Homemaking Schedule: Office Day

I’m doing a weekly homemaking series this month on how to plan an effective homemaking schedule. I can see a huge difference by choosing a few days a week to majorly focus on one area of the home. Last week we talked about Laundry Day and this week I’m back to talk about Office Day.

Office Day is usually the easiest and quickest to run through. Mainly this includes:

• phone calls – including insurance, setting up doctors appointments, ordering vet medication, etc.
• budgeting and paying the bills (if Office Day lands on payday, if not then budgeting and bills happen ON payday!)
• balancing the bank accounts and double checking items cleared correctly
• place online orders – gifts, vitamins, Amazon, clothing
• going through my emails- the last couple weeks I have been trying to declutter, so I have been taking the time and unsubscribing to emails as I go through them
• filling paid bills
• registering items that we’ve bought (for product recalls) — I definitely make sure I do this when I buy baby items
• signing up for rebates from purchases (for us that means Menards and Lowes). Our projects not only save us money upfront by DIYing; a lot of times we have rebates attached to our receipt (recently 11% back)

How are the kids involved in this? Well, not so much. I wait to make phone calls when Theo naps and the kids are usually cooperative  when I say that I need to make a phone call, but that means sometimes I hide in the bathroom for a few quiet, uninterrupted minutes.

If the item is important, then I do not wait for office day. If I’ve already had office day and it can wait, it gets added to the list for next week. By adding it to next weeks list I can keep focused on my day. Before I started doing my homemaking schedule like this I would do a lot of things throughout the day but I was so scatter brained  trying to do a whole lot of different tasks (one load of laundry, 2 phone calls, trying to find time to make muffins for breakfast etc.) than just focusing on one major area a day. Now I know that I have laundry day to get all caught up, phone calls will be made on office day, and those muffins will be made on kitchen day. In my season of life I’m trying to stream-line my life, not make it more complicated!

Since this is usually the quickest day to get through I can usually add or at least start a project that I need/want to do. Currently, I’m try to declutter the house. So this week I plan on going through the toys with the kids. Sorting out baby toys for Theo, throw out toys that are broken or have missing parts, organize toys back together (kids won’t play kitchen if they have to look in 10 different spots to find all the fake food and dishes), and to gather at least one bag of toys to donate.

Homemaking Schedule: Introduction
Homemaking Schedule: Laundry Day
Homemaking Schedule: Office Day
Homemaking Schedule: Cleaning Day
Homemaking Schedule: Kitchen Day