How to Serve Your Family While Working

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Sometimes, being a full-time homemaker isn’t always in the cards for us. Whether you are not financially able to stay home, you’ve chosen to keep your career vs your husbands, or you, like me have no choice as a single parent. So how can you serve your family while you work outside of the home?

Before I dig in, I do want to add a little note here. Being a homemaker “full-time” or not is not something that can be taken from you just because you work outside of the home. If you feel called to care for your family and serve Jesus, then you are a homemaker. While it may not be what you’ve dreamed of, this is a place in life where God wants you to be so He can use you for His good. Okay, let’s get into it!

Think It, Plan It, Execute It

While we all have great aspirations to make a great schedule or routine, it often seems that we never follow through. This leads to us filling our time with things we don’t need to be doing and leaving no time for the things we should be doing.

The most important thing to being a homemaker while working outside the home is to plan your time accordingly. Because if you think about it you’ve got a lot of things to juggle:

• Work
• Church
• Bible Time
• Family Time
• Driving kids places
• Appointments
• Sports
• Date night
• Self-care
• Time with each kid
• Cleaning/organizing
• Shopping
• Meal Prep

The list goes on and on, not to mention commute times to and from these places that you’re constantly having to go to. That being said, it’s important to find a planner or app that works for you and you will stick with it! My personal favorite planners are Artful Agenda and my newest favorite is Notion.

Artful Agenda is simple and easy to use, and it’s easy to check it on their mobile app or website whenever you need it. The only downside to this is it’s a $4.99/month fee.

Notion is fairly recent to me, but if you’re a detail and organization oriented person then this is the option for you. The best news is Notion is absolutely free for personal use.

So, come up with a plan that works for you, get into good habits and execute your plan! Don’t overwhelm yourself trying to keep up with Patty Pinterest and Holly Homemaker, just do what you and your family need.

Delegate, & Break Down Tasks

It’s really important when you’re not home to share the tasks among your family. While you should be doing this in the first place, it’s even more important now to ask for help. Do you have older kids who can help with chores? Does your husband stay home? If so, he should be helping with a lot of your home’s responsibilities.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. For me, I currently work two full-time jobs away from the home and am about to become a single mother. My child is 5 with severe disabilities and will need my attention. So instead of delegating, I make sure to break down my tasks as needed.

What absolutely needs to be done every day? Dishes, garbage, bed made, tidy behind myself as I can? What can be done on a weekly basis on rotating days? Laundry, sweeping, etc. Instead of taking on your house room by room take a few extra seconds to clean up whatever task or activity, you were doing to avoid a mess later. Because 30 seconds of me dropping everything from the car on the kitchen table is at least 20 minutes of cleaning later after doing that a few times.

By breaking up your tasks, you’ve now met your basic needs and when you have time and energy for other things then add things like cleaning the bathroom or deep cleaning something to your list.

Breaking up your tasks can also be useful when delegating to your family. Instead of having one kid clean the living room and one in the basement, have one child do vacuuming and another dusting. Giving them one task to focus on that is the same for every room will have them more focused than them having to remember which task to jump to next to keep that room clean.

Ask for Help

If you’re starting to feel burnt out, or see that you may become burnt out even if you’re not already, ask for help. There is no shame in this.

I myself did this the other day. I recently suffered a very severe concussion while horseback riding and even though I am injured I have continued to work both of my jobs. Because of this, any free time I have, instead of cleaning has been dedicated to rest and sleep. I noticed that my house was becoming worse and worse, which in turn stressed me out. I knew that I could not get it done by myself with the intense pain I’d been going through so I called my mom who was more than happy to come and help me clean.

Whether you ask your husband, your mom or dad, a sibling, friend, neighbor, or even hire someone to help you; just ask. We have all been there where things are overwhelming and too much. It’s okay.

One of the best things of God’s children is that we are all made different. Do you know someone who loves to clean and organize who would be thrilled to help you out?

Remember, even the Proverbs 31 woman had servants to help her in her everyday life, so don’t feel like you have to do everything yourself.

Being a homemaker is a full-time job, and working in this day and age is often a necessity. There is no shame in doing both. I hope you are encouraged that no matter where you are in life, or where you want to be; God is always with you, and He always knows what’s next.

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