IV
THE SCHEDULE
IN MAKING and using a housework schedule the housekeeper has a narrow path to tread, between chaos on the one hand and slavery on the other.
If the idea of a housework schedule appeals to her, it would be wise for her to make as slight a schedule and be as little bound by it, as possible. If, on the contrary, she feels sympathy with the woman who thought it would be more interesting to do the washing on a different day each week, she should by all means have a rather detailed schedule and faithfully keep to it.
A work schedule saves the time and strain which, without it, would be expended each day in deciding what was to be done; it prevents those who do the work or help with it from waiting round to be told what to do; and it keeps one day from being too hard and the next too easy. But we must not have a schedule which makes the accomplishment of a certain amount of housework in a given time seem a more important duty than the little pleasant acts which make the comfort and pleasure of a home. If the man of the house wants his wife or daughter to walk to the car with him after breakfast, she should be able to go without feeling anxious or preoccupied. The coming of an unexpected guest should not be thought a torment and a calamity because it disorders a schedule. When a small head is thrust under one's elbow and a small voice says, "'Want to be loved now," confusion to anything which inclines us to say, "Run away, you bother me."
A household run on a strict schedule becomes an institution, not a home; on the other hand, a household in which the work is done at any time or no time is neither clean, restful nor knit together with the bonds of mutual service and mutual compliance.
Housework is some of it daily, and some of it periodical. Bedmaking is daily; sweeping is periodical. There is also work which may be done by the workers in the house, or by others coming from without. In one family the laundry work, bread making, window cleaning, floor polishing and the like will be done by those in the house; in another, these things will be done out of the house, or by people who come in to do them.
(a) DAILY WORK
The following is a list of daily work in an average house. Besides these things some piece of periodical work is done each day.
- Fire made or made up.
- Shades rolled up; windows opened a few minutes; suggestions of yesterday removed.
- (In summer, veranda arranged.)
- Breakfast prepared, served and cleared away.
- Pantry and kitchen put in order.
- Menu made and orders given.
- Downstairs rooms put in order.
- Bedrooms put in order.
- Bathroom put in order.
- Accounts.
- Preparations for second and third meals.
- Second meal served and cleared away.
- Rest.
- Third meal prepared, served and cleared away.
Outside affairs usually decide the time at which these activities are performed. Meal hours in most cases depend on the work hours of some of the family, and on the meal hours depend the times when other things are done. Who shall do the work depends on the number of workers, the occupations which they have beside housework, and the periodical work of the day.