Starting a habit begins as a cobweb and becomes a cable. Good or bad.
Do you have home habits or standards? Maybe you do a load of laundry every day or make sure the kitchen is clean before going to bed. Maybe everyone takes their shoes off when they enter the house.
If you have habits like these, chores that must be done every day, it’s good practice to let your significant other or family know. Tell them that if this chore is done before bedtime or first thing in the morning, the day goes smoother for you and the entire household. Sometimes all it takes is sharing that if you have a clean sink before bed, the morning routine is easier; or explaining that if a load of laundry is done daily, you aren’t spending your entire Saturday getting caught up. Creating a habit for your home and letting others in on it means that the habit doesn’t fall squarely on you. If a clean kitchen before bed is your goal, perhaps everyone puts their dishes in the dishwasher, or at least rinses them off and leaves them in the sink.
The other part of setting habits is being intentional in your choices. This isn’t about suddenly creating a whole list of things that you want to accomplish before bed; instead, this is about choosing a few chores that, when done, make other things easier. Perhaps it is something as simple as whoever brings in the mail puts it in a specific place that the adults know and see daily.
Sometimes not doing a specific habit has certain consequences. We have a wood pellet stove and it is our primary heat in winter, so if someone doesn’t fill the box up before bed, it will be cold in the morning. Not running the dishwasher may mean no clean bowls for cereal in the morning.
Have you realized now that you have more habits than you thought, and maybe you are not communicating these habits to your family? Maybe better communication needs to become a standard or habit in the home; after all, we all want to stay on track. And remember your track may not look like my track and that is what makes this life wonderful. Simply enjoy the journey.
