What household rhythms keep your house running smoothly?
“I try to focus on progress not perfection.” This week, Emma (a full-time working mom) shares the household rhythms that bring resiliency and peace into her home. Her rhythms are intentional and reproducible in our own homes. Read her story and discover household rhythms that bring resiliency in busy seasons of life.
Welcome to Rhythms of a Happy Home, a 7-part series exploring the intentional routines that help us create peace, order, and belonging inside our walls, no matter who lives there or what season of life we’re in. I recruited guest posts from family and friends: women from a wide range of life stages, including a retired great-grandma, a part-time working grandma, part-time and full-time working moms, stay-at-home moms, single working women, and a married working woman. Each post offers practical wisdom and personal stories about the daily, monthly, and seasonal habits that make home feel grounded and joyful. Together, these posts will help you reflect on your own rhythms and inspire you to craft routines that tailor joy into your everyday life.
Highlights: Emma (a full-time working mom) shares the practical rhythms that bring resiliency and peace into her home. Her rhythms are intentional and reproducible in our own homes. Read her story and discover household rhythms that bring resiliency in busy seasons of life.
Rhythms of a Happy Home: Part 2 Household Rhythms
Household rhythms have been important to me ever since I was pursuing my PhD. There came a point where our home needed some structure to ensure that we ate healthy food, chores were completed, and I could be consistent in the gym. Now, as a full-time working mom, crafting a routine for our days is even more critical. I previously wrote about this new life season and the systems necessary for a successful transition, but I wanted to detail how I approach routine development to account for the inevitable situation of life not going as planned.
No matter how much we plan, we can not develop a perfect system because we live in a broken world. Knowing this, you have to account for imperfection in your routines and design rhythms that can be resilient. Ask yourself how the routine will hold up when you are strapped for time, when a kid is sick, or when someone else has to take on the routine. Is your routine flexible enough to allow you to gracefully pivot your plans? For me, a home rhythm needs to be adaptable and agile so that I can flex the routine for the current life season.
A good example of this in our house is meal planning. I meal plan Friday nights and we pick up or have our weekly groceries delivered on Saturday. Those groceries will produce 3-4 meals of 6 servings each so I can fill in our meal calendar based on weekly plans. Some weeks, life happens and we do not make food as we planned to. Since my plan is flexible, I already know we have the materials to make a stopgap meal (pancakes and eggs or chicken nugget, apple, cheese wraps are our go-tos) and have backup frozen tortillas for lunch the following day. It definitely would be easier to go and grab fast food when we do not want to cook, but for us it is important to have home-cooked meals, so our meal planning rhythm accounts for this.
Another more personal example is my weightlifting routine. I workout 4x/week with the goal of going to the gym 3x and working out at home once. My workout plans are in the calendar every week, so I can visually see the time blocks for exercise. Originally, I had intentions of working out both weekend days, one day at home during the week, and one evening during the week, but this schedule has been more challenging in my current work season. My plans are in my calendar, but I can move them around and even prioritize getting up early if it means I can fit in a workout. This past week, I went to the gym at 5:30 am because I valued my commitment to myself, and my routine was flexible enough so I could make the workout happen. Was it ideal? No, but I try to focus on progress versus perfection – especially when it comes to plans or tasks I have.
Emma Hinkle, PhD
A newsletter full of musings from a PhD who loves to write
Table Talk: What household rhythms keep your house running smoothly? What household systems need to be adjusted?
Resources: Read more meal planning ideas here. https://dev.tailorjoy.com/weekly-meal-planning/
Check out more of Emma’s writings. https://geneticginger.substack.com/