Establishing housekeeping routines

Changing old habits and establishing new routines is one of the hardest things you'll do when you move from a consumerist mindset to a more frugal and homemade one. When I first changed from my old life, I knew I had to do a lot more for myself but for the life of me I couldn't find the motivation to get all those new chores done. After a period of trial and error, I stumbled onto a good routine that established a rhythm to my days and I have not looked back. I like doing my housekeeping now - it grounds me and remind me every day that all the work both Hanno and I do, helps create a home we love spending time in and a relationship that grows stronger each year. Those home tasks carried out each day remind me that a simple life is a journey, not a destination.

Establishing a housekeeping routine can be a daunting task but is made easier by small actions repeated regularly. I didn't know it then, but when I made myself do my daily chores a little bit at a time, before too long, I got into a rhythm that carried me through what I had to do. When I took up the broom and pegs as my tools of trade, I started with a little list of jobs I would do within a certain amount of time. For instance, I would get up, shower, write, feed the animals and chooks, make breakfast, make the bed, clean the kitchen and make bread all before my unofficial time limit of 9 am. By 12 o'clock I had to have swept the floor, cleaned the kitchen benches and stove, and any laundry that needed doing that day. Keeping a list of tasks within a flexible time frame helped and I was surprised that, in the space of about a month, I had established a routine for myself that felt comfortable and easy to work with; and it got my housekeeping done. That surprised me because I hadn't liked doing housework before then, I thought it was boring. When I had that rhythm, I started thinking about what I was doing, how my work connected me to my female ancestors and how it made my life better. When I made that connection, I started liking most of what I did, I began looking for new things to learn and I settled into my home. At last, I felt truly comfortable in my own home.

Now that I look back on it, I know that getting into the rhythm of doing a certain number of chores each day, and repeating those actions, changed my habits and established positive new ones. So I'd like to share with you five things to do every day to help a establish a routine. As you can see, they're five very common things that most of us would need to do each day. I hope you you will add another five things that are required in your own life. This second set of five things will be those things specific to you and your circumstances - whether you have children or not, work outside the home or not, and possibly would change according to where you live. For example, if you live in an apartment, your chores would be different to those you would need to do in a house with a garden and chooks.

1. Make the bed/s. When the children are old enough, this should be one of the chores they learn so they contribute to the running of the home.
2. Sweep the floor.
3. Wash up or run the dishwasher.
4. Organise and tidy one area a day. This might be the laundry, kids' rooms, the family room or your finances and mail.
5. Know what you'll eat tomorrow.

And when you have your daily routine working for you, add one weekly activity: learn or teach one new skill every week. A new recipe, new pattern, new stitch, or work though something over the weeks - like building a compost heap, learning about vegetable gardening, experimenting with sourdough or other fermented foods, teaching your children simple, practical skills like how to sew on a button, tie their shoe laces, tell time or read the sky - during the day for changes in the weather and at night for interest.

Learning new skills is something we all need to do and you need to make time for it and put in the effort to do it. At almost 61 years of age, I still look for new discoveries, and I hope I never lose the interest in doing that. I believe that when we lose the will to learn, we stop flourishing.

I hope this way of establishing housekeeping routines works for you. It is said that new habits need about three weeks to set up and become part of you. I never timed my changes so I wonder if that is true. Hopefully in a few weeks time, some of you tell me that it is.