember to, as always, balance your time here between your home, your family, and your self. Maybe on the nicest day of the week you take your children to the park, on the worst weather day you do some deeper cleaning, and the sunniest day you make yourself an iced coffee and read in the sun.

Part Three: Afternoon Tidy and Dinner Prep

At a certain point in your life, you realize that if you go out during the afternoon, making dinner is stressful and borderline impossible. Yes of course you can make something in the slow cooker, but that takes time in the morning and now you haven’t done anything in the morning!

It’s time to accept that making dinner takes time and you better block time for it.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I encourage you to do a little afternoon tidy up (like ten minutes or less!) to reset the house. Your children can and should help you with this. This will not fully keep your house clean, but cleaning schedules are so personal we’ll need to talk about that separately.

And now we tackle dinner.

Now that you’re in the kitchen, do one little extra thing as a gift to your future self. Can you hard boil some eggs, divide a bag of chips into snack portions, cube some cheese? Working this into your day as a tiny habit is painless and you probably already have the cutting board out.

What’s important here is that you can’t be surprised and overwhelmed by the fact that dinner keeps arriving day after day. It takes a lot of time, every day, and you have to plan for it. And I don’t mean make a meal plan, (although you should do that do), I mean plan for the large amount of time this will take. Aren’t you glad you got that quiet this morning?

Do not move on to the evening until the dishes are done, the table is cleared, and the kitchen is swept. Everyone in the family should help with this, or better yet, they can handle it entirely.

Part Four: Evenings Are For Rest

Alright. You go some cleaning done in the morning, you did something “big” before lunch, you spent a lot of time making dinner and cleaning the kitchen and even did a little meal prep. Look at you. You’re done now.

Part of this routine is helping you understand that as a homemaker, you are working. Your life isn’t a big messy combination of sort of doing nothing and sort of getting things done. Let’s separate these out so you’re working when you’re working and resting when you’re resting.

I am not going to list out a bunch of guilt-inducing things you’re supposed to enjoy like yoga, mediation, and reading. If you like watching TV with a cocktail, go for it. You worked today.

Practical Tips to Make This Work

Always remember the goal. It’s not to do as much as possible. There’s always more you could be doing. The goal is build a daily routine that you enjoy. This is your life.

• Set boundaries. It’s okay to say no to things that don’t fit your schedule. I do not make appointments in the afternoon unless unavoidable. I have to make dinner!
• Change things as needed. When kids are little, your routine might revolve around nap times and playdates. As they grow, school schedules and extracurricular activities might take the lead.
• Don’t let your schedule boss you around. This exists to serve you. If need to deviate it from it every now and then, that’s fine.

Time Saving Tips

Do you feel like you can’t possibly get everything done you need to, day after day? Well, you can work faster or do less to get more time. Here are ways to help with both.

• Stop grocery shopping and get free grocery delivery with Walmart inHome. Same prices as the store, no tipping.
• Trello – A versatile tool for organizing tasks and schedules, useful for managing daily homemaking chores and keeping notes of gifts, etc. (The free version is all you need.)
• Time Blocking for Homemakers includes a free printable template if you find that you need to be really strict with your time.

Good luck!