What’s more efficient?
I know it’s been a while, I am planning on posting something more substantial sometime. But it’s getting late and I am really, really going to try to get to bed so I can get up early–before the girls–and be a good, cheerful, on-top-of-things sort of mom.
But tonight I want to know what you think. Is it more efficient to save all your major “homemaking” duties for one day, and get them all done in one shot, or is it better to spread it out over the week?
I usually do about a load of laundry a day, sometimes two, sometimes none, but this morning every laundry hamper was bursting and I decided to just go ahead and do it all. (I didn’t, there’s still a load of whites waiting, but I had an extra bed comforter load on top of the regular lights and darks and diapers.)
I kind of liked it this way though, and am considering a once a week getting-things-done-day. I made bread too, and I could have done a lot more. I could use Monday to be our major cleaning plus washing plus bread, muffin, granola, and eventually, if I can ever do it successfully, yogurt-making day. Because to do laundry all day, it’s not like it takes that much time–I just have to be home all day putting things in, taking things out, and making sure the washing machine doesn’t go crazy on me. (My grandpa always warned me never to leave the house with the washer or dryer going. I didn’t take him so seriously until one day I went to check the laundry and the floor was flooded because the washer didn’t stop filling up.)
The only problem I see is that once a week won’t be enough. I’m going to try it with laundry and see how long we can go, but I already know bread-making is going to have to be at least a twice a week thing, at least until I can get a Bosch or some other kind of mixer that will let me make 4-6 loaves at a time. Right now I’m using a bread machine someone gave me but it only makes 2 loaves. And we went through that in a day. (If you didn’t catch my recent tweet, I finally, finally succeeded in making whole wheat bread that wasn’t brick-like and actually tasted good.)
I kind of like this idea though, of having different days. I’m hoping to get the girls signed up for some kind of fun class this summer. I want to stay busy. We do better when we have plans and things to do. I’m thinking we’ll have a “dance class day,” a “park/pool day,” a “library day,” and now a “homemaking day.” Obviously those other things aren’t going to take all day but they will be the things that get us out of the house in the morning. I need to schedule these things for the morning so I’ll have motivation to get up.
Speaking of which, I AM going to go to bed now because I AM going to get up at 6:30 in the morning, because I AM going to read scriptures, shower, and be ready for breakfast before my kids get up. Because that’s the only way we’ll make it to the park by 9, which is when we are planning on meeting some friends.
Filed in: just life | April 27, 2009
stephanie
I’m no expert on efficiency, but I really like having a “homemaking day”. Wednesday has long been our laundry day (except for diapers and kitchen towels, which end up being an every other day affair), and I just started making it my baking day as well.
I get away with making bread only once a week by baking making 3 or 4 two loaf batches of dough, baking two and freezing the rest. As we need fresh bread, I’ll pull some dough out of the freezer and let it thaw over night. I shape it into loaves, let it rise and bake it in the morning.
gay chappell
Well, let’s see…in the good old days home bodies had a schedule. Monday was laundry day, Tuesday was ironing day…from there on I don’t remember what each day was for. Ask someone in their 80s or 90s. At any rate that schedule is not good anymore. Try not to do more than 2 loads of laundry a day. Load after load after load is hard on a washer. As for Tuesday…who irons anyway? I guess much of your dilema depends on where your facilities are. If laundry is close to kitchen, you could be making bread while the laundry is going. On the following day, another couple loads of laundry, make yogurt…etc, etc. Somewhere in there are three meals, potties and diaper changes, hugs and stories, and so forth. And PopPop says Hi, He loves you.
Trina
Congratulations on getting Wheat bread to work. What was your secret? I personally like 1-2 loads a day here and there. Good luck deciding!
TheOrganicSister
I’ve been working a lot on time management. It’s something I did a lot fo when I worked for myself but it’s a whole new context now. It’s been interesting for me to apply what I knew to what I do now. I’ll probably start putting it all into bloggy words soon. :)
As for your question, I think it varies on the person. I prefer to spread most things out, except my cleaning. I like to do cleaning all at once so it’s done and I don’t feel like the house is never all clean all at once. But I do a load of laundry here or there, sweep while dinner is cooking, etc. However, I think some people function much better when they do it all at once. Try experimenting – one way for a few weeks (to really get a feel for it) then the other for a few weeks.