Research findings indicate that working mothers are 18% more stressed than other groups of the population. Indeed, most mums would agree that balancing your mum duties with your professional life is entirely stressful. Dealing with the kids alone is demanding enough, and you often tend to feel overwhelmed by further home maintenance tasks. Society views such mothers as “supermums”, but the reality is most mothers are cracking under the weight of this tag. Why not consider these four effective techniques to lessen your burden and make home maintenance more manageable.
1. Have your kids help with chores
Chores have been proven by studies to be beneficial to children. Believe it or not, kids who had duties growing up did better later in life, as per research from a Harvard study. The benefits of chores are profound because kids acquire useful life skills from working at home. Therefore, turn daily tasks like dishwashing, laundry and grocery shopping into fun activities in which your kids will be willing to participate. Be sure to make the chores age-appropriate and somewhat rewarding. Housework will imbibe your children with the values of teamwork, responsibility, time management and a strong work ethic.
2. Practice minimum daily maintenance
Try using the minimum daily maintenance technique to help you get chores done. When trying to balance between work and domestic life, if you cannot find enough time for effective household maintenance, try breaking down tasks into groups. For example, make a mental note that cleaning the bathroom, dusting shelves and taking out the garbage are the only tasks you will do today. Tomorrow, you can do a load of laundry, wipe down the shelves and sweep the floors. Little by little, you will get tasks done and reduce stress. Invest in powerful home maintenance technology as well. Having the right dishwasher, washing machine, and a good vacuum cleaner like the stick vacuum will make your work much easier.
3. Hire a housekeeper
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey showed that after the first child is born, women do more housework than men, and this only worsens as children grow. Demands placed on working mothers in today’s world should lead them to outsource most of their traditional duties to a housekeeper. Having the same full-time job as a man and having to take on extra tasks after work is simply asking too much. A housekeeper will fill in the gap for meals, cleaning and supervising the kids at home. Consider hiring one to take significant responsibility off your shoulders and reduce stress.
4. Rainy day projects
Being a mum, you will not have a lot of spare time on your hands. However, specific opportunities will occasionally pop-up to give you more than enough time to clean. These are the big once or twice a year projects. Save all the big cleaning stuff for literal rainy days, and any other days where you find yourself with unforeseen free time on your hands. You can now take on that refrigerator you have been avoiding for ages and organize your cupboard – activities your regular schedule will not allow you to undertake.
