5 Top Business Strategies You Can Apply to Increase Home Productivity

1. The Five Minute Rule

The hardest part of getting down to business is just starting. Set a timer for 5 minutes and get down to business. When the timer goes off, you can stop, but you probably won’t because that five minutes is just what you need to get that motivation going.

I apply this to cleaning because even with my Clean 15 system, 15 minutes still feels like too much some days. If I tell myself, only 5 minutes, that 5 minutes is usually just what I need to help me get through my 15. Home productivity like this is a game-changer, and it’s one of those productivity hacks for homemakers that makes a big difference.

2. Eat the Frog

Start everyday by tackling your hardest tasks first.

As mothers and homemakers, our to-do lists grow longer and longer, and do you know which jobs stay on there the longest? The hardest ones…and they become mental baggage the longer they stay on the list. Whatever your to-do list for the day, get up, and get those hardest jobs out of the way FIRST! This is a key part of time management for moms, helping us build daily routines that reduce stress.

3. The Two-Minute Rule

If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it now. Small, tasks don’t just sit there unfinished, they take up brain space draining you mentally and causing stress.

Perfect examples of Two-Minute Rule tasks in the home:

• Wiping out the inside of the kitchen sink
• Wiping down a toilet
• Making a bed
• Wiping down the microwave
• Wiping down the fridge
• Putting things away that accumulate on stairs
• Taking care of today’s mail instead of letting it sit on the counter
• Pulling meat out of the freezer
• Putting your husband’s clothes from yesterday away
• Starting a load of laundry
• Adding that ingredient or custodial item to your grocery list.

These are quick cleaning tips that keep things tidy.

If you notice something dirty that would take 30 seconds to clean up, DO IT! (And teach your children to do the same.) This is the secret sauce to keeping a clean and tidy home…not that you spend hours cleaning your home each week, but you’ve trained yourself to do the 30 second task immediately.

This is exactly why I split up our entire home into 2-5 minute tasks. When they are split up like that, it made me realize that it’s not actually that time consuming to keep my home clean because I can often do a quick wipe down of something very quickly during the moments of my day.

4. Delegate

Delegation is a management technique that gives someone else the authority to complete a task or project and allows the leader to focus on other tasks.

Unfortunately, many of us get crushed under the weight of trying to be supermom. We can’t do it all! When a mother learns to delegate tasks at home, life becomes so much less stressful, and children thrive when they are given the “authority” to complete a task. No, it won’t be perfect, but what matters is that it’s done. Teaching kids responsibility through this is a huge win.

Children who have been allowed to participate in the tasks of home from a young age become capable tweens and teens who can complete many home tasks on their own—from cooking meals to cleaning bathrooms to preparing a guest bedroom and so on. Not only are they blessing the family, but they become confident in their own skills along the way making them a blessing to people outside of the home as well.

5. Deep Focus

Distractions are the enemy of discipline. To operate at peak efficiency, eliminate noise with this Deep Focus.

Ha! That sounds like a joke when applied to motherhood, doesn’t it? Is it really possible to operate at peak efficiency?

Honestly, this has been one of my greatest goals (and dilemmas) in homemaking—having our home operating at peak efficiency so that there is time to fit restful and enjoyable things into our days. Homemaking strategies like this are all about efficient home management.

This has worked for us by splitting up our day into focused rhythm blocks. (Learn about our rhythms here.) For example, we have a specific time we homeschool, and we give our all to that. Phone on focus mode so only important text messages come through. No checking Instagram or email during that time. No trying to cook and teach at the same time. We focus on what the priority is for that block of time knowing that we can focus on the other things later in the day.

This also works wonders for children…especially those who are book worms or easily get lost in a project. They can often fritter away their whole day with their nose stuck in a book and leave all other responsibilities undone causing them to feel frustrated and grumpy at the end of a day accomplishing nothing. This is a very simple way of teaching time management skills as well as the fulfillment in working hard and the beauty of rest or play when the hard work is done.