eHow launches Android app: Get the best of eHow on the go.

How To

How to Keep Your Household Running

Member
By pmezop
User-Submitted Article
(0 Ratings)

I have been keeping house for over 35 years now, and believe me I’ve tried everything to make running a household easy. Truly, the only thing that I have found to make things easier has been that old rule of, “divide and conquer!” It takes the family working together to make running your household easy.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions
  1. Step 1

    The first step to divide and conquer is to list all of the household chores. List everything you can think of, including cooking dinner, setting the table, cleaning up after dinner, cleaning (dusting, vacuuming), grocery shopping, laundry, ironing, picking up and dropping off the kids, feeding and walking the dog, taking care of the lawn and taking out the garbage.

  2. Step 2

    The next step is to determine just who in the household will handle each of these chores. Make sure that responsibilities are shared equally among all the members of the household.

  3. Step 3

    The next step is to sit down and explain to each person just what their responsibilities will be. Also, explain any incentives that you may feel are appropriate for the children of the family, such as allowances. When it comes to the children, you should probably also set a time frame in which their responsibilities need to be completed.

  4. Step 4

    After a couple of weeks, you might want to sit down as a family and review how things have been going. Perhaps some chores can be switched or shared. Communication is very important if divide and conquer is going to work!

Tips & Warnings
  • My husband and I have always shared our housekeeping chores. Quite simply that was how we made things work. My husband passed away two years ago. I still live in our home and I miss him dearly. My new motto for keeping house is to take everything in steps. You see, now all of those chores are mine and I pride myself in being able to still take care of our home the way we always did. So now, I just take everything in steps and eventually it all gets done. If you find yourself alone after the children have grown, just take everything in steps, and keep smiling.

Post a Comment

Post a Comment
  • Have you done this? Click here to let us know.
I Did This

Related Ads

Home & Garden
Ruby Bayan,

Meet Ruby Bayan eHow's Home & Garden Expert.

Get Free Home & Garden Newsletters

Copyright © 1999-2009 eHow, Inc. Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the eHow Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.   en-US Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

eHow Home and Garden
eHow_eHow Home and Garden