Household New Year’s resolution planning

You have probably all, as a family, concluded that it’s time to make some positive changes to the running of the household. If you have children, it is a great idea to involve them in the planning stages of dividing up household chores as research shows that children can learn about family relationships and how their family functions. When children contribute to family life, it also helps them feel competent and responsible. Sharing housework can minimise stress in a family too.

So, sit down with the family with a big piece of blank paper and collectively note down your household wishes and resolutions for the year to come. Implementing these changes can be straightforward if they are well planned. Here are some top tips from the domestic cleaning experts at MOLLY MAID to get you started with your household New Year’s resolution planning:

• Sit down with your family members and give them a blank piece of paper each.
• Ask them to draw out columns one for each day of the week.
• Then ask them to fill these with their daily tasks and activities such as getting dressed for school, packing school bags, after school activities, homework, going to the gym and so on.
• Write your list and include the household chores including pet duties. Clearly list out daily tasks such as bin duty, laying the table, washing-up, doing laundry, hanging up clothes and so on to illustrate how much you do around the home.
• Share your list with everyone around the table and suggest a rota of dividing up the household tasks between everyone in the family. One day someone lays the table, while the other folds the laundry or does the vacuuming for example. It is amazing what a difference this can make.
• Naturally, you will wish to involve and empower your partner too. Involve them and ask them to cook one night with the children or do the grocery shopping at the week-end for example or if possible, split the ‘taxi service’ to ferry the children around their after-school activities. By splitting up these tasks, you will gain back time you can spend as ‘quality time’ with your family.
• It is important that you all have time to yourselves too, so for the adults, ‘date night’ is a wonderful way of coming together in our busy lives. The children should have free time to read, play outside, ride a bike and visit friends. This is not about instilling some sort of rigorous regime, but more a routine.
• A good way of making sure that you stay motivated as family, is to have some sort of point or sticker system for every task completed. Then, set yourselves, as a family, a minimum number of points. Then when you reach it evenly, you treat yourselves to something you enjoy doing together – whether it’s going for tea and cake on a Sunday, or a trip to the cinema, or even going for a family walk together with the dog. It’s about gaining a bit of time during the week, so that you can afford the time at the week-end to spend as quality time together.

After a while, this will become routine and you will quickly find it the norm and feel like the load has definitely been lifted! Good luck with your household New Year’s resolution planning! Here’s to a happy and organised 2017.

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