Today I want to share with you my tips for staying organized with all things non-homeschool related. Being a homeschool mom means not only scheduling, planning, and carrying out lesson plans for school, but I plan and schedule pretty much everything else too. I have to stay organized and on top of meal planning, cleaning, schooling, and pretty much everything that involves running a home. Here’s how I do it!
How I Manage Non-School Related Household Tasks
01. Create a weekly and/or daily schedule.
Assign every task a day. I.E. Grocery shopping, library day, nature walks, etc. This allows me to get all I want to get done in a week. I also feel productive each time I complete something in a day. As a stay-at-home mom or homemaker, I have tasks and errands I need to get done so I prefer to schedule them so I don’t save everything for one day of the week. You can read more about how to make a weekly or daily schedule as a SAHM or homeschool preschool mom here. See our personal and current daily/weekly homeschool timetable (schedule) here.
02. Create a Weekly Task Checklist.
I keep this document you see in the video below on my refrigerator so I can see it each day. I created it from my weekly/daily schedule and the tasks I need to accomplish. I check each thing off as I complete it each day. I add things like making bread, preparing coffee, cleaning tasks, thawing meat, meal planning, and grocery pick-up to this list. I separated it out by days and it keeps me sane and organized! Watch video below to see a full view of the document.
03. Keep a Cleaning Checklist
This allows me to stay organized with the cleaning I need to do each week. It corresponds with my weekly task checklist. I explain in depth how they co-exist and work together in the video below.
“I don’t forget to fill up the soap in the bathrooms anymore because I have it on my weekly cleaning checklist!”
04. Meal plan. Monthly or weekly.
Meal planning is your best friend when you’re home for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every snack in between! We only have a family of four, but I live by a meal plan. It’s more cost-effective and it truly takes the mystery out of what I should prepare for our daily meals. I begin by creating a seasonal menu. Then I make a monthly meal plan. I repeat the month once or twice and then I create a new seasonal menu. It is a system that works very well, and I highly recommend trying it out! Planning out meals ahead of time will save you so much stress, homeschool mama or not!
05. Make permanent breakfast and lunch menus!
These take all of the stress out of thinking about what breakfast and lunch will be. Also, I will deviate to this sometimes if we have leftovers or if I feel like baking in the morning. But it’s so nice to have it planned out every single week so I don’t have to plan for it. I buy the same things for lunches and breakfasts each week, and it keeps it super simple!
06. Monthly Cleaning Checklist
In addition to my weekly task checklist and cleaning checklist that I keep on my refrigerator I also created a monthly cleaning checklist that I complete on the first day of each month, an appliance cleaning checklist, and a yearly home maintenance checklist. Again, I explain them in detail in the video below.
COMING SOON! I hope to provide the downloads for these documents in this post, but first I need to figure out a way to share the PDF files in a way that allows you to edit them, so please let me know if you have ideas on how I can do that!
Watch the video for all of my tips and resources:
I hope this blog post and video on managing non-homeschool related household tasks was helpful to you! Thank you so much for reading!
I think if you have premium adobe you might be able to create a fillable pdf. Or you could share a publisher file, canva template etc. depending what format you have it in. It would be really helpful! 🙂
Would love these downloads! I have been trying to find a way to manage all the things and love how you have layed this out. Have been binge watching your videos and have been so encouraged by all you share. Thank you!
I’s love the downloads too! (Or just pictures of the ones you’re using so that I have a springboard to build my own!) Thank you for all of your hard work, you are such an encouragement in mothering!
Please, I need this downloads! Hope you upload these files soon! It’s exactly what I’m looking for and what I need.