SYSTEM AND MANAGEMENT IN HOUSEWORK.
By Jessie L. Scovil
Success in any work depends, in large part, upon the skillful management of the details of that work. Why should not this be as true of housework as of any other work? Is it not also true that housekeeping — home-making — is one of the most important vocations to which one can be called? I know of one home in which the parents are kind-hearted, God-fearing people, but there is one thing lacking in that home; the mother is a poor housekeeper. It is not that she does not work, for she does, or seems to. It is simply that she has no management. She does not plan her work. When the elder daughter of this home was about seventeen years of age, she went to work in a restaurant, and nothing could induce her to go home to stay. After a time I heard that she was inclined to be a little wild, and later, still worse was said of her. Who will say that this girl’s “wildness,” perhaps ruin — was not due in a large measure to the uncongenial surroundings of her home? A time for everything, and everything done as nearly as possible at that time, is a good rule to follow. Plan your week’s work before the week begins, and then follow your plans as nearly as possible. Look your work over carefully, see what you have to do, and divide it so that all the heavy work will not come in one or two days, and do not plan to do too much. If you can have very little spare time after heavy work, like washing, plan to do something easier and entirely different the rest of the day. Do the most important work first. I have seen people wait until half-past eleven before they thought of dinner; and as dinner had to be served at twelve, one can imagine what a hurried, uncomfortable meal it was. Now they knew that they had to have dinner, and by a little forethought all the hurry, worry, and perhaps angry words, might have been avoided, and the work need not have been one bit harder. Another good rule is, “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” These rules may seem simple, but the comfort of many a household is spoiled by their non-observance.