7 Things About Managing Your Home That Shouldn’t Just Live In Your Head

Discover the seven main pieces of household info that are taking up space in your head, but shouldn’t be. This will help you to finally free up some of the mental load you’ve been carrying!

It’s 11:47pm and you’re lying in bed trying to get to sleep. This is the exact moment your brain decides to get to work.

SO frustrating…

You know the sort of thing. You start going through all sorts that pop up in your thoughts:

• The bin collection has changed from Wednesday to Thursday this week.
• Peter needs a birthday card by Saturday.
• The car’s MOT is due, you think, though you’re not entirely sure when.
• You want to cook lasagne for tea tomorrow – but do you have all the ingredients?

and it goes on and on…

The issue is simple. Everything you’re thinking about is earning a place in your head right now because it’s the only place it’s being kept.

It’s just… there. Running. On a loop. With things only falling out of the loop when you get them done, or (worse case) if you forget about them entirely.

And that’s a lot to carry every day, normally resulting in you lying awake worrying, and getting more and more tired and frustrated.

That right there is the bit nobody really warns you about running a home.

It’s rarely the washing or the vacuuming that wears you down – it’s the remembering. Being the one who holds it all, all the time, so nothing gets dropped.

Now, your brain is amazing at a lot of things. But it was never there to be a permanent, always-on filing cabinet for you. Because, if something’s living in your head, it’s costing you far more than it should – especially when most of it doesn’t need to be there at all.

Here are 7 of the things that definitely shouldn’t be taking up valuable space in your head anymore.

So – which are you dealing with right now? It’s time to change that!…

1. The weekly meal plan

What’s for dinner has probably been part of your internal monologue everyday for as long as you can remember.

And that thinking isn’t even just about that days food – it’s usually with some thought for the days to come as well. It’s a constant hum that won’t go away because we always need to eat, right?

Wrong.

Yes, we need to plan what we eat so we get a balance, plan smart, and budget well. But this is definitely not one for your head only.

The last thing you want to deal with every day is checking when people need to eat, balancing what they’ve eaten elsewhere, and then buying and prepping it all. That’s a lot to manage!

Do this instead: Spend half an hour up front – ideally with the others in your house – and write a meal plan for a couple of weeks ahead. Stick it to the fridge, and then enjoy not telling everyone what’s for dinner each night, not having to open the cupboard doors and work out what you can create, and not making a last minute drive to the shops to get something that you didn’t know you’d need. The plan holds the mental load rather than you.

2. Who does what chore, and when

A lot of homes look good and run OK – but usually because there’s someone reminding everyone else of what needs doing.

You may have delegated some chores, but are they actually getting done? Whether or not you’re doing them – they’re still living in YOUR head.

So how can you make sure you can stop thinking about everything, and start concentrating on just what your chores are instead?

A cleaning schedule, in a physical place that everyone can see, is a great start.

And then actually getting it done means being a little sneaky with how you delegate those chores in the schedule…

The trick here is to give the right person the right chore.

And that starts with knowing that NOT doing that chore would affect them in some way.

You see, as humans we want an easy life. So if our lives are made harder, we are more inclined to fix them.

If you get your child to take the bins out each week – then they don’t really notice if they don’t do it. It doesn’t affect them directly.

However, if you get them to clean their rooms – they start to feel the difference when it gets messier and dirtier.

If your husband produces the most laundry – then putting him in charge of it means that if he doesn’t do it – he’ll feel it the most and therefore would be more likely to remember and want to get it done.

A simple tweak, but so effective!

Once I started to do this in my own home I noticed almost immediately that it took SO much of the load off me, a lot of which I didn’t even realise was weighing me down so much.

As such, if chore ownership has started to be something you’re carrying because it’s become the default for you, then start to change it today.

Try this: Sit down with those in the house and create the cleaning schedule together. that way everyone knows what needs doing and what they’re in charge of. Be clever with what’s delegated (so it’s as simply for each person as possible, but so it directly affects them if it’s not done) – and then let things play out. There may be some tweaks needed for a while, but it will make a huge difference for years to come on the mental load you can let go,

3. Birthdays & Special Events

I pride myself in knowing everyone in my lifes’ special dates – birthdays, anniversaries, etc…

Ask me for them, and I can tell you anyones without looking them up.

Which is handy, for sure, but it makes it all too easy to have carried them in my head for longer than ideal.

And I didn’t even realise I had created an problem, until I missed my Brother In Laws Birthday by a week.

We had some personal things going on with the other side of the family, and that took my mind off sending the card and gift I’d got ready months before, in the post.

I was so upset – and although he was fine about it, I wasn’t.

In fact, I’ve missed the birthday of someone close to me just twice in my adult life. Both times there were good reasons. But neither time did the reason make me feel any better.

So now, I’m slightly obsessive about writing it all down.

I have a master list in my Home File – and from that I add the dates to our family Calendar, and set reminders a week out to post the card and gift.

The system takes a few minutes a year to setup – and I’m still ultimately responsible for it – but it’s taken a load off my brain for sure.

The tweak: Put every birthday, anniversary, and “we must get them something” date into one calendar, with a reminder a week before. Set it up once. Then it runs itself. The great thing about this system is that the dates are still visible for everyone in the house, and so if something should happen that takes me away from doing it – someone else should notice.

4. What’s running low

This is a common one, but has a really easy fix!

That mental stock check that happens when we can see we’re running low on things around the house – loo roll, milk, the dog’s food, the thing you always forget until you’re down to the very last one – takes up more headspace than the shopping itself ever does.

I used to find myself over thinking the list for fear of forgetting something all the time… So it was time to take it out of my head once and for all!

Do this instead: Keep a running list somewhere that everyone can add to it when they spot something needs buying. Usually this is in the Kitchen as food is one of the main items that gets added. Get everyone to write on it as a rule. Then whoever does the shop (because now it doesn’t have to be you as you’re not the only one who knows what to buy anymore…) – can grab it when they go shopping.

5. Home admin and renewal dates

Insurance, MOT, passports, the subscription you meant to cancel months ago – admin doesn’t shout for attention the way a pile of washing does, so it just sits in your head instead. Popping up, unhelpfully, at around 11pm when you suddenly realise something’s urgent or past due…

Do this instead: Again, this is where a calendar comes in useful. Get into the habit of adding those dates to it as soon as they are known – and also add a page at the back to add future dates to the next calendar should they be after what you’ve got there. This means you’re always able to see at a glance what’s coming up, and you can look a month or two ahead to stay on top of it all without it being in your head anymore.

6. The Household TO DO list

The squeaky door. The lightbulb in the hallway. The drawer that sticks. None of them are urgent, so none of them get a slot in your day – they just sit in the background, re-added to a list that only exists in your head, every single time you walk past them.

That’s exhausting.

The trick is to write the list down, while scheduling what you can or just getting things done if they’re going to take longer to write down than do.

For instance – I once realised I’d been avoiding sorting out a big mark on the wall up our stairs that had been made when we’d moved some furniture. I hadn’t done it because it “felt like a big job” – until I timed it. Under two minutes. I’d been carrying the psychological weight of a two-minute task around every time I’d passed that mark – for months. The thought of the job was worse than the job.

Try this: Get every job out of your head and onto one written list. When they’re out of your head you can truly see what needs doing – and either get a lot of little things done quickly, or delegate a few to others, or even see that they don’t need doing at all (nice to haves rather than need to haves). A list you can look at is always going to be lighter than one you can only feel.

7. Everyone’s whereabouts, and what’s happening when

Every day we used to work out what everyone was doing, when, and what that meant for everyone else.

Plans were made in a vacuum – and so putting them together on the day showed things like issues with getting two people to different places for the same time, or someone was needed in two places at the same time.

It was exhausting.

And as a result I started to try and keep track by myself. I was always asking people what was going on in advance, and then sorting things out in my head as needed.

We got by – but my head hurt in the process!

So instead? we started having house meetings. A quick ten minute sit down together, once a week.

Everyone said what was coming up for them – it was all written on the one calendar in the house – and any issues were dealt with then, by everyone.

And now we just check what’s coming up by looking at the calendar. No more ‘ask mum’ all the time. The background hum of “is that sorted?” went away almost overnight.

Bliss!

Do this instead: A five-minute check-in, once a week, with whoever else lives in your house. Diaries out, plans said out loud. Nobody has to hold it all alone.

So, if you want this game changing feeling for yourself, start by picking one of the above and tweaking for yourself. See the difference it makes, and you’ll want to do more.

I hope it helps!

P.S. Sound familiar? The tracking. The remembering. The never quite switching off, even at midnight. If this rings true, you may be a Puffin Homebird Type… To find out for sure just CLICK HERE and take the free Homebird Type Quiz – it’s eye-opening!