Managing The Home & Family

By Cyndi Seidler

Reprinted from Organized Living Newsletter, 
Sept/Oct. 2001 issue

 

Do you think your home can benefit from the same successful actions that businesses do? If we take a look at the standard operating systems that are employed at work, we’ll see that there are certain procedures in carrying out various activities.

Engage in methodical and organized procedures that help you run your family like an organization. Your household will run more smoothly if you also involve other family members in sharing responsibilities. Get everyone to participate, in one facet or another. This is called delegating.

Each job assigned needs to be clearly defined. Depending on a child’s age and skills, they will be proud to contribute, and learn responsibility in the process. Children will even begin to take care of their area better when they are in charge of it. This may not happen overnight, but it will happen.

To establish a good working foundation, you’ll need to set up a home base of operation. This would be the place from which you administrate papers, schedules, phone numbers, and other daily details. It can be located anywhere, as long as all administrative items are centralized. You won’t find successful business people with some papers on their desk, other papers in the bathroom, and a few scattered in the lunch room.

There are many organizational solutions to put into effect in the household. If there’s a problem area, a system can be adapted to solve the problem. In other words, if something isn’t working well, fix it. Devise a method or system that will keep the problem from reoccurring.

For example, if you keep running out of certain food items, put a pen and pad on the refrigerator for you and others to mark down food that needs to be purchased at the grocery store. If messages are not relayed, keep a message pad by each phone to insure messages are recorded and placed in a certain place. If you can’t keep track of family member’s activities and events, post a calendar and have each person (who is old enough) responsible for adding their new events.

Creating organized procedures and methods in the home is not difficult when you determine what you need to streamline. Take an assessment of your needs now.

Copyright © 2001 Cyndi Seidler.  All Rights Reserved.

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