5 Things That are Stealing your Time as a Homemaker

If you're looking for more hours in your day, a great place to start is by finding those stolen moments.  Is there time that you are spending on something that you really should be spending on something else?

Not all the things in the list below are wrong things.  Some of them are simply things that we can become so wrapped up in doing that it steals time from more important things.

Take an honest look and see if any of them apply to you:

1. Social media

We start out innocently enough – hopping on Pinterest to find a recipe for dinner or deciding to post that photo we just took to Instagram.  But all too often, 5 minutes turns to 25 minutes, and before we know it, it's past dinner time before we get off our phone, still half-dazed.

We must be very intentional about the time we spend on our phones or computers.  Turn on a timer when you sit down if you find that you have a bad habit getting lost in the black hole of the internet.

2. Work

Many of us work from home, which is perfectly fine, but we must keep in mind that our family needs to come first.  Where do we find the balance between contributing to the family income and keeping our homes orderly, plus having plenty of time for spending with the people we love?  I've not met many people that seem to have the time to do all of it well.  The balance of that is going to be different for different families, and your priorities may be different than mine depending on your circumstances.

Regardless of whether you are in great need for the income or not, the potential for earning “just a little more” is always there, and we must all guard against going after another dollar at the expense of family time and a house that becomes so messy that everyone is stressed and grumpy.

So please hear me when I say that I'm not equating working from home as something that's not worth spending your time on.  It may actually be very much worth your time.  However, when it begins stealing your time from the people you love and from taking proper care of them, it's time to re-evaluate whether you need to cut back on the amount of time you spend working.

3. Hobbies

Every homemaker needs to make time for the things she enjoys.  It will bring joy to your life (and keep you a little more sane in the chaos of life!)

However, we need to be conscious of how much time we're spending on those things.  When the housework begins to slip or our children are clamoring for our attention, we need to be honest about whether or not it's because we've become too engrossed in our own interests.  Are we diligently caring for our families or we only looking out for number one?

4. Lack of focus

I am pretty bad about this.  Lots of jobs go half-done because I get distracted by another job halfway through.  At the end of the day, I have laundry that's half-done, dishes that are half-washed, and floors that are half-cleaned.  I've done a lot of work but the house is still a mess.

Learning to focus on one job at a time saves time because you're not doing everything twice.

Flylady's book, Sink Reflections, is probably my favorite resource for helping what she calls “SHE's” (Sidetracked Home Executives.) 🙂

5. Laziness

No, I'm not calling you lazy.  I have no idea who is reading this, so I wouldn't know anyway.  But if you're struggling with getting things done, just ask yourself honestly, “Could it be because I am being lazy?”  Are you snoozing the alarm multiple times (hey, I have to preach to myself about this too – maybe I should get one of these, haha!) or sitting on the computer (not literally!) when you really ought to get up and do your chores?

I think sometimes wives and moms hate chores every bit as much as kids do.  The problem is that we don't have anybody to with-hold our allowance or tell us we can't have screen time until we get our chores done.

Some good old-fashioned self-discipline is what we need.  Perhaps we shouldn't complain about feeling overwhelmed with the housework until we first take an honest look at whether or not we can do anything about it.

Maybe this article sounded a little harsh.  It's not meant to be; it's just that sometimes admitting that we can do better and be better feels pretty uncomfortable.  But I promise that if you see any areas here that you need to address, it will be so worth it to make the necessary changes!  You'll find more time and feel less frustrated, and those are good things!