There is a strange thing that happens when your children start leaving the house: You realize how much of your life has been organized around other people’s calendars.
Practice, school events, dinners, rides, homework, activities — one child going one direction and another somewhere else. Now, with the kids spending more time out of the house and one away at school, I have something I haven’t had in years: time to notice things.
Specifically, I have time to notice which of our household systems actually work and which have been held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.
Having fewer children underfoot doesn’t automatically make life simple. It just gives you enough breathing room to see where it isn’t. So I’ve been thinking about a few simple habits that could make everyday life run a little better. Nothing extreme.
No color-coded binders, 5 a.m. workouts or homemade sourdough starter required.
Just four non-negotiables that might make life a little easier — and leave more room for the things that matter.
Make dinner a decision, not a dilemma
One of the unexpected perks of having fewer people at home is that I can cook for the people who are actually going to eat the meal — and, in this case, that means two.
I recently tried a couple of meal-kit services, something that was considerably harder to do when I had two discerning eaters at home.
The meal kits reminded me that cooking for two can actually be fun again. They also gave me some new recipes to add to my toolbox, which was needed after years of relying on a much more kid-friendly repertoire.
My new rule is simple: Have a plan for dinner before dinner is staring you in the face.
It doesn’t have to mean Sunday meal prep or a complicated menu.
It can be a new recipe, whatever is in the refrigerator, or a rotisserie chicken picked up on the way home.
The point is to make the decision before you’re hungry, tired and convinced takeout is the only reasonable option.
Try this: Pick five easy dinners you both enjoy and keep the ingredients on hand. When you don’t feel like cooking, choose from the five instead of starting from scratch.
Clean it before it becomes a project
The other thing I’ve noticed now that the kids are around less is that I can no longer blame them for the mess.This is both liberating and deeply annoying.
If the kitchen is a mess, my husband and I did it. If the laundry is piled up, the suspects are limited.So my cleaning rule is simple: If it takes less than 10 minutes, do it now.
Wipe down the kitchen after dinner. Put the laundry away instead of moving it from the dryer to a chair. Clear the counter. Empty the dishwasher. Give the bathroom a quick once-over before toothpaste and whatever else accumulates in a bathroom turn into a weekend project.
The goal isn’t a spotless house. It’s preventing small messes from becoming big jobs. Ten minutes of maintenance is a lot more appealing than spending half a Saturday cleaning.And at this point, if there’s a mess, I know exactly who did it.
Try this: Set a 10-minute timer at the end of the day. Stop when the timer goes off. The goal is a reset, not perfection.
Stop negotiating with yourself
I still have plenty of excuses not to go to the gym. I’m tired. I have things to do. I should probably get some work done first. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day.The funny thing is, the excuses are still there — but they’re becoming less convincing.
With the kids needing a lot less of my time, I have fewer legitimate reasons to put myself at the bottom of the list.That doesn’t mean I suddenly love going to the gym or plan to become the person who talks enthusiastically about leg day. It means I’m trying to stop having the same debate with myself every time. Some days it’s a workout. Some days it’s a walk. Some days the goal is simply to show up and do something.And I’m trying to apply that thinking to the rest of my life, too.
This summer, I went on a cruise without my family. The guilt was there — because apparently mothers don’t get a software update when their children get older that removes the guilt setting — but it wasn’t enough to stop me from going. I had a wonderful time and came home relaxed, happy and refreshed.That reminded me that taking time for myself doesn’t take anything away from the people I love. If you have young ones at home, learn this lesson earlier than I did!
Self-care doesn’t have to involve a cruise ship. It can be exercise, enough sleep, reading for pleasure or a long-overdue visit with a friend. The important part is making the time instead of waiting for it to magically appear.
Try this: Put your workout — or whatever your version of self-care is — on the calendar before the week fills up.
Treat it like an appointment rather than something you’ll squeeze in if you have time.
Give everything a home
The simplest organizing rule may also be the most useful: Don’t put it down. Put it away.
Keys, mail, shoes, chargers — give the things you use regularly to a designated home and keep them there. This sounds almost embarrassingly obvious, but it eliminates an enormous amount of daily friction. You’re not organizing the house every weekend because you’re maintaining it a bit every day. The goal isn’t to have a house that looks like nobody actually lives there.
Try this: Start with one trouble spot — the kitchen counter, entryway or junk drawer — and give every item that regularly lands there a home. Don’t organize the whole house. Fix the place that annoys you most.
Maybe that’s what this stage of life is giving me: the chance to trade some of the chaos of managing everyone else’s schedules for a few simple systems of our own.
The kids may need us differently now, and I want to make the most of the time we do have together. If a cleaner house, more movement, a plan for dinner and fewer frantic searches for my keys can give me more mental space, I’ll take it.
(Editor’s Note: Kristine George is a freelance journalist who resides in Easton.)
