Delegation is the one area of homemaking which we have shown tremendous growth in. While our grannies only delegated to their children, today’s homemaking is trending towards delegating to our significant other and other family members. Since, both work other jobs, it is only fair that we also share the homemaking chores.
Here are some tips to successfully delegating household chores.
Someone else’s responsibility.
Every member of the household is responsible for personal chores (toddler’s exempted). Making their beds and cleaning up after themselves are just basic essentials. So, get everyone to pull up their socks and get to it.
Special Skills
If you have someone at home who is particularly good at something, consider delegating to them what they are good at. This could be mending clothes, cooking or budgeting.
Tap on Time
If there are others who have more hours at home, then use those hours to your benefit. Be reasonable.
Give Notice
For successful delegation, put everyone to notice! Let them know in advance that they are expected to take on a new or additional responsibility. Give them time to rearrange their schedule so they can better manage the task.
Set Standards
You have not given up being the homemaker, you are only delegating and that means it is important to set standards. Everyone should know what is expected of them. Each chore has to meet the minimum standards of the rest of the house. Make sure the standards are kept reasonable.
Never Share
Wherever possible, delegate one job to one person. While the thought of sharing a job might be appealing, it often means no one has the responsibility of completing it. Some will do more work than others, and arguments could easily ensue. You also have to remember that people have their own way of cleaning things — and approaches won’t always complement one another.
Remain Flexible
Household cleaning is important, but it’s never the most important thing in a person’s life. Work, family commitments and friendships are all more important, so you need to be flexible if people’s circumstances change. For example, if someone has to stay late at work, you can delegate their nightly dish duties to someone else. The person at work can then take on another job. Create a schedule, but don’t be afraid to change it.
There are many tasks in the house you can delegate to other family members or to hired help. While it is important that one person, usually the primary homemaker retains control of the extent and intensity of the expected result, the appearance of everything and the schedule, there is definitely no reason to do everything personally.
