Mrs. Andelin teaches in Fascinating Womanhood that a homemaker should have a place for everything and everything in its place.  She said that should someone in the family need something in the middle of the night he or she should be able to find it without turning on a light.  Is your home in this condition at this moment?  If the answer is yes, you are sincerely impressive.  If your answer is no, then help can be found in the information below.

Taking Account in Homemaking

        Taking account in homemaking doesn’t mean making financial statements or anything like that, it literally means taking a count of the items one has, making it easy to then see what you really need so that you can run your home like a top.  Doing this does have financial benefits in that you will clearly see what you have and honestly need – this can save a whole lot of money.  Complete the steps below this week, if you’d like to, to take account in your homemaking!

Steps to Taking Account in Homemaking:

1. Totally clean one’s house.  The best way to do this is to:

Declutter, thoroughly clean and organize your home. Do this one room at a time. An excellent way to get started is to remember these two things:

• If it’s not useful or beautiful, throw it out! Have a garbage can and several garbage bags for the garbage, have a box or so for charity, and a box for collectibles, such as heirlooms, that can’t be thrown away but need to be stored. Go through everything, including drawers, closets, bookshelves, corners, cabinets and whatever else is in the room.
• Next comes the thorough cleaning. Wipe off, dust, polish, wash, scrub; do whatever it takes to get the room thoroughly clean. Don’t forget walls, ceilings and baseboards.

        You will most likely find after the decluttering that you have a lot more room to put things, therefore, the organization of your items comes next. Find a space to neatly place everything. Don’t forget: one room at a time is the way to go with this. Trying to declutter, thoroughly clean and organize more than one room at a time can leave you frustrated, take a lot longer, and may be less thoroughly done than going one room at a time. Also, going one room at a time, you can see your results more quickly, thus leading to more motivation to go on to the next room. This is initially time-consuming, good old-fashioned hard work, but the benefits are great. You have a beautiful home, you save a lot of time by maintaining a clean home rather than shuffling a mess and clutter around, and it’s so much easier to maintain a home that is organized and clutter-free.  (This information is quoted from the article “More Time in a Day” that can be found by clicking here.)

2. Organize realistically, don’t be extreme.  Most homemakers don’t need labels stuck on every drawer and cabinet, nor do they need thousands of things to do their multi-faceted job of homemaking well.  As Mrs. Andelin used to write, “whittle life down to the bone”, meaning simplify realistically.  Don’t be extreme in simplifying, either, by throwing-out things that are actually useful in an effort to trim-down the contents of one’s home.  As in almost all things, the key is thoughtful, wise moderation.

3. Make a list of the things you need or would really like to have to make your family’s home run the way you ideally want it to.  If you need to save money for any of these things, work saving it into your budget, if possible.  For example, you need four new drinking glasses – you can look at your grocery list and see if there are a few really unneccessary items on there, such as ice cream sandwiches and colas, and instead spend the money saved on the glasses.  Make this list realistic, not a dream list of things you might like one day, but things you really need or would really like to have in the near future.  Check the items off of the list as you acquire them. 

4. Have a place for everything and everything in its place and learn, as a family, to always put things back where they belong.  In the case of an emergency where one has to leave before putting something back, teach other family members to put the thing away for the one called away on emergency.

5. Know where everything is by placing the items in logical locations. 

6. Give the immediate family a tour of their organized home, showing them where things are now placed.  This may sound funny, but it’s important.  After the tour, have a discussion with your children about putting things back where they belong.  This is a fun discussion and children usually bring-up very good points and thoughts on the subject.  This also helps everyone appreciate their family home, gives Mother esteem in the eyes of herself and her family because she is doing her job as the home manager very well, gives Dad a sense of wholesome pride and appreciation in himself and among the family for providing for his family and giving his wife what she needs to do her job outstandingly, and puts everyone on the “same page” as concerns item placement and keeping the home nice and well-organized.

7. Give yourself a real pat on the back.  Taking your role as the family’s homemaker seriously and doing this job with such a sense of duty, wholesome pride, and love is something to be happy about.  Take a look around you at your clean, organized, beautiful home and tell yourself “Good job, loving Lady!”