An End To Your Work Day

Mar 30, 2010 by desiringvirtue

A mother’s job is never done. But can a housekeeper’s, a school teacher’s, or a blogger’s job end at 5 o’clock with the rest of the world? Of course it can! As homemakers, we wear many different hats and some of those need to be taken off both mentally and physically at some point in time or your day will simply turn into one overstressed, unproductive mush. Having a cut off time for certain household duties is beneficial in many ways.

First, it gives you incentive to work hard up until that designated point in time. It is much easier to put your nose to the grindstone when you have a light at the end of the tunnel to keep you going. When you feel like giving up or surfing the web, remember that you have time for that on your “off” hours. Alternatively, deluding yourself with the prospect of a never ending work day can result in procrastination and frustration.

Another helpful aspect to shutting down shop around 5pm is the ability to refocus and recharge before your husband gets home from work. Let your husband come home to a peaceful, quiet home and a peaceful, quiet wife while you are at it! If you plan to have dinner on the table at 6pm, you will have plenty of time to leisurely prepare the meal and spruce up a bit before your love returns from a hard day at work.

Another benefit to retiring for the night is your ability to focus on family time. It is difficult to give your whole heart and mind to your husband and children when  you still have the day’s cares hovering above you like a black cloud. This small amount of time you have with your family every night is precious and should not be taken lightly. It is especially precious to your husband, who spends much of his day outside the home and looks forward to your company when he returns. Some of the most important family activities happen in the evening, from dinner to family worship to bath time to romantic rendezvous. Let your heart, body and mind be all there during these precious times.

One last benefit to cutting off some duties when your husband gets home is that he will not feel as though he needs to help you in those activities. He has been working hard all day and envisions this as his time to relax and rejuvenate, but he can’t truly do this unless you are as well. Watching you fold laundry while he relaxes will only make him feel guilty and you feel bitter in the process!

Now, I am not proposing that you put aside your duties as wife and mother. Dinner still has to be prepared and served, babies still need to be nursed, bathed, and put to bed, and much much more. However, there are specific duties that you can designate to your “work day” and others that you can designate to your “off time.” In order to achieve this reality there are certain disciplines that need to be cultivated every day, here are a few:

1. Have a plan for your day. It doesn’t have to be a minute by minute guide, but having a general plan laid out will help you know what you need to accomplish before the “whistle blows” for the end of your work day. Ideally this should be done before your time off so that you don’t have tomorrow’s to-do list hanging over your head while you are trying to relax. Give yourself 10-15 minutes at the end of every work day to plan the next day’s duties.
2. Get to work on the hard things first. We all have those specific tasks that we dread doing every day. Whether it is vacuuming or cleaning the tub, getting it done first thing will aid your desire to be productive and spur you on throughout the rest of the day.
3. Do the most important things on your list next. With the painful, but necessary tasks out of the way, move on the most important tasks. These will vary day by day, but you don’t want them to get looked over as you go about your business. If you do look them over, the chances of you getting to relax when your husband gets home are greatly decreased.
4. Make as many nighttime chores daytime chores as you can. For instance, if you normally unload and load the dishwasher after dinner or before you go to bed consider moving your dishwashing routine to the middle of the day. After lunch is through, run the dishwasher and unload it before you call it quits for the day. Then all you will have to do before bed is load the dinner dishes. Maybe you could move bath time for the little ones to a less hectic time during the day. If so, that is one less thing you will have to do before the kids go down. Simply setting out the kid’s diapers and pajamas for bed time (before you stop working for the day) is a huge help when you are trying to simplify your nighttime routine, plus it makes you feel prepared for the night.
5. Take the necessary steps to be able to call it quits. You can’t truly call it quits if the house is still in disarray when the quitting bell rings! The last 30 minutes of your day will have to be dedicated to a thorough pic up in order to make quitting a reality. This means that if you desire to stop working at 5pm, you must begin preparing to stop working a little after 4! Imagine how peaceful you would be if, at around 4:15pm you began picking up the house, looking for loose ends that need to be tied (like a clean load of laundry that needs to be put away or dishes that need to be unloaded). You are able to accomplish these last minute details, light a few candles, and put on a pot of coffee to enjoy before you start cooking dinner. Then, at 4:45pm you sit down with the your cup of coffee and plan out the next day. Depending on how long your dinner preparations are going to take, you may even have time to pray for a little bit thanking the Lord for the things you were able to accomplish and asking him to prepare your heart to be ready for your husband. It all sounds rather ideal does it not? Imagine how different your nights could be with just a little bit of planning!
6. When it is quitting time, quit! As you are planning out the next day include the tasks that you were unable to get to today (and of course there will probably be some depending on how long you make your lists). Most household chores will not blow up if they are left for the next day and unless something completely unexpected happened you were able to get to the most important things that needed to be done, done. It isn’t as easy as it sounds to quit because a lot of the things we do can be done in just a few minutes, but remember that your off time is designated to other important things like preparing dinner, reading to your kids, or enjoying your husband’s company. These things are just as important (sometimes more) as matching a pair of socks or windexing a window.
7. Keep your plan for the next day handy. Though it is wise to make this plan before you quit for the day, having it handy so that you can add duties or activities as they come to mind is very helpful. As soon as you think of something or see something that needs to get done jot it down so that it does not weigh on you throughout the night.
8. Make the “pick-up” habit second nature. If you aren’t going to dedicate yourself to cleaning after 5, then you will need to be diligent in the upkeep of the house from then on out. Keeping a tidy house must become part of our very nature as homemakers if we are to be able to enjoy a clean home for more than 15 minutes! Just take the time as you are enjoying your family to leave every room you spend time in nice and tidy.
9. View your tasks after 5pm as enjoyable, relaxing activities. It is obvious that no matter how much you get done before you quit for the day, there are certain activities as wives and mothers that will have to be done during the night time. However, viewing them as enjoyable, relaxing activities rather than more chores will make your evenings much less stressful. Cooking, if you are not strapped for time, can be a therapeutic and creative endeavor. Bathing your children and putting them to bed should be an enjoyable, memory making activity. Unfortunately these things can become stressful tasks in and of themselves if you have not done the necessary preparations or accomplished enough ahead of time.

Being part of a family is hard work, being the mother or wife in that family is even harder work. However, evenings should be reserved for relaxing and fellowship with your husband and family as a means of service to them. The whole work day is devoted to serving your husband through working diligently in your home while he is out, let him enjoy the home  you have prepared for him by letting him enjoy you.

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