Boogity said:
How old are those 5 kids?
That was my next question as well.
I've tried flylady - and I've employed some of her tips, but I can't make her system work well for me.
I don't work outside the home, but I run a business from our home that requires a significant amount of my time several days a week. I also homeschool the kids. And I have seven of them, all at home still (from 16 down to 3). We live in a fairly small home too, so clutter can become overwhelming very fast if given the chance.
We have delegated all the *main* jobs. We try to keep it fair according to age, but if it's not exactly even they know better than to complain about it.
In the morning I feed and milk the goats and get bottles ready for the bottle fed babies. Usually my two girls (9 and 6) do the bottle feeding. My 13 yo son opens the main coop and feeds/waters the chickens. My 11 yo son does the same for the young pullets that are in a chicken tractor in our yard. While I filter the milk and clean the equipment by 9yo daughter makes breakfast (takes her about 10 minutes) which is usually a hot cereal (oatmeal or millet) that's she's soaked the day before in a little buttermilk.
My 11yo feeds and waters the dogs.
Currently my 16 yo is in charge of making lunch. That'll get passed along to a younger sibling in a few months as he'll be starting college full time in the fall.
It's my job to figure out a dinner plan and do any prep work associated with it (soaking the day before, or taking meat out of the freezer to thaw the night before, etc.) I may be the one to cook dinner, or it may be my oldest DS or DH that handle that, depending on how busy I am.
We do at least one load of laundry a day, sometimes two and we all just make sure we're glancing at the laundry every now and then to make sure it's under control. I randomly assign a child to fold the loads as we take them from the dryer.
Everyone has an assigned dish day. It's their day to hand wash any dishes that need washing and to reload the dishwasher - though each person is *supposed* to reload their own dishes as they finish using them. Whoever washes is the person to dry dishes in the drainer the following day (so they rotate along). My 6yo daughter unloads the dishes and puts them away each morning.
Those are the actual assigned duties. The rest I'd like to be more organized with and assign on a rotating basis but I'm not there yet. We stop what we're doing several times a day to do a quick tidy on the main areas of the house. This may or may not include a quick vac. over the living room. Things like dusting, windows, etc are not done as often as they should - with nine people it could use it every couple days - I'm lucky if we do it every couple weeks, it's usually a mad dash to do those kinds of *extras* just before company comes.
Bigger outside jobs, like lawn mowing, weed pulling, barn mucking, coop cleaning - those are usually reserved for the weekends or when we happen to have a less busy day during the week.
So, depending on the ages of your kids that are still at home, here's some thoughts:
Have them help with the chicken chores. Do they go to school? There should be time for the daily chicken care before school, it only takes us about 5 min. or so of actual work.
Have them do their own laundry - including folding and putting away. If necessary assign every one in the family their own laundry day.
If you have a dishwasher make sure someone unloads it first thing in the morning so that it's empty for the days use. Train EVERYONE (adults included!) to load their dishes as they use them. (That's a huge one there!) And then run it after dinner or just before you go to bed.
A meal plan is a MUST. It takes all the thought processes out of it. If you can plan a month, great! I stive to, but rarely can I plan that far ahead. I mean, I could, I just don't. So I plan a week at a time. And always stop and take at least 10-15 minutes to plan the next days meals, that way if something needs to come out of the freezer or get soaking I'm sure to do it. We eat horribly if I wait until 4:00pm to figure it out. When you stock whole grains and cook everything from scratch I have to plan - you just can't whip up something in 20 minutes. It's really not alot of extra hard work, it just requires advance prepping.
Organize your paperwork type stuff as best you can. Like bills - get a good system down for filing and paying your bills. When new stuff comes in the mail file it right away, don't let it pile up.
If I think of anymore I'll add to the list. Hope it's helpful!
My hubby and I make a great team though, so the weekend work gets done with efficiency and we have time to spare for some fun in the evenings. Maybe, I'm just out of sorts with all the changes we have had in the household lately. Hmm...
