Habits of a Happy Homemaker

Or, what to do when you’re overwhelmed

Habit 1: Write it down, right away

Our brains are not good places to keep information. One reason we get so overwhelmed so quickly is that we’re spinning and keeping too much in our own heads. When we brain dump, we can think and problem solve instead of swirl. When we write down events, obligations, shopping lists, and the like, our minds are free to think about our life and needs rather than hold details.

Habit 2: Center your thoughts

We also become overwhelmed easily by letting our thought life get out of hand. We assume we’re at the mercy of whatever thoughts pop into our head – but that’s not true. We can write a verse, a motto, a quote, on a post it note or index card and put it on our bathroom mirror, at the kitchen sink, and use it as a queue to reframe and center our thoughts on objective, outside-of-us truth.

Read more about alignment cards here.

Habit 3: Limit your daily to-do list to 3 items

Yes, we have a million things to do, but we’re not going to get to them all. Instead of working from a never-ending list, we should make a fresh to-do list each day with only three things on it. It’s not that we’ll only do those 3, but we’ll choose to prioritize those 3 and count the day as successful when we do – no matter how much else is left undone.

Read more about daily cards here.

Habit 4: Take 10 minutes to EHAP every day

EHAP stands for Everything Has a Place. The implication is that we should put things back in their place. It’s our family’s code word for “tidy up.” See something that’s out of place? Put it back in its home. If we do this for just 10 minutes every day, all together as a family, we will see progress and gain momentum at tidiness and decluttering.

Habit 5: Smile!

Our expression and demeanor as moms at home sets the tone and culture of our homes and families. Simply smiling at our kids and our husband goes a long way to building an atmosphere of love and appreciation.

We can get so caught up in the tasks that we forget the work is actually for people. Put the people first in your priorities by pausing to smile at them on the regular.

If you’re habits aren’t working, try this –

Mistake #1: Starting in hard mode

If you’re a perfectionist and prone to overwhelm, you’re probably thinking your habits won’t even matter until they are the end-goal level of excellence you want. So, instead of starting with one small habit improvement, you make a grand plan for a total habit overhaul. Overhauls never work. Baby steps work.

Mistake #2: Not tracking and reviewing

If we aren’t paying attention to our habits, we won’t do them. We need to track how well we’re sticking to our habits if we want to build them. It’s not that a perfect track record will do the trick, but that we need data to review and examine so we can be self-aware and make appropriate adjustments as we go. Habits are not a set-and-forget kind of thing. They are a set-and-track thing for a long time before they truly become habits.

Mistake #3: Not rewarding yourself rightly

Rewards are important for building habits, but that doesn’t mean treating yourself to chocolate every time you do the right thing is mandatory. Intrinsic rewards help habits stick. We aren’t dogs trained by extrinsic treats when we’re good. We’re humans who need to know – deep down – that what we do matters. Reminding ourselves of truth and recognizing that the habit – however small – was worthwhile is “rewarding” ourselves in a way that will make the habit attractive to us.

Homemakers need life-giving habits

Habits of real self-care

Self-care can be twisted and exaggerated, but we are accountable for ourselves before God, and we’re actually to delight in the way God has set things up, delight in the little things.

Self-care is used by the word as a catch-all, confused terminology for almost anything as long as it’s something you yourself want to do. That’s not helpful. However, if self-care refers to taking care of your health and hygiene, it is entirely legitimate and worthwhile to be admonished in making time for self-care. 

Mothers are the tone of the home and the wife is the glory of her husband – so when we take a little time to freshen up, to stay clean, to be hydrated and healthy – we’re not being selfish because we’re a unit – and a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link. We don’t want to be the weak link. We want to be – in our person – fully capable and ready to go.

When you’re invited to a banquet, you dress up not because you’re vain, but because it gives honor to the occasion. In the same way, showing up to your day at home showered, dressed, with your hair done bestows honor and glory on the work and place. It communicates honor and respect to the people you’re working with – and our children are no less people than coworkers in an office are. 

We, as moms, should do what it takes to enjoy our lives – this also can be thought of as self-care. We actually take care of ourselves and show up as our best selves not by escaping from our children or duties, but by pausing and noticing the beauty in the everyday. 

The habit of Sabbath

As busy, tired moms, we know we need rest. Yet many women experience guilt whenever they rest. Here’s my interpretation – the guilt is there because the life is not properly ordered.

Taking a Sabbath does not mean being sure to take a day that feels like your ideal vacation. It means stopping your work to get ahead in your home and in your life and live in joy and faith – making a priority what God says is our priority: worship and fellowship.

Go to church on Sunday. Make the church community essential to your social life. Make Sunday a day you don’t work to get ahead. Take an intentional break from efficiency mode on Sundays.

Self-care and sabbath don’t need to be big productions. They’re really simple habits that we can just do. They are supposed to be the normal rhythm of our life, providing structure and support for whatever else God sends us in our days and weeks and years.

They’re simple and they’re supposed to be normal, but they aren’t quick fixes. A sabbath day off might first require you to totally restructure how you plan and work your week! It is totally worth it.

Read more on how to take a day of rest as a mom.

Quick and simple homemaking tactics –

Ten habits every homemaker needs –

The best and most effective habits are the fast and easy ones. We often overlook these simple habits because they seem inconsequential, but they pack a punch and make further progress in our homes possible.

1. Make your bed – if it takes longer you’re doing it wrong!
2. Drink a glass of water
3. Look at your calendar
4. Set out your Bible and notebook the night before
5. One-minute EHAP – with everyone!
6. Write a daily card
7. Wipe down your island of sanity
8. Putting your phone away in a different room
9. Don’t leave a room without grabbing something that needs to go with you
10. Smile at your kids

Which of these habits will you be sure to add to your everyday life?

After twenty years as a homemaker, I’ve learned –

What I know now about habits:

Do the few things that matter most, most regularly. The most significant change doesn’t come with the full-meal-deal habits, but the minimum viable versions of our habit plans.

1. The little things add up fastest and it’s good to zero in and focus on the smallest step rather than crafting the best system.
2. You need both home routines and personal routines, but count them separately – morning and evening both, but overcomplicate neither.
3. The habits that make the most difference are the habits of the mind, which become our habitual attitude – and we can work on and change those habits in the same way we do home routines. Home routines won’t affect your attitude, but your attitude will affect your home routines. 

Making habits stick – we have to really nail down what we’re doing with specificity and clarity.

Build better homemaking habits today

The three essential ingredients of a workable habit

Establishing a good habit bestows extra emotional energy. It takes time & effort to install a good habit, but once established, it decreases the amount of time and effort needed to maintain it. One good habit also makes it easier to build the next good habit – sequentially, not all at once.

Habits are only formed after they are repeated without interruption for a long time. So, it might take years for these habits to be formed, but we’re going to work on them anyway with perseverance, because it is always rewarding to do what is right.

The reason our attempts at habits often fail is that we neglect to set up all the pieces.

A habit has a triggering event, an action, and a reward. Trigger, Action, Reward = TAR to make our habits stick. If we neglect to tie our habit to a trigger, we will forget about it. If we neglect to notice the reward, we end up relying solely on willpower instead of automatic habit.