Household work isn’t women’s work. Historically, however, it has been largely on women to shoulder the load and take the lead in this department. Often, women did it all or mostly alone. This dynamic has and continues to shift, with more and more women and men recognizing it’s not only unreasonable, but inefficient.
Making changes that push back against the status quo that we’ve been conditioned to accept and expect is not easy to do.
With this in mind, the goal of this article is to provide smart strategies that you can employ to partner with your spouse and family to tackle the load together, while avoiding the stress that often comes along with it. If having a household that runs smoothly while avoiding the arguments that often distract us from connection sounds appealing, read on.
Work and life, life and work – the two are either entangled or integrated –depending upon your current approach to household management. If you fall in the former category, my goal is to help you unwind the knots and get you on a path of both discovery and integration, where things run smoothly. Of course, there will always be days that get away from us: surprises that work, life (or both) bring that distract or demand our attention. But if you follow some tried and true methods, you will soon see that housework does not have to be the bane of your existence.
You might even find that it can be fun!
The outcome? A stronger relationship, more time and energy for connection, less stress, and a deeper sense of partnership. And if you have kids, you get to model this so they learn that marriage isn’t about one person doing it all, but about two people working together and enjoying more of the moments that matter.
Below is advice that has served me, my clients and my colleagues well. It is practical advice designed to make housework easier to manage and integrated into your daily routine.
The 5 key steps to make this dream work are:
Let’s dig in.
Step 1: Plan It Like You Would a Project at Work
The most successful projects have a regular schedule (routine) and timeline (completion date), as well as agreed upon expectations (standards).
When I used to run multimillion dollar construction projects, there were certain principles that served me well. Below, I will outline these principles so that anyone can take them and implement them in their homes so that housework feels less like a required chore and more like a necessary element to success.
Principle 1: Establish a Routine
Sometimes, people think of routines as boring. I get it. But if tasks need to get completed, routines are a tried and true way to make sure they do. Consistency in housework creates momentum and reduces stress. It also removes the guesswork your partner is doing wondering when something will get done, resulting in a more peaceful home. Just like a work project, your team knows who is responsible for what and when they are supposed to be working on it.
Quick tips:
Make it Manageable: Housework doesn’t need to take hours a day. Consistent, smaller efforts – sometimes even just 10-15 minutes – can go a long way to a clean and organized home.
Set Specific Days for Recurring Tasks: This adds predictability and makes housework seem less overwhelming.
Make it a Habit: Over time, the habit becomes automatic. Starting with one or two daily routines, like loading the dishwasher after each meal or spending 5 minutes tidying up the living room in the evening, makes it feel manageable and reinforces the habit.
Principle 2: Break Down Tasks
Just like you wouldn’t plan to complete most projects in one day, avoid taking on all the housework all at once. Looking at housework as a collection of smaller jobs rather than one large task helps to alleviate the pressure of consistently feeling behind. You can use this same approach for a specific task. For example, cleaning the kitchen requires clearing counters, wiping surfaces, cleaning out the fridge, sweeping the floor, emptying the garbage etc.
Quick tips:
Set Time Limits on Tasks: Marathon cleaning sessions are the fast-track to burnout. It is more productive and much easier to stick to if you can spend 10-15 minutes on one area.
Focus on High-Impact Areas: Prioritizing the tasks that make a noticeable difference provides quick wins and motivates you to keep going.
Principle 3: Track It
You don’t need a spreadsheet to know if your kitchen is clean. That said, before things become a habit and you rely less on a list and more on your routines, it’s important to have a record of what needs to happen and when. Otherwise, if you’re anything like most of the people in the world (myself included), you’ll forget. Make it simple and something that works for your style: a paper checklist, digital reminders, a shared whiteboard. The important thing is to make it visible.
Quick tips:
Prioritize Essential Tasks: Complete the 2-3 highest priority tasks first. If time allows, you can get to anything remaining.
Save Longer Tasks for When You Have Space: Deeper cleaning that requires more time is best done on days off, if possible.
Refine and Adjust: Your household needs change over time. Be sure to evaluate what’s working and adjust your approach when necessary.
Related: Review our Household Chores articles for ideas to manage the home as a team.
Step 2: Create Habits Around Housework
Bad habits are hard to break. This is an unfortunate truth that most of us know and have experienced. But the truth is that good habits, once well-rooted, are also hard to break. You can use this to your advantage by intentionally creating one small habit at a time and then linking it to an existing habit (habit-stacking).
Pair Tasks With Existing Routines
Especially when first starting out, it helps to link small household tasks with habits you already have. For example, you can tidy up the kitchen counters right after you brew the coffee in the morning or you can fold a load of laundry while watching TV in the evening.
Quick tip – Habit Stack “Magic”: It’s not magic, it’s science. Our brain’s natural tendency is to create shortcuts to automate tasks. You can take advantage of this and make housework feel like an extension of what you’re already doing.
Use Time Blocks
I know some people don’t like the rigidity of time blocking, or feel like their days are too unpredictable to make it effective. You don’t have to use it if it doesn’t work for you. That said, I’ve found time blocking provides more freedom, not less. It gives you a visual game plan for getting things done.
Quick tip – You can block time in 15-minute intervals. 15 minutes of focused cleaning can make a noticeable difference. Time blocking doesn’t have to be rigid. You can choose to be flexible. Just be sure to reschedule your housework like you would an important work meeting.
Set Reminders
Place reminders on your phone, use alarms, use sticky notes – these visible “nudges” make it easier to follow through, especially when building a new habit.
Quick tip – Celebrate These Wins: Celebrating wins activates the brain’s reward system, releasing dopamine and boosting mood, motivation, and attention.
Step 3: Tackle the Mental Load
This is a public service announcement (PSA). PSA can save you a lot of arguing and wasted time and energy. The mental load is the cognitive and emotional labor that goes into managing a household, relationships, and career. It is mostly unseen, and you may have heard it called invisible work for this reason.
The good news is you can, and I recommend, should make it visible. You can use PSA – Plan - Share - Agree – to start.
If you want to go deeper, check out the book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky.
PLAN
Planning ahead and anticipating the needs at home prevents things from sneaking up on you. Avoid last-minute scrambles by thinking ahead and preventing buildup.
Quick tip – Think in Cycles: Consider which tasks are weekly, monthly, or seasonal and build reminders around them. For example, set a weekly reminder for laundry, a monthly reminder to restock cleaning supplies, and a seasonal reminder for deep cleaning tasks.
SHARE
The best teams at work hold meetings, share ideas, share the planning, and decide on the best path forward. They also build in transparency so everyone has the same expectations and knows their responsibilities. This establishes ownership while still centering collaboration.
Quick tip – Hold a Brief Regular Check-In: Creating a weekly ritual to review the upcoming week to identify which tasks need prioritizing or rescheduling. This reduces surprises and lightens the mental load. Bonus: it is an additional connection point in what can often feel like a chaotic week.
AGREE
Identify a few regular chores that you can own completely. This not only allows you to feel valuable, but encourages you to handle things on your own from start to finish and establishes trust and confidence.
Quick tip – Build in Buffer Time: If possible, create open time in your weekly schedule to catch up in case things get missed or are overlooked due to the unforeseen circumstances that life and work love to hand us.
Step 4: Choose Small, Doable Wins First
Start Simple
You can look at a messy kitchen and think you have to clean the entire thing, feel overwhelmed, and end up not doing it OR you can look at a messy kitchen, get the dishes done and counters wiped and it makes the process feel manageable.
Quick tip – Take it Step by Step: Organize one drawer. Clear off the counters. Gradual improvements build confidence and momentum.
Focus on High-Impact Areas
Tidying up the visible spaces and common areas first can be motivating. When these spaces look clean, you start to notice and feel like your efforts are paying off.
Quick tip – Be Consistent: Seeing immediate benefits can motivate you to keep going.
Build Up Gradually
Once small wins are a habit, layer in other tasks.
Quick tip – Tackle more complex projects after you’re consistently hitting the smaller ones. This helps diminish overwhelm.
Step 5: Take a Team Approach
Working as a team does not mean that you don’t independently complete tasks on your own. It does mean you’re communicating effectively and syncing up on the overall approach. You’re establishing standards together and open to feedback to improve processes. You’re also supporting each other if one of you gets sick or has a busier day or week than expected.
Quick tip – Rotate Tasks For Variety: Swapping out roles and responsibilities can serve as both a way to keep things fresh and also to build mutual appreciation.
It’s About Connection
Applying these strategies will help you get things done with less stress. But it’s really about more than that.
There are 4 truths you should know:
Housework is (unpaid) work.
You can’t repair what’s broken if you don’t know what it is
Connection requires you to plug in
Change is hard.
On Housework
Housework is work, and it needs to get worked on. If you share a home, then sharing the burden of the work is your responsibility. Remember, housework includes some things we can see and some things we cannot see. And it is often the things we cannot see that sneak up on us. I don’t say this to sound alarmist, but rather to inspire you to ask yourself:
What am I not seeing? What am I missing?
It is often in the unseen, unheard, and unknown where real breakthroughs are found.
On the Invisible
The first step is awareness. Then, once you start to notice one thing, you begin to get better at noticing more. To make the unknown known, you can talk about it. You can write it down.
This is the process of making the invisible visible.
Slowly, you start to get a clear picture of everything it takes for a household to run smoothly. With this increased awareness, you begin to connect more because your partner feels more supported.
On Connection
Every single husband I have coached has wanted the same thing: a stronger connection with their partner. And I’ve found that almost every single one of them doesn’t know the reason why they don’t have the connection they seek.
It makes sense why partners want to feel more connected: a connected team performs better, communicates better, problem-solves faster, collaborates more frequently, and has fewer misses or mistakes. In relationships, more connection often means greater intimacy.
But as the truth above says, it’s impossible to repair something if you don’t know what’s broken.
Now, I’m not implying that if you create habits and systems around housework that all of your problems go away. However, there is real power in shifting to the mindset that housework is a daily invitation to connect. It gives more than it takes — if you allow it to.
On Change
One of the hardest things to do in life is change.
This has been true for everyone I have ever met, as it has been for me. It’s also true that if we never change, we never improve. Armed with this awareness and knowledge, you can use it.
One of my mentors always says: knowledge isn’t power, it is potential power. You must take what you know and act on it in order for it to provide some benefit to your life. The strategies above will only help you if you use them.
You will feel resistance. But think of it like your gym workout: you must push against the resistance of the weight to achieve muscle growth. It’s the same in life. You must push against the resistance to achieve relationship growth.
Now, go try some of these strategies out and happy connecting.
About Frederick Van Riper
Fred provides core connection strategies to dads and men seeking a deeper bond at home. Through The Complete Leader Method, he equips men to thrive as both partners and fathers without sacrificing professional success.
By uncovering root motivations, Fred guides clients to build the daily habits needed for stronger relationships with themselves and those who matter most. Discover more about his coaching and connect directly at Seat at the Table Coaching.
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