How to Create Homemaking Habits that Last

Learn how to create homemaking habits that last, and which homemaking habits will help you and your home to thrive!

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What if no matter what life throws at you, you had a solid set of homemaking habits (built into your identity), that kept you on track?!

Imagine that these homemaking habits kept you on track towards your dream home and your ultimate, homemaking goals!

Is this something you’d be interested in? I know I am!

No matter what your homemaking goals are, small, repeatable habits can help you reach them.

BUT, changing our habits isn’t easy. How many times have we told ourselves we’re going to wake up early tomorrow morning to get X, Y, and Z done. And then tomorrow morning rolls around and sure enough, we sleep in!

How many times have we committed to a cleaning routine, or a daily tidy, or cooking from scratch… only to do it for a few days (or weeks), and then have our commitments fizzle out.

I am giving all of these examples from experience! Creating good, solid, homemaking habits in my home and personal life is consistently a goal of mine.

Building good habits that will last, and getting rid of our bad habits, CAN be achieved, with a little intentionality, and systems.

Want to know how?! Lets talk about it!

The Secrets to Homemaking Habits that Last

If you’re on my email list (join HERE if you’re not!) then you know I read a book recently called Atomic Habits.

In this book, the author breaks down the steps you need to take to build good habits, and break bad ones. As I read the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about how to apply the concepts to my homemaking.

Now, even though I just finished this book, I started the book about a year ago and got a good way through. I also follow other accounts (youtube, instagram, paid courses), that have referenced this book and talked about the principles in it!

All that to say, I knew a lot of the general concepts and I’ve been applying them in my home for about a year now. Finishing it recently just helped me to round out my thoguhts.

I’ll share with you below some of the SECRETS to building homemaking habits that last, as well as some examples of habits that will help you to be a more effective, efficient, happy homemaker. I’m learning and practicing all of this right along with you! Let’s get into it.

If you love all things HOMEMAKING, here are some other posts you might enjoy!

5 Lists Every Homemaker Should Keep

How to Plan Your Week as a Homemaker

Homemaking 101: Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Changing Our Identity

Have you ever told yourself:

• “I’m just not a morning person”
• “I’m a bad cook”
• “I’m naturally not very clean“
• “I don’t do good with trying new things“
• “I get frustrated and impatient easily as a stay-at-home mom“

The first step to changing your homemaking habits is to change your identity. Whatever you tell yourself you are is your identity.

Of course you’ll never be a morning person if you really, truly believe you’re not a morning person.

Your habits can shape your identity and your identity will shape your habits.

Grab a pencil and paper, and write down the identity you WANT to have as a homemaker.

I am a kind and patient mom that enjoys my kids, I love waking up early and I am disciplined in my morning routine, I am neat and tidy, I enjoy learning new things, I am someone who tries new recipes each week and is always learning different cooking techniques.

Decide on the type of homemaker you want to be. THEN, prove it to yourself with small wins, every day. Tiny habits that support your identity.

If you decide you ARE a neat and tidy homemaker. Your small win for the day is doing a TWO minute tidy before dinner. Repeat that small habit every single day and you’re closer to becoming the neat and tidy homemaker you’re believing yourself to be. The more you do it the more you’ll believe it and the more you believe it the more you’ll do it.

Habits help you change your beliefs about yourself.

Systems Instead of Goals

Goals are important. I mentioned homemaking goals in the introduction in this post. Its great for us, as a homemakers, to have goals in our home that we are working towards.

For example, we might have a goal to wake up at 6am every day, or to cook from scratch 5 nights a week or to have a tidy and restful home 90% of the time. Maybe we have old-fashioned goals such as learning how to can and sewing everything for our home. Maybe we have goals that are more attitude/mindset focused: not losing patience with the kids, enjoying our roles as homemakers, etc.

Goals are GOOD but they should not be our main focus.

Instead of focusing on our goals we need to narrow in on the systems that are going to get us there. Jot your goals down, figure out the systems that will get you there, and then literally forget about the goals. Focus on the systems.

Getting 1% Better Every Day

Its easy to think that we need to overhaul our lives in one big shebang in order to become who we want to be, when in reality we just need to get a TINY bit better every single day.

A tiny bit better isn’t so intimidating right?! We don’t need to be the best cook in the world tomorrow. We just need to meal plan this Sunday, and the Sunday after that.

We don’t need to organize and purge the whole house… we just need to throw one thing in the giveaway bin every morning.

As you build these tiny habits that help you get 1% better every day, they’ll compound over time. Before you know it you’ll be organized, clean, following routines, cooking from scratch, learning new skills, etc., etc., etc.

Remember to start very small, master 1-2 habits at a time, and then add on another. Over time it will become second nature and you’ll have the capability to add on another, or build onto the habits you already have.

Easy Ways to Build Good Habits

One of my favorite things about the book, Atomic Habits, was how easy he makes it seem to build good habits, and break bad ones. It all just makes sense!

If we want to build good habits we need to make them obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. Then, if we want to break a bad habit, we do the opposite, make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying.

For example, if you have a bad habit of getting on your phone too often during the day rather than doing your homemaking chores, you can set your phone in the other room during the day. Make it invisible.

On the other hand, if you want to get in the habit of doing a daily load of laundry, combine that with something you really enjoy, like a favorite podcast, to make it attractive.

Habit Stack

We all already have habits that we do every single day, without fail, like eat breakfast, take a shower, and brush our teeth. Think about the habits that you already have and stack a new habit that you want to build on top of those.

If you want to read to your kids every day, stack that on with breakfast. If you want to tidy your bathroom more often, tidy it as you’re brushing your teeth every day.

Make building your new habits as EASY as possible.

Create Your Ideal Environment

We are in control of our environments, and we have all of the power to create an environment that supports good habits and causes friction for bad habits.

Having an all-purpose cleaning spray and microfiber cloth in the bathroom at all times makes it easy to get into the habit of wiping down the bathroom on a regular basis.

Removing the junk food from the pantry makes it DIFFICULT to make junk meals for your family.

Join a Culture

Another way to get motivated to build good homemaking habits is to be involved with a culture of people who act like who you want to become.

If you want to get better at sewing so that you can sew things for your home, literally join a sewing class! Pay money for it too so you’re even more motivated. Ask a friend to join with you so you have some accountability.

Create Friction Around Bad Habits:

Just like you can remove the friction from something that you’re trying to create a habit around, you can CREATE friction around bad habits.

I’ve given a couple of examples already! Figure out those bad habits that you have like leaving coffee cups around, or getting on your phone too often, or grabbing junk food when you’re grocery shopping.

After you know what your bad habits are you can find ways to make them more difficult to do… less attractive, more friction, unsatisfying.

Examples of Good Homemaking Habits

Here are a few examples of tiny habits that you can create to become the type of homemaker you want to be. We can break it down by the outcome, then talk about the little habits that reinforce that outcome or identity.

If you want to be homemaker that is neat, tidy, and organized:

• After I give the kids a bath, I will wipe down the surfaces in the bathroom.
• When I pull something out of the cupboard to use, I will put it right back where it goes.
• I will do a TWO minute tidy, three times a day, after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner.
• every time I take a shower I will scrub down the shower walls. I’ll keep a scrub brush and all-purpose cleaner in the shower to use for this so its easy.
• Every time I leave a room I will pick up things that don’t belong and drop them off to their appropriate places.
• As soon as I get out of my bed in the morning I will pull the covers up and put the pillows on.
• Every evening after we turn off our TV for the night I will finish loading the dishwasher and start it.
• I’ll keep a giveaway bin in an easy to see place, and I will place one thing in it every day after our morning tidy.

If you want to be a homemaker that cooks from scratch 6-7 days a week:

• after I put the baby down for naps on Sundays I will write down my meal plan for the week. I’ll keep the cookbooks handy to reference for meals (less friction), and I’ll drink my favorite cup of tea (so the habit becomes attractive)
• when I go to the grocery store I will only buy scratch ingredients, no prepackaged meals. I’ll do clicklist so I can shop for groceries intentionally, and be less likely to impulse buy.
• Every evening at 4 o’clock I’ll put the pans on the stove for dinner (this tiny habit gets the ball rolling)
• Every morning I will write down in my planner what the dinner is for that day.

If you want to be the homemaker that wakes up early, before the kiddos:

• every night I will set aside clothes for the next morning, set my alarm and put it on the other side of the room, and put a glass of water next to it.
• when my alarm clock goes off in the morning I will get up, turn it off, and drink a glass of water (this is the 2-minute habit, I’m not thinking about getting up for the morning, just completing the 2-minute habit)
• I will keep a sweats, slippers, and a sweater next to my bed so I can put them on right away in the morning and feel warm and cozy (reduces the friction around not wanting to get out of bed because its cold.

If you want to be the homemaker that stays on top of laundry.

• Every morning, after breakfast is cleared, I will fold a load of laundry while listening to my favorite podcast.
• Every evening before I shut out the lights I will start the washing machine. Shutting out the lights is something you already do every evening, so its the CUE for starting the washing machine. Its your reminder.

Last but not least, one more thing that we can do to create good homemaking habits is to keep track of them! Its motivating, and a good reminder!

Keep a habit tracker or some way to tally what you’re doing and what progress you’re making. If you want to get in the habit of doing something consistently throughout the day, keep track of it by moving a magnets from one side of the fridge to the other.

Lately I have been writing down in my planner the habits that I want to be doing each day. Even the tiny ones. I keep my planner open on the counter right in the middle of the kitchen (reminding me). Each time I complete a habit I get to highlight it in the planner. So satisfying!

Phew, this post was so fun to write and to think about but I want you to understand, that I am preaching to myself here! I hope I can refer back to this often, because this is something I am always working on right alongside you.

All of us homemakers can be working every day to build good homemaking habits that help us to create thriving homes for us and our families.

We never arrive at where we want to be, we just keep working towards the next goals. If you liked this post, please share it with a friend. Have you read Atomic Habits?! I’d love to know!

Happy homemaking, friend!

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