There is a t-shirt at Cafepress that I really like, and possibly one of the few that I would ever wear, as I dislike wearing words or advertising slogans, that says "I can only do one thing really well - homeschool the kids - clean the house". Well perhaps I'd alter it simply to "Homeschool or Housework - you choose"?



What I am getting as is there is a different dynamic for parents whose children are at home 24/7. The only time that a child is not occupying themselves with learning and discovery, eating, or creating, is when they finally go to sleep at night. All those day-to-day activities can be messy and time-consuming. It's the same with living with flatmates with everyone coming and going and no one really taking the main responsibility of 'running the show'.

As a homeschooling parent we are on duty the whole time supervising. So where do you get the time to keep house?



What I have found is that trying to regiment Monday for one task, Tuesday for another did not work for us, as we tend to be quite flexible, which means that we may jump in the van and head out with 'dad' on a call-out, and then I'd only feel burdened by what still needed to be done at home.

We also tried relegating the chores to a Saturday and doing 2-3 hours of intense cleaning but in our minds this was wasting important family time (on one of only 2 days when clients oughtn't call).



We try, every morning, having a routine of tasks for the children to accomplish before 9am, which works with some success, but is kept to a minimum of: get up, have breakfast, brush hair, brush teeth, get changed, make bed and open bedroom curtains.

So they are not exactly doing heaps of housework, but in some ways making them responsible for their area has allowed me to chill out a smidgeon and remind myself that if they haven't made their bed and even though I would prefer to see it neat and tidy - it is they that have to lie in it. I am not advocating this for children under 5 years approx, but even then the younger ones can be charged with plonking their pillow at the top of the bed and lumping their duvet or blankets at the other end (then the floor has a chance of being walked across).



What is working for us, and frees me up to think on other things is to have created a master list of things that need to be done - weekly/fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and annually and create index cards for them.

This was far easier than it may sound. One day around the dinner table I asked "what do you think needs to be done around the house to keep it clean and tidy?" and I was surprised at the contributions. Most of the time questions like this would be met with a 'don't know' and shrugged off.

From that list I typed them onto computer generated index cards (with different coloured backgrounds for the different cycles) and laminated them for longevity.

So now I can see at a glance what is next on our weekly/fortnightly task list as it is the card at the front of the stack, and every so often I throw in a card from the monthly, quarterly and annually index cards.

The other advantage is that the children know what is next on the 'to-do' list and sometimes preempt my starting the task and chip in to help.

What more could you ask?



So how do I implement the master plan - just whenever I have the time during the day to do the next task.

As each index card lists the specifics of the cleaning task, I don't have to feel the need to complete the entire task but instead gain satisfaction of completing each item on the list.

Here is what one of our fortnightly cleaning cards looks like:

This is an annual one:

If you would like further ideas for what may go on your master list just type in the two words 'homeschool' and 'housework' into a browser and you'll come up with pages of tips and ideas and of course there is always the FlyLady site, if you need a bit of guidance on starting and being accountable.



Remember to pat yourself on the back for making the start. Don't worry if your tasks don't seem to be as frequent as you like, as you maintain your home, each will get easier and be done more regularly.

In fact one of the cards I have in our fortnightly rotation is to sort out something so that there is less to clean and care for too:

So what are you waiting for .... do you have a Master Plan?