Chores.  We flinch at the word.  They’re boring, hard, and time consuming.  They’re not fun.  Unfortunately they’re not going anywhere.  They are part of our lives.  In order to live comfortably we have to take care of business.  In order to be good homemakers we have to be good at taking care of our homes.  When our work is done we have room for other opportunities.  The old quote work hard to have fun is a classic saying for a reason.  We have to find time for chores so we can free our time for more!

As a wife and mother I used to dread chores.  I felt like it was an endless task list of mundane things that I could never get caught up on.  It was the same darn routine over and over with no end in sight.  I felt like I was spending my whole day doing these small little tasks and when I’d look back I couldn’t tell what I’d even done?   It was a cycle and I was the hamster doing circles on the wheel.  Even worse I never had time for other projects, or deeper things around the house.  I was reacting to basic chores, when I should have been proactive.  I knew there had to be a more efficient and productive way to keep things in order.  I wanted my time back to do things that gave me energy rather than drained my energy.

That’s when I discovered a daily rhythm.  A daily rhythm is how I started finding time for chores and freeing time for more!  A daily rhythm is similar to a routine, but not like a strict schedule.  It offers flexibility, but keeps you aligned on the tasks you need to do.

All you do is break your day up into time frames and put together the pieces as your day flows.

When thinking about where to include chores in my daily rhythm I began thinking of how our day typically flowed…

1. what things were required for our basic needs to be met?

2. what things would have to be done in order for us to be caught up each day?

3. what areas was I lacking or always behind in?

For me, it was chores like cooking, dishes, and laundry, etc…   These were things I tried to squeeze in everyday as I went along, but never made actual time for.  When you sit down and list these out they take a certain amount of time to accomplish.  Hence the reason doing them sporadically all day was really taking a big chunk of my time and keeping me sidetracked from other productive things.  I discovered I wasn’t giving myself a chance to get these basics done because they didn’t have a true time frame within my day!

I noticed the most critical chore had to do with meal time so since I would be setting time aside in my rhythm for that, I simply added some extra time in that frame to do a few other chores.  I decided to revolve my chore rhythm around meals.  I divided them into two parts, breakfast and supper.  I had to feed my family so since that was already a requirement I gave myself 30 more minutes after meals to tackle required chores.  I was sneaky here, I made the chore rhythm a time when my family was around to help;)  So after meals we race to get the required chores done that way we can do the things we think are fun!

If you’re looking to start finding time for chores and freeing time for fun follow these few steps:

1.  Decide on a time frame in your daily rhythm to insert some basic everyday chores. ( I do some chore time twice a day, once in the a.m. and once in the p.m. )
2. Decide on a few specific areas you plan to focus on during this time.  ( I keep it narrowed down to 3 -5 chores that are required for my families basic needs to be met) … examples: a.m. – dishes, laundry, pets, and plants p.m. – dishes, laundry, sweep, and trash
3. Decide to see it through each day.  (Once you’ve planned this designated time to do these few critical things every day you will keep on track and build your momentum for getting things accomplished)

In closing I hope this exercise has givin you inspiration about the importance of chores in our daily lives as well as a good strategy to get you accomplishing what’s important in your home life.

live for the most,

kc