In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful
Being a homemaker involves so many things. It’s not just about cleaning and keeping your home tidy and smelling good! Obviously it will differ slightly from person to person and between different family homes but generally homemaking includes things such as budgeting, maintaining the family schedule, meal planning and grocery shopping, and cleaning!
You want your home to run smoothly and be a place of serenity and peace for everyone – especially the people who live there but also for guests passing through. You want to make sure it is a place of values and hard work. You want to make sure that, while it is not perfect, it is well managed!
It takes a lot of effort to keep things running well and keep your homemaking on point but if you stay consistent, have routines for things and do the small things as they come up and when you have little bits of time throughout your day – it makes it a whole lot easier!
So if you’re finding yourself with small 10-15 minute pockets of time during the day and an overwhelming list of things you have to get caught up on, here’s a handy list of small tasks that make a big difference for your home and your family!
15 Minute Homemaking Tasks:
1. Make your bed. I’m one of those people that encourage you to make your bed each morning. It makes your bedroom feel and look so much nicer and it’s just a nice start to a productive day. If you’re changing your sheets and fluffing your pillows and the whole thing, you might take 15 minutes on your bed but if you have a couple extra minutes leftover, you can make your little baby/tiny tot’s bed as well.
2. Put away a load of laundry. More than likely you have a load of laundry that needs to be put away on most days of the week so go ahead and check that off your list so it’s not glaring over your shoulder anymore! It can be a pain for sure but in all honesty, it doesn’t take that long to fold and put away one load of laundry. If you happen to have put away all your laundry, you can also start a load in the washer or to dry in under 15 minutes.
3. Clean off one surface area in your home. Look around at your desk, your dresser, any bookshelves in your home, your dining table, coffee table, the kitchen counters – choose one of those surfaces and declutter it real quick. It’ll feel great, look great and one less thing that you’re feeling guilty about not doing for another day. You can dust/wash the surface as well if it needs it.
4. Vacuum a room or two. In our home, vacuuming has to happen pretty much every day. Thankfully it usually doesn’t take that long so set a timer if you’d like and get a few rooms done. You can definitely see a difference when you’ve completed this task!
5. Choose a room and remove everything that doesn’t belong and put those things away. Throughout the day things have a habit of migrating to spaces they don’t belong! Scarves left on the sofa, toys scattered in every room, coffee mugs at the desk, – you get the idea! Take your small pocket of time and dedicate it to just one room but make sure you do it well. Collect everything that doesn’t belong into a basket or a bag and once you’ve finished that, try to put everything away into its proper place.
6. Scrub the tub. Who doesn’t love a fresh, sparkly clean tub? It’s not something I love doing but I love when it gets done! If you know ahead of time that you’re going to have a couple minutes, spray or sprinkle your cleaner and let it soak into the tub and when you have that time, give your bathtub some much needed TLC.
7. Empty the garbage bins and take out the trash. I know this is definitely not the most pleasant thing to do but it certainly makes a difference once it’s done! Think about it, you have roughly 3-5 trash cans in your home (bathrooms, kitchen and bedrooms) – it takes only a few minutes to lift the bag out, put a fresh bag in and once you have collected all the trash bags, simply take it outside. It’ll feel great to have accomplished the task and your home will smell much better.
8. Empty and/or load the dishwasher. I thought I despised the dishwasher but it turns out, it can be a great ally. I love that you can load it throughout the day and run it whenever it gets full or just in the evening. It doesn’t take long to load it. If you have dishes in there from the night before, you likely have time to empty and then reload in just 15 minutes or less.
9. Get rid of any expired food from your fridge and pantry. We have been working really hard in our family to reduce our food waste and we’ve been doing pretty good but occasionally we do have things that get forgotten or lost in the back of the fridge that we need to toss and clean out. You really don’t want rotten food in there with your fresh food that you’re going to be eating – so try just a few times a week to take a bit of time and make sure your fridge is fresh and clean. If you’ve kept up with this task, it’ll likely be super quick and therefore you can use any leftover time to clean up your pantry as well.
10. Lay out any meat and prepare any vegetables for dinner. When you know what you’re having for dinner (or any meal for that matter) it becomes so much easier to be prepared. If you have to thaw something out, it only takes a handful of minutes to take what you need out of the freezer and put it in a container. Likewise, you could even peel and/or chop any veggies that you’ll need so that you won’t have to stress over it when it actually comes time for cooking.
11. Water your garden and take away any dead leaves. Gardening is something that requires pretty consistent work but depending on what you’re growing, it’s not super hard. If you have a little bit of time, make sure that you have watered your plants and remove any dead leaves so that your garden can grow and flourish.
12. Sort through your papers. I know a lot of people are working hard at going paperless but if you’re anything like me, you love a good old-fashioned handwritten to-do list or note! Take a couple minutes and recycle any outdated papers, menus that you’ll never look at again, old mail that is no longer needed and any other paper clutter that you may have taking up precious space.
13. Update your calendar for the month. This could look like crossing off the days that have already passed, adding new events to your calendar or even just marking important days (recycling, phone bill due date, etc). It doesn’t take very long but it can be very helpful to check in with your calendar and keep it up to date at least a few times a week.
14. Meal plan for the next two weeks. I LOVE meal planning! I generally plan out two weeks of meals for our family at a time. This saves time, it saves money and it helps you be more prepared and organized! If you have a little extra time, you can start making your grocery list as well!
15. Call and schedule upcoming appointments for you and your family. Especially if you have kiddos, someone probably needs an appointment scheduled – dentist, eye doctor, a check-up. Even if nobody has upcoming appointments, maybe you need to schedule some car maintenance. Basically, use this 15 minutes and make any pressing phone calls that need to be taken care of.
Question for the comments: What is a small homemaking task you use those 10/15 minute time pockets to complete in your day?
Thank you for stopping by ‘Nourishing Our Home’. Please be sure to pop in every Thursday for new posts. Also, if you found this to be relatable and beneficial, please help me out by sharing with your family and friends.