10 Ways You're Sabotaging Your Homemaking

Over the course of the last few months, I’ve been talking a lot about routines, schedules, and habits that shape our homes and family life. As homemakers, we all desire beauty, peace, and order in our homes. I use my routines as a means to reach, or at a minimum aim for, that goal of beauty, peace, and order. But sometimes we unknowingly can sabotage our homemaking attempts by bad habits, negative mindsets, or planning failures.

(Psst! If you missed The Nourishing Routines Project, here are all the posts in order as well as follow-up posts.)

If you feel like you are forever spinning your wheels with your homemaking, you may be guilty of several of the following offenses. So what are we are doing or not doing that is making it harder to achieve our homemaking goals?

11 Ways You are Sabotaging your Homemaking

1.Trying to fit someone else’s mold

I know you see all those shiny printables, projects, and checklists bloggers (myself included) post on Pinterest. You know, the ones that promise to get your home decluttered in 30 days, keep everything spic-and-span, or control all the paper cluttering your desk? The Pinterest perfect image draws us in and makes us believe all the hype surrounding the promise. Often, when we try to push our home and personality into these predefined molds, we come up short and end up with nothing but frustration.

These printables and posts on organization can inspire us and encourage us to buckle down when we have been slacking in our homemaking, BUT these plans and printables are someone else’s creation, created with someone else’s home, personality, family, and needs in mind. They were not tailor made for YOU!

Solution: Get friendly with Excel (or in my case the free software OpenOffice). Ask somebody for help if you need it (Husband is the Excel whiz in our home!). You’ll get faster and more adept at using the program and will be able to make custom schedules, checklists, and other fancies to help you in your homemaking. Feel free to use other people’s printables, projects, and checklists as inspiration, but fine tune them and make them your own!

2.Doing what mama always did

This follows closely behind point #1. Our mothers may have been the world’s best housekeeper, cook, or hostess, but what worked for her might not work for us. In fact, she may not even know why she does things a certain way except that her mother did them that way before her!

One way freeing myself from my mother’s habits has been helpful for me is in washing the bed linens. My mother almost always washed our sheets once a week. I started out life doing the same thing, and then I realized I was washing sheets that weren’t even dirty! I had grown up on a farm, in a home without air conditioning, and so our sheets probably needed to get washed that often. However, in my adult home, we put the children to bed fresh from the tub with clean jammies. I began washing every other week instead, saving myself a huge amount of time and hassle on a weekly basis.

Solution: Rethink the things you do just because “mama did it that way.”

A house can still be dirty and still be beautiful.

Look at that smudgy baby. Isn’t he still beautiful???

3.It doesn’t have to be beautiful to be clean, and it doesn’t have to be clean to be beautiful.

This is kind of a spin on the Nester’s phrase “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.” My little phrase sounds paradoxical, but let me show you what I mean. We homemakers can clean and clean and clean a room, but often, if it doesn’t look like an image from a magazine, we can get frustrated with our efforts. I don’t have perfect furniture and my design skills need drastic improvement, but after a good scrubbing session, I can take pride in my efforts even if the end result is short of pin-worthy.

On the flip side, your house doesn’t have to be perfectly clean to be beautiful. (See the image above as a case in point. That baby is dirty, but oh so beautiful!) I have limited time in my current season and right now God, my family, and homeschooling are my priorities. Sometimes I have to content myself with surface clean and know that I will get to the deeper stuff some other day (even if some other day is months or years from now!).

As I clean, I try to focus on the things that are the most important to the atmosphere of my home. For instance, I know I can feel good about my house when things are picked up, even if the deep cleaning is neglected for a time. Yes, I still know that there are some smudges on the wall and windows, but they go more unnoticed than a sea of toys on the living room floor. While I would love to have a spotless house, I have learned to content myself with less than perfection at times as I pursue what really matters in life (God and family).

Solution: Let go of cleaning, home decorating, or cleaning perfection!

4.Homemaking with a once and for all attitude.

Organize your House Once and for All.

Declutter Your Home…and keep it that way!

Ever see blog posts with these huge promises attached? I’ll be perfectly honest – that is not how life works. The seasons of life change. Our needs and our family’s needs change and well meaning friends and relations bring more “stuff” into our home. Life goes on and the work of homekeeping and homemaking are never done. Ever. Never let the fact that you have to repeat a task make you feel like a homemaking failure.

Organizing, decluttering, cleaning, and planning are not one and done endeavors. While it should be obvious that we need to clean on a regular basis, it is important to find space to also continually declutter, organize, and plan. Biting off these tasks in manageable chunks will help you stay on top of your homemaking and also help you avoid major decluttering and organizing sessions.

I try to deep clean, declutter, and organize 1 drawer, 1 closet, or 1 bookshelf a week as part of my zone cleaning method (just a fancy way of saying I focus on one area of my house per week and do maintenance cleaning on the other areas). Doing so means even when I do get the itch to do an all over clean, it is never overwhelming.

The same with planning. I take time every month to evaluate what is working and what needs fixing in the way of our routines and our schedules, as well as take the time to access goals. Constantly updating my routines and schedules mean I never need to do a complete overhaul.

Solution: Adopt an attitude of accepting life the way it comes. Go ahead and declutter your whole home, but don’t be frustrated when you need to revisit decluttering in 6 months time.

5.Lack of systems

Systems are so important to a well run home. I’ve found that while no system is perfect, each system I have in place goes a long way to simplifying and streamlining tasks. When some homemaking task makes us grumble, or we constantly have a mess in one area of our home, taking some time to develop a workable system will help bring peace and order to not only our home, but our soul.

Some areas of home management where systems are imperative are: toy rooms, bill paying, meal planning/grocery shopping, back door area organization, homeschooling, long-term storage, bookshelf organization, cleaning routines, family schedules etc.

Again, don’t fall into the trap of trying to fit into someone else’s system (see #1) or trying to make it Pinterest beautiful (see #3). Make your system workable and tailor made for you. I find I develop the best systems when I consult Husband and take my time thinking, implementing, and reworking it. While Husband is not a natural born organizer, I find a second opinion invaluable for looking at the situation with fresh eyes.

Solution: Take time to access and rework anything that’s “not working” by creating workable systems!

6.Not accessing how you work

This goes along with Mistake #5. If we want to be the most efficient with our time, we must think objectively about how we work. Think about your kitchen, is it set up for maximum efficiency? Can you put your clean dishes directly into the cupboards from the dishwasher without taking any steps? Are dishrags within easy grasp of the sink area? Are the things you use together stored together?

As we work, if we can observe our motions like a fly on a wall, we can often find wasted movement and time in our daily tasks. Eliminating, or at the least lessening these time wasters, will help us get more accomplished in a day. Working toward maximum efficiency may involve reorganizing, rearranging, or creating a new habit. While we could benefit from looking at our movement in all areas, places where we get the most bang for our buck are the areas where we spend the most time as homemakers: the kitchen, the office area, and our cleaning movements.

Solution: Next time you are completing a task, try to observe your movements and actions as a third party. What organizational steps, habits, or system reworking would make the task more efficient next time around?

7.Comparing your bad to someone’s great

Ever left your home in shambles on a rough day and then entered your friend’s perfectly immaculate home and been crushed by the weight of comparison? Boy, I’ve been there! In these situations, it is so easy to let our comparison rob us of our joy and make us feel less than enough. It is just another way that The Father of Lies likes to whisper untruths about our self-worth in our hearts. The only way to fight is to fight with Truth.

While I’m a firm believer than the home atmosphere really does matter, we must not let the state of our home determine who we are. When we compare ourselves (or our homes) to others, we will always come up short. We tend to see the good front put up by others and neglect to remember that things are probably not always “just so.”

Case in point. I try to practice “messy hospitality” and allow others to feel welcome in my home even if I don’t have it up to my personal standards (this is really hard for me, but I’m trying to let it go!). However, when I know people are coming over, the first thing I do is start cleaning. My friends often see my good days, not my bad.

Solution: Never compare. Period. It is the thief of joy.

8.Assuming money could fix it

Money. We all assume it can fix many of our problems, including in our homes. While this is true, to an extent, we can often remedy our problems without spending a dime by practicing contentment, patience, and ingenuity. In fact, not spending money can be a huge problem solver if you are struggling to make ends meet or are living with debt. Imagine financial freedom!

The other day, I was perusing our old photos. I came across a picture of when we first moved into our home. We had very little in the way of furniture (or finances!). I remember wanting so much to be able to go and dump a boat load of money at the store to get my house just the way I wanted. In fact, here are a couple photos from that time eight years ago.

Everything you see in this photo had been a hand-me-down, cast off, or gifted to us from family and friends. Pretty sparse, huh? Do you notice the wood floor isn’t even finished? We lived with the floor like that for two years as we put off the expense of having it refinished. This was all we had, but I tried to primp and make it the best I could (oh, those slip-covered couches drove me crazy for years!). We even hosted many get-togethers with other young families when our house looked just like this.

While I may have wanted something nicer, I chose (or tried to choose) contentment and gratefulness for what God provided. We were saying “no” to buying all the schtuff “they” say you have to have for your home while we said a bigger “yes” to paying down our mortgage and saving.

It took 8 years to get that room to where it is today. More than half of the furniture is still hand-me-downs or yard sale treasures that have been primped with a little elbow grease. The only new item in the room is our couches which we purchased just last year when our 20-year-old-hand-me-downs developed so many holes and squeaks it was embarrassing! So, yes, we have had to spend some money, but instead of buying enough to “fill the room” as soon as we moved in, we’ve allowed it to be a slow process. And, no, my home is still not Pinterest perfect, but it is a soft place for my family to land.

And all that waiting? We really know what we want by the time we are ready to purchase furniture or do work on the house. We’ve had time to access our needs and how our family uses a space. Our money is always money wisely spent!

Solution: Learn to be patient and move slowly when adding decor and big ticket items to your home.

9.Investing in “organizers”

Mass marketed organizers are usually a colossal waste of money. Think about it. The companies who produce these “organizing helps” have to continually invent new organizers in order to sell more product. Many organizers on the market today take up more space than they save. Why are the shelves of Goodwill lined with these plastic organizing wonders if they are really so great?

While I love plastic tubs and other bins for organizing children’s clothes and keeping like things together (puzzles, craft supplies, office supplies, measuring cups, cake decorating materials), I often find that “organizers” do not actually help me get organized.

Solution: Before purchasing something marketed as an organizer, think through what the product will actually help you accomplish. Will the system be easy to maintain? Will it take up more space than it saves? Could something you already own be used instead? Will you outgrow the system?

10.Taking an “If only…” approach

If only I had a bigger house.

If only my husband would pick up after himself.

If only I could spend the money to buy that organizing whatcha-ma-jig.

If only my children were older.

If only I didn’t have to do everything myself.

I think I’ve said all of these things at one time or another and I bet you have said a few of them yourself. These “ifs”, or rather, complaints, don’t get us anywhere.

Access your “if.” If there is some change you can implement (like giving the kids some responsibilities, or politely asking your husband to help by picking up after himself) to make things run smoother, then by all means do it! But, there are some situations we can’t do anything about. We can’t force our children to grow up and we can’t always go and spend a boatload of cash on every whim. In these situations, we can choose whether we will practice contentment or let it steal our joy.

Solution: When you find yourself complaining, decide whether you can take action to mend the situation or whether you need to practice gratitude and contentment. (Wow, that was really wise of me! I think I should practice that more!)

11. Believing you just aren’t cut out for homemaking…

I really struggled with homemaking when we were first married. I blamed my inadequacy on Husband. I blamed it on lack of money. I blamed it on the baby. I blamed it on my home. You know what? Things never got better.

I could complain and complain, and things seemed to just look worse than before. Then, I started focusing on myself, in a good way. I started by just making my bed and getting dressed everyday. When I got that down, I started meal planning. Then I added in a cleaning routine. I read whatever I could get my hands on about the practical side of homemaking and then tailored it to our situation. The change was slow and gradual, but overtime, I’ve hit my homemaking groove.

Is my home perfect? By no means! But I can find things I need (unless a little person stole it), walk around without sticking to the floor (9 times out of 10), feed my family at (semi) regular intervals, and open the door to unanticipated visitors without (too much!) embarrassment.

If your house is a pit, you’ve definitely got some work to do. I don’t mean scrubbing and organizing, though there will be plenty of that too! No, the real work begins inside of yourself. You can do any 30 day program and get your home in decent shape, but unless you change yourself, your home will be right back to where it is today.

You are going to have to tear down old habits and build new ones. You are going to have to learn efficiency, time management, perseverance, and develop a killer work ethic. BUT, the good news is, it can be done. I’ve done it myself and I’ve lived to tell the tale!

Take Jesus for your companion. Tell Him your failures and your desires to start afresh. Ask Him to help you give your family a peace-filled and orderly home. I believe that God is more than happy to answer these sorts of prayers.

Solution: Taking Jesus as your guide, allow yourself to work slowly building habits and routines that will bring life, peace, and order to your home.