Today, I want to share with you part one of The One Woman Show series. I am so excited to chat with you today about this super important topic of asking for help by outsourcing some things at home. Part two of this series will come out next week, and will include outsourcing and your business, and some simple steps to take and practical examples that will help you with what to outsource in your business and how to know you’re ready.

Now before we get started, I wanted to share with you an amazing podcast that I’ve been loving, called Find the Magic. One of their episodes, which is titled Simplifying our Lives Through the Beauty of Minimalism, pairs perfectly with today’s topic. I hope that you’ll check it out!

I think that it makes perfect sense to talk about outsourcing your home and then speaking to minimalism and how that will actually help you create a more enjoyable, peaceful home environment. So, for today’s episode, the tips that I am sharing are really easy and simple things that you can do right now. So simple that you might already be doing them, or you might have thought about doing them, but haven’t actually implemented them. It is my hope that I can ease some of the overwhelm and pride surrounding with asking for help. So, let’s dive in!

1. Create a Honey Do List

I want you to create a honey do list and ask your spouse for help instead of wishing that they would just help you on their own. So often we want our spouses to help and initiate that help, but the reality is that our spouses don’t think like us. They don’t have the same intentions that we have or the same things that annoy them. So, we have to share with them and just ask for help. Now again, this is not something I want you to get wrapped up in, but if there are a few things that your spouse can help you with, go ahead and utilize and leverage your spouse. I think so often as moms, we run the one woman show and we forget that our family members are extremely capable, and will rise to the occasion and help us out if we simply ask. So just create an environment where they will be eager to help you and remember, they are available to help!

2. Leverage Your Kids

I was talking to a mom in the community the other day about laundry. And she was telling me that laundry is so hard at her house. No matter how often she does laundry, it’s just never ending and there’s always more laundry to do. So, I asked her whether she thought about having her kids do their own laundry. And she was like, “well yes, but I don’t know why I haven’t.” and she added, “I wasn’t sure if they were old enough.” If your kids are
walking, they are old enough to help out around the house, even if it’s just putting their socks into their drawer.

I say this a lot in my family that, “I am not your maid”, and “I am not going to do everything for you.” “I will help you out and we’re a team and we work together, but I can’t do everything.” Also, learn to let go of little things like getting frustrated when your children’s clothes are not folded or organized properly. Your kids are the ones that go into their drawers and select their clothes. If it’s not organized, its okay, you’re not setting them up to be disorganized in the future. We all need to let go of some of those micromanaging tendencies that we have and just let our kids and our spouse help out. Empower your children so that they know they are fully capable of doing things themselves and encourage them to help around the house.

I got this tip from Allie Kasasa about teaching your children to reuse their dishes, so that they’re not making so many dirty dishes every single day. So, I started saving my plate that I use for every meal and just rinsing it off in between meals, because we don’t really need to dirty a new set of dishes for every meal. I say this to emphasize that it’s so helpful to teach our children how to take care of our house. Giving them chores is another way to empower your children so that they can take care of the things they get, the things they mess and be in charge of themselves.

I took a course called Smart Kids Chore System, and I will leave a link for you to check it out [insert link]. It is an incredible course, super inexpensive, which gives you a step by step plan for how to get your kids on board with helping. A tip I learnt from the course was to implement a five-minute tidy activity for your kids. Remember it can be super overwhelming when you tell your kids to clean their room or clean a certain area of your home when there’s no time limit on it. So, if you tell your kids you’re going to set a five-minute timer and they’re going to just do as much cleaning as they can within that timeframe, it makes it a little bit more manageable and they’re more likely to help out. Now the caveat to this is if the room is not finished in five minutes, then they have to do another five-minute tidy activity later on in the day. So, it encourages them to get it done faster, so that they don’t have to do another tidy later in the day.

3. Outsource Childcare

Now, I know this can be really hard for a lot of people to trust other people with their children. It’s one of those things that you have to work towards, but once you do, it’s freeing to know that you’re not the only one that can care for your child. You will have more time, freedom, flexibility and more mental clarity and head space once you get this break. Because remember, as a mama running the one woman show, this doesn’t work so well if you don’t ever get a break.

So, think about trading babysitting with a friend and going on overnight dates with your spouse on a regular basis. Now, this might be a hard one to do if you have a younger kids, but this is something to aspire to as they get older. I’m sure that you have friends that also would like to go on an overnight date with their spouse, but just can’t swing it because it’s expensive to pay for a babysitter to stay overnight. So, if you could trade babysitting with your friend and swap overnight dates, it’s like a glorified sleepover and your kids would have an incredible time.

Ask your relatives to assist with childcare duties; Right now, in our home, we actually ask our moms to babysit. We been alternating every other month with who babysits them overnight and it’s super fun for the kids to go have a special trip at their grandparents house. It’s also really nice for us to be able to have some time together to spend at home doing whatever it is that we want to do. If your relatives are not available to assist, you can also hire a babysitter or a nanny.

The best thing I ever did for my business, when my kids were younger, was to invest in a sitter. I had her come only once a day for three hours a day, because that’s all I could afford. I looked forward to those three hours a week and I was so productive in that small amount of time, because that’s all that I had. If your kids are younger, another great place to invest in is preschool. Here they’re getting socialization, they’re getting education and you are also getting some great focused work time. So, I recommend outsourcing those things when you can, and shifting your mindset of these things being expensive or just another added cost to what are the additional benefits and income you could be receiving during those focused hours.

4. Outsource Your Grocery Shopping

This could be something like a grocery pickup or grocery delivery. This might not always work for everyone, but this has been something that has been helpful to me. I typically put off grocery shopping until the very last minute, as it’s one of the things that I dread the most. So, doing the grocery order or pickup actually saves me time and money as I’m not aimlessly walking the store, trying to find all of the things, or impulsively putting things into the cart and buying things I really don’t need.

This has been a huge game changer for me, but I have been doing it on and off. Like I do it for a while and then stop, because it just doesn’t work anymore as we forgot to do the order and now, we really need groceries. This is something that I’m starting to get back into the habit of doing as it is so helpful and I am really able to save time and money.

5. Have a Meal Prep Service

If you are just finding it extremely hard to even have time to cook, you could hire out a meal prep service. Some companies like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh are awesome places to try out their service.

6. Outsource Your House Cleaning

I want you to think about the tradeoff of how long it takes you to deep clean your house. Do you even get around to deep cleaning your house? Is it just one of those daunting tasks that you never want to do? This has been a huge game changer for my family and I, where we don’t have to worry about the deep cleaning tasks that usually happens on the weekend.

So, we have a house cleaner that comes every three weeks and I feel like that is the perfect timing, because I am able to keep up with all the regular day to day cleaning tasks and tidying. Some of you may be rolling your eyes right now at this suggestion, and you might be like, oh, that must be nice, like one day I’ll be able to hire a house cleaner. I’m just going to give you this disclaimer right now, and tell you that we have had to sacrifice other things so that we can have this house cleaner. It’s not like I’m rolling in the dough and have all of this money, we just prioritize it because it makes such an impact. I want to be able to spend time with my family and utilize every minute of my weekend to its fullest potential. I don’t want to spend it constantly cleaning.

If that is one of those tasks that is super daunting, don’t ever feel shameful or guilty that you can’t keep up with those household tasks. Think about getting a house cleaner to help you with those tasks. Remember, it’s not that you can’t do it, but it’s what other activity you are trading or sacrificing when you take on the house cleaning tasks all by yourself, so think about that.

7. Outsourcing Lawn Care and Pool Maintenance

So yes, you could probably take care of that or your spouse could take care of that but again, what is the time trade off? How much time are you spending doing these things when you could be doing other things. You could also be supporting local businesses who are supporting their families. I want you to just really think about all of these suggestions as we end our conversation today. What are some of the areas in which you could begin to outsource at home? Who could you ask for help? How can you leverage your time and make the most of it? I really hope that you have found these tips helpful and that it has given you a launching pad where you can really brainstorm and think about how you can reclaim your time.

If you have enjoyed this article, I would love for you to share this with more mamas who are experiencing this, so that other mamas, just like you can find peace and passion and their motherhood in business. And if you’re not a part of our free Facebook community, I invite you to join us where we dive deeper into these topics, and get to know each other on a deeper level. Remember, life was not meant to be lived alone and we want you to know that you are supported and seen.

Resources:

Smart Kids Chore System 
Join our free Facebook Community
Connect with me on Instagram or my Website
The Efficient Mompreneur – Online Course
Find the Magic Podcast – Simplifying Our Lives through the Beauty of Minimalism