How to Run a Household
The stress of maintaining a household can be almost too much to bear---especially when you have to take care of kids, cook meals and keep the household bills and expenses in order. You definitely could use some solid tips for how to run a household like a well-oiled machine, right? The more you organize your thoughts and tasks the more quickly your household duties will get accomplished and the happier you'll be. This will in turn make for happier kids, a better relationship with your spouse, better decision making and more efficiency in the way that you handle your day-to-day household business matters.
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Things You'll Need
- Dry erase calendar board
- Mail organizing tray
- Personal tape recorder (optional)
Instructions
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Purchase a large dry eraser board calendar for your kitchen. Create a list of tasks and events for a month in advance---everything from meetings to trips to holidays to dates with your spouse should be plotted out on this monthly calendar. Also, write down all of your kids' school activities and extracurricular events on your task calendar one month in advance. It helps to have everything drawn out on your eraser board calendar so that you can see where you have free time (if any) to handle other duties.
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Plan your meals one week in advance. Purchase a quick meals book, like "Quick Simple Food" by Susie Quick to help you generate ideas for seven days (see Resources). Switch meal plans up every week.
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Assign chores to everyone in the house. If the chores will rotate, rotate them weekly so that each person will do the same chore each day or each week on the same day. Post these chores right next to your calendar of events. If someone does not complete chores one day, post a penalty for each infraction, such as no video games for the kids for a day, or a monetary infraction for an adult.
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Keep a running shopping list on your refrigerator. Whenever you find that you are out of a certain item, whether it be a food item or toothpaste, write it down on the list. Keep a tape recorder handy at all times so that you can add to your list and remind yourself of additional duties when on the run.
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Purchase a mail organizing tray and set it by your door. Whenever you receive mail, sort your bills by urgent and regular. Place junk mail in a separate slot so that you can request removal from the mailing list and shred it later.
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Set aside a day at the end or beginning of each month to write and organize bills. Consider setting up automatic bill pay for all of your bills due on your online checking account if you are confident enough to allow your checking account to run on "auto pilot," so to speak.
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