The 7 Habits of Highly Efficient Homemakers

Photo from sheknows.com

Whether you’re a work-out-of-the-home mom, stay-at-home-mom, or work-at-home-mom, my guess is you would still consider yourself a homemaker. After all, so goes the well-known Filipino expression: “Ang ina ang ilaw ng tahanan,” which means, literally, “Mothers are the light of a home.”

Of course, if we consider ourselves as homemakers and “the light of our homes,” we would want to be and do our best. We want to be as efficient and effective as possible in managing our homes and families, working hand in hand with our spouses.

In the real world though, we all know that many times, we fall short of this ideal. There are days when we are overwhelmed or tired and everything seems to fall apart. “Some homemaker I turned out to be!” we think. Fear not though, because you are not alone. There are many women like you and me who also struggle to keep a happy and healthy home.

To help you out, we’ve come up with these powerful habits based on Stephen Covey’s bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that may help you on your journey in becoming a highly efficient homemaker:

Habit # 1: Be proactive in running your household.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably fallen into the trap of just letting things slide in your home. When you have just too many things on your plate, it’s always tempting to let go of things that actually help you be more in control of your home life.

So instead of being reactive, let’s be proactive in managing our homes. Here are some things we can do:

• Plan ahead. Des Padilla, who works as an executive assistant and is mother to Sabine, 5, Aida, 3, Franko, 1.5 and a baby girl on the way, believes that an efficient homemaker “plans ahead and anticipates situations; i.e., she has ready-to-use disposable containers when she knows she will have guests over to make 'pabaon' food easier to pack. Her pantry is well-stocked in case of unexpected guests. She is always ready for any emergency or unexpected situations.”

• Organize your home. “A place for everything and everything in its place” is a phrase I grew up with. Even the most disorganized of us can benefit from having a little structure and organization in our homes.

If this is challenging for you, start by simply making lists of the things you have in your home and how you’d like them to be organized or kept. If you’re on a budget and can’t afford to buy space-saving containers and organizers, make do with recycled shoeboxes and other types of containers.

• Get everyone involved. Being proactive also means involving the entire household in keeping the home spic and span. Even if you have household help, your spouse and kids should also share in the responsibilities and chores, which is actually good training for kids, too.


Habit # 2: Begin with the end in mind by having a vision for your home and family.
When you have a project to work on, you usually come up with a goal for it. You begin with the end in mind. The same should go for your home.

If you don’t already have one, now may be the time to come up with your family’s own vision statement. You might even want to go one step further and craft a family mission statement, too.

Well-known author and lay preacher Bo Sanchez even suggests that you write down these “life dreams”. When you have a purpose and goals to keep you driven and focused, managing your home will become a whole lot easier.

 

Habit # 3: Put first things first.
Grechie Racal, a stay-at-home mom of three girls, says, for her, efficient homemakers really need to know how to manage their time. “We have no helpers, so I try to schedule everything, including all the household chores,” she explains.

Thus, it helps to wake up early and plan for the day ahead. Have a detailed schedule for the day or even for the week. Write it down and make several copies to be posted around the house (if applicable to everyone), so that the other members of the household will be aware of it, too.

Jennyfer Ang Tan, a virtual assistant, owner of TheTechieMom.com, and mom to Daniel Vincent, 8, and Anaiah Raine, 1 year and 10 months, advises fellow moms to “commit to stick to your set schedule. It’s very easy to just tell yourself, ‘Later na lang,’ or to be lured by your bed and just sleep.”

If you don’t know about it already, you may want to try using the time management matrix popularized by Stephen Covey when making our schedule and to-do lists.

It would be best to keep in mind that people are always more important than things, and strengthened relationships are more valuable than the rewards of having a spic-and-span home.

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Habit # 4: Think win-win, especially when it comes to finding a “balance.”
I recently attended a workshop for work-at-home moms, and one of the speakers there said something that I still remember to this day: “There is no such thing as a work-life balance. There will never be a balance. But there will be a dance.”

In my humble opinion, that’s sort of what it means to “think win-win,” as Stephen Covey says. When you start out doing any task with a positive, winning mindset, you will probably not be so affected by setbacks or problems.

When hurdles do come your way, take everything with a pinch of salt, smile, breathe in and out deeply and slowly, and try to see the good in the situation.

Racquel Guevara, a stay-at-home-mom / homeschool teacher to her kids Arielle, 14, and Kayla, 11, believes that being flexible is key to being an efficient homemaker. “So is organization,” she adds.

Janice Lim, a freelance writer and blogger, and mom of three, says although being organized and disciplined with your schedule is important, it’s also vital that “you know your limits and not overschedule yourself.”

If it helps, you might also want to read the related article on “The 7 P’s to Achieving Work-Life Balance.”


Habit # 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood, especially when communicating with your spouse and kids.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey suggests that we practice “empathic listening.”

“In empathic listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behavior.

“When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.”

Many times, when we’re bent on running an efficient household, we may forget to really listen to the people around us with our eyes and heart. We wonder why our children have such a hard time listening to us but often fail to see that it is we who are at fault in the first place.

So, in order to have a more efficient home and family life, practice listening first before jumping to conclusions or making your own opinions about a certain situation, especially when it comes to dealing with family members or other people who live with you at home. As Covey says, “diagnose before you prescribe.”


Habit # 6: Synergize and go for creative cooperation.
When managing our homes, it’s always tempting to try to “do it all” — especially when we feel that no one else can do the job better than we can!

However, we need to realize that we can’t do everything by ourselves. We need to learn to have synergistic relationships with the other people in our home.

What does this mean? Simply put, we need to learn to cooperate creatively with others. We must learn to come up with solutions that will benefit everyone else. We also need to learn to delegate tasks. Ces Doroja, a web copywriter and freelance writer, and mom to 2.8-year-old Ann Margaret, says, “Knowing when to delegate, what to delegate and to whom to delegate is something very important. I’d always assumed that working from home would allow me to do everything, only to find out that I had set myself up for failure.

“Work-life balance is a tricky thing. We all need help, not necessarily from yayas, but from other members of the family, too,” she ends.

Indeed, to be efficient and effective, we need to know where our strengths and weaknesses lie, and delegate the tasks we’re not good at to those who are good at doing them, or can do them more efficiently than us.


Habit # 7: Sharpen the saw — Find time to recharge as a woman / wife / mom.
Stephen Covey recommends four types of renewal: physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional. To become an efficient, effective homemaker, we must never neglect these four aspects of our lives.

Toni Tiu, a social media manager for Balsam Brands, and mom to Timmy, 3, puts it best: “Don’t forget to nurture yourself, too. Work, family and the home can only shine when you yourself are shining!”

Take time to “sharpen the saw,” as Covey says. According to him, “Renewal is the principle — and the process — that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.”

To be an efficient homemaker, make sure you spend time recharging, whether it’s just to go to your favorite nail spa, or have a good chat over coffee with friends, or to read a good book. Make time for yourself.

Bear in mind also the other aspects that need renewing: take time to pray and/or meditate daily (spiritual); fit in some regular exercise and eat healthy (physical); keep on learning and improving yourself (mental); and find opportunities to serve others (social/emotional).

Remember, you cannot function properly in your home and other parts of your life if you are all burnt out!

To end, allow me to leave you with these words from George Bernard Shaw, author of Man and Superman: a Comedy and Philosophy:

“This is the true joy in life — the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one… the being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.  I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.  
“I rejoice in life for its own sake.  Life is no brief candle to me.  It's a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I  want  to  make  it  burn  as  brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”