A Systematized Sanctuary: How I Created SOPs For My House
chewing with your mouth open/smacking lips
crappy ingredients in food these days
complaining over and over without making a change
These are 3 pet peeves of mine. The first one will legit cause me to gag and yes poor Ellie has been taught from a very young age on this one!
The second one does make my blood boil because it’s just gotten dumb out there.
The third. Well, we’re digging into that one, today friends!
This is something that I’ve honestly had to tap on with my transformation coach and I’ve learned I’m “triggered” by other people when there is actually something I haven’t done that I have been avoiding - funny how that works, huh?!
So - here we go…
I recently read the book Fair Play.
I started out loving it as I felt both seen and heard when it comes to handling most of the tasks on the homefront while also running my business.
But, the premise of the book is to create fairness in the distribution of tasks that go in your household from conception to completion
Pause….ummm Sean travels 75% of the time, so wtf do we do?
Full transparency that some resentment started to show itself and I had to really step back and pause (I'm not always good at this part, but a continued work in progress).
My thoughts were:
Okay, Sean travels about 75% of the time so the whole concept to completion really isn’t going to work for us.
I freaking love working, but I do have to be more flexible with Ellie and her schedule + bringing on #2.
With those, what can I implement into our household so that it can run as smoothly as possible without me actually having to do it all?
So, in my pause, I looked at what I had been getting annoyed with over and over again (insert pet peeve #3).
Most of these are what Sean has deemed “mom’s way or the wrong way”. And while at first, I was offended I found myself accepting it.
With him traveling, Ellie and I have somewhat of a routine to keep us on track (for the most part), so yes, that’s a fair statement.
And a friend/coaching client recently pointed out that I think in and thrive off frameworks and systems in my business, so it would make sense to see our household in a way that resembles a business.
Ready for what some may think are the most ridiculous SOPs (standard operating procedures) I’ve created to run our house…wait no more!
A t-shirt folder from Amazon: Yes. There are many ways to fold a shirt, but the main goal is to not fold it where it becomes all kinds of wrinkled.
A sorted dresser: Each drawer has its category so it’s a basic match game when it comes to getting dressed and putting clothes away.
A custom grocery list: Yes. You read that correctly. If I don’t want to have to be the one that remembers what we typically get at the grocery store then why not create a master grocery list that contains the normal stuff we buy (pink lady apples are not the same as Honey Crips and with the 4 avocados 1 needs to be soft to be able to eat tomorrow). Hang it inside the pantry and check off the item that we’ll need to remember to get on Sunday ☑️
Mail Drop: Our kitchen isn’t massive so any clutter makes it even smaller. Mail comes in, trash/recycle the junk, put it in the bin in the office, and then sort once a week.
Quickbooks Online Account: I was manually tracking our budget and that’s something that sucks the life out of me. So my bookkeeper set up the chart of accounts for me and now I can track out the budget from an app and email Sean our monthly report. $20/month is very well spent! Yes - there are other apps but I’m already in QB so it was way easier than learning a new system.
Specific snack bins in the pantry: If you have kiddos you probably do this, too. Ellie knows exactly what’s available (at eye level because bless the “where is it!” questions) to snag all on her own.
Categorized recipe book: I’m literally laughing at this because it seems so extreme! BUT I’m not the one to ask for the 1 specific recipe that is within all the other 45. A 3-ring binder + dinners broken up into meat categories, a breakfast section, a sides section, and a deserts section. Simple and effective.
A task management program: I 💕 Asana. I’m an out-of-sight-out-of-mind type of person and being organized/remembering things doesn’t actually come that easy, but it’s stuff that needs to be done. I have a category specifically for our house that includes things like: paying and putting bills away, bills on auto draft, changing the air filter, starting to prep for birthdays/trips/holidays, rental property stuff, etc.
I am laughing as I type this and really wondering if I’m the only one that does this type of stuff!
And if I am, well I don’t even mind because like SOPs within a business empower employees to take charge - I’m just trying to empower the fam to not have to ask me the same thing 13 times.
Which then allows me to have brain space for both a non-stressful bedtime (errr work in progress) and this business I’m running!
And to preface - is this perfect? HA! Hell no. Are there still arguments? Hell yes. Are we a continued work in progress? Yes!
Are you reading this thinking I’m a wacko or do you thrive off things like this in your house?