Working vs Homemaking: How I Stay Organized

Hey, girlies! 💁‍♀️ Curious about how I juggle work and homemaking while staying super organized? Then buckle up because that’s what we’re diving into today! While I was a homemaker working full-time at a grocery store, I developed some amazing cleaning routines and systems that allowed me to do what I love (homemaking) without losing my mind. Homemaking is my passion, and even though I now work from home, I still follow the same trusty systems. These tips are a game-changer for any stay-at-home homemaker too! 💖 I wholeheartedly believe that I’ve cracked the code on simplifying tasks to make our lives easier and more efficient. Which is why I’m so passionate about sharing them with you too, in hopes they’ll help you transform your home into the haven it is meant to be. Today, I’m spilling all the deets on my top 5 tools, systems, and routines, that help me manage to stay (mostly) organized as a working homemaker juggling two businesses – including a children’s book publishing company – and a family.

From my cleaning routine and printable checklist to my laundry system and meal planning system, I’ve got you covered! Plus, I’ll even show you how I fit in deep cleaning with 5-minute miracles and a cleaning cart full of non-toxic products labeled with printable sticker guides.

Let’s get organized together!

First step, I follow a cleaning routine. Now my cleaning routine has a morning routine and an evening routine, but bare minimum, I just do my morning routine. There’s definitely been times where I haven’t done my evening routine, but my morning routine still works well enough to not just keep me caught up on housework, but even get me ahead! You can read all about my morning cleaning routine here, or watch the video below. BUT, I’ll give you a quick run-down of what it entails. Spoiler Alert: it’s super simple!

The whole routine only takes me 30 minutes. I actually put the routine to the 1950s radio show Dragnet! to where I can press play in the mornings and basically my voice pops on and guides me through each of the steps. (Get your free episodes to try here.) And I have those episodes available to all of you as well through my Domestic Daydreams Radio Membership (check it out here) where new episodes are published every weekday and Saturday. This has helped me so much because I’m able to know exactly what needs to be cleaned in order to stay ahead on my household tasks. I just keep my checklist in my Homemaking Clipboard and as I listen to my radio routine that I just press play to in the morning, I mark everything off.

When I first set up my clipboard system, I put a bunch of magnets on the back so that I could put it on my cleaning cart (I’ll talk more about my cleaning cart further on in this post) or on my fridge for easy access. Then I printed out all of my routines checklists Monday through Saturday, laminated them and just kept in the clipboard to mark off with a dry erase marker.

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The second way I stay organized as a working homemaker is my laundry tag system and laundry routine. You can read all about my laundry routine here, or watch my YouTube video on it below. I have laminated tags on each of my laundry bins. I have six bins so they’re organized for every little laundry I do on every day of the week. As part of my routine. I have set loads of laundry for set days of the week. On

1. Mondays I washed whites and lights.
2. Tuesdays I wash delicates, so that’s lingerie, sweaters, things like that.
3. Wednesdays I wash active wear and colored casual underthings/socks.
4. Thursdays is darks.
5. Fridays is rags and towels.
6. Saturday is sheets and pillowcases.

And I have that information right on my laundry tags on my bins. And in addition to that on those tags are the wash settings I should use on my machine. The dry settings to use on my machine for that kind of clothing, as well as any natural or chemical. If you prefer to use chemical I have both on their addons including recipes like for my homemade natural slash non toxic fabric softener or for using like hydrogen peroxide to whiten and brighten this way if I need to delegate laundry as a task to my husband or something all the information he needs and that I need because I have a terrible memory especially with ADHD are right on the baskets. I also have guides for removing each stain that I keep in my clipboard and just different like laundry tips like how to wash your machine how to dry your machine all that stuff that you can keep in your homemaking binder or clipboard. You can check out that printable, along with all the others mentioned in this post, here.

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Next is that I have an entire meal planning system that I also keep in my clipboard. You can check out my blog post on how I meal plan here, or watch my video on it below.

First off, I have a recipe masterlist where I’ve written down all of the meals that we like to eat. Once the sheet was full, then I laminated it and printed another to keep adding as I try new recipes. Then I take my recipe calendar, and pick + schedule meals from the masterlist. I like to leave one day a week for trying a new recipe, because I LOVE to cook and try new things! After that, I use my laminated grocery list sheet to write out whatever ingredients I need to buy for the recipes. After shopping, is when I make my meal prep kits! I have bins with tags for every day of the week.

On those tags I write what recipe is assigned to that day, what perishable ingredients I will need to pull from the fridge or freezer, and then I place non perishable items into the bins so they’re ready to go. As part of my Domestic Daydreams Radio cleaning routine (you can try a few free episodes here) I clean out the fridge as my Wednesday weekly task. Because of this, I like to do my meal planning, shopping, and prepping on Wednesdays, since I was able to take mental inventory while cleaning the fridge.

A Few Extra Meal Planning/Prepping Hacks

Something else I like to do to make cooking even easier, is I’ll look at all the tags and prep + freeze (if necessary) any of the refrigerated/fresh ingredients I need so they are ready to go. After cooking dinner at night, I check the bin for the next day’s dinner and see what I may need to pull out of the freezer or prep for that nights dinner. This way I’m not caught in a bind of forgetting to defrost the chicken! 😉

This whole process has helped me so much. Making dinner after working all day can be so overwhelming, and if it’s at least all there and ready for me-especially with pre-measured spices and things all taken care of-it makes life so much easier. You can get my whole meal planning system along with the other printables mentioned in this post here.

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The next hack I use to help me stay organized as a working homemaker, is my 5 minute miracles checklists that I keep in my homemaking clipboard. (You can check those out here, or in my printable bundle that features all of the printables mentioned in this post.)

What are 5 Minute Miracles?

What are 5 Minute Miracles you ask? Well, I’ll tell you! I follow a zone cleaning system, where on Mondays and Saturdays as part of my morning routine’s weekly tasks I spend 15 minutes deep cleaning in that zone. I focus on a new zone every week. (Check out my blog post on my zone system here, or watch the video below.) My zones are as follows:

1. Zone 1: Kitchen & Dining Room
2. Zone 2: Entrance & Living Room
3. Zone 3: Guest Bathroom & One Extra Room
4. Zone 4: Master Bedroom & Bathroom
5. Zone 5: Yard & Laundry Room

My 5 Minute Miracles checklists tells me everything things in every zone that can be deep cleaned in five minutes or less like baseboards, light switches, a window, rotating couch cushions, etc. I don’t just use these on Mondays and Saturdays while doing my zone cleaning. The great thing about these sheets is they are checklists. I laminated, and mark off what I’ve cleaned with a dry erase marker. This keeps track so when I’m back in that zone the next month, I know what I cleaned last month and can pick up on something that hasn’t been done yet. Once the list is full, I erase and start over! You can get yours here.

That’s not the only time I use these! After about a week of doing my morning cleaning routine consistently, I’m ahead on every task and I have time left over when I’m listening to my audio cleaning routine. And so I will use my five minute miracles in whatever part of the house that I’m in-say I’m in the bedroom because I just made the beds and started the laundry-I’ll do a few of the five minute miracles for the bedroom or for the laundry room while I’m in there until the time is up.

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The last homemaking hack that keeps me organized is my Cleaning Cart! You can watch my video on that here, or I also included it below.

Alright here’s the tea, I set up a rolling cleaning cart with all of my cleaning ingredients that I use most often. Whether it’s to clean with them on their own, or to make my own non-toxic cleaning solutions with. I also have my rags, sponges, toothbrushes, broom, dustpan, homemaking clipboard, bin for dirty rags, and a washable trash bag attacked to the cart.

On my supplies, cleaning ingredients, and cleaning solutions I have printable stickers telling me what’s what.

Here’s the lowdown on my printable non-toxic cleaning stickers.

1. Cleaning Ingredient Stickers: These tell me everything that can be cleaned with that ingredient alone.
2. Cleaning Solution Recipe Stickers: These labels go on my spray bottles and tell what solution it is, as well as the instructions for making the solution. I have these for my glass cleaner, all-purpose cleaning spray, disinfecting spray, dusting spray, fabric spray/pillow mist, stain remover, dish soap, etc. (I have lots!) This way, when I run out and it’s time to make more, the recipe is right on the bottle and I don’t have to have it memorized or look it up!
3. Cleaning Supply Stickers: These are stickers for things like my rags and sponges. It tells me how often to replace them, how often to wash them, and instructions for how to remove any odors they may have.

A hack for if you have a multi-level home is to place you ingredients inside caddies, that fit on your cart. This way you can take a caddy upstairs/downstairs with you to clean with. You can check out my video on how to make your own cleaning cart below, and you can find all the amazon links (note: these are affiliate links) for what I used here.

Overall, these are the systems and the methods that I use to stay organized as a homemaker. Especially as a homemaker that has to work and has to put in those hours every day to make sure things stay up and running. If you’d like to purchase the printables I talked about in this post, I have an AMAZING deal on my printable bundle here, or you can pick and choose by shopping my printable shop here. I’ll see you next time!