Managing a large family and large family organization are two of the most daunting parts of being a large family mother. When it comes down to it, being pregnant for what feels like forever, dealing with an ongoing cycle of breastfeeding, potty training, and terrible twos and threes, these things aren’t nearly as overwhelming as trying to figure out how to organize a large family household and run it efficiently.
Large family home management is kind of my specialty (hence the website name 😆), but I’m just going to be perfectly honest with you right now. My house does NOT look like a page out of IKEA or the Container Store. It’s not super-hyper organized with everything labeled and perpetually in it’s own place.
My large family home is a living, breathing place that is filled with love and chaos, and inevitable mess. However, because I have spent so much time (years and years and years) of managing everything, I have so many large family hacks at my disposal! I know how to quickly whip everything back into ship-shape in hardly any time at all (and I do this several times throughout the day).
And that’s what I would like to share with you today. Managing a large family is a BIG job. And some days it CAN feel overwhelming, but we all have to start somewhere…
And I have the perfect place for you to start. I’ve put together a fun freebie for you! My Top 5 Tools That You Need To Get Started Organizing Your Large Family Home Right Now List (How’s that for the longest title ever???). You’ll see where to get it at the bottom of the post!
How to Organize a Large Family Household
It’s SO important to have a game plan any time you are getting ready to take on a massive project. I can’t imagine a more massive project than figuring out how to organize a large family household, can you? You aren’t going to get very far at all if you are approaching large family organizing randomly.
I like to call this the Three Pillars of Large Family Organization.
The first place you need to start is with a big large family decluttering session. Thankfully, I have created a challenge specifically for this! You can take my FREE 30-Day Large Family Decluttering challenge by signing up here.
Once you are starting to get rid of all of the unnecessary stuff in your home, managing everything will be easier. It’s like starting with a clean slate. Don’t wait to start working on these other areas until your home is perfectly decluttered though.
Let me tell you a little secret. I am never done decluttering. There is always more! Keep going!
After you have started decluttering, there is another big area that you will need to start chipping away at…
Large Family Meal Planning
Meal planning is one of those make or break activities for managing a large family. If you aren’t doing it regularly, then you are never really sure what you are going to be serving for meals. If you don’t know what you are serving, then you are not managing your home well.
I’m sure this sounds harsh, but let me back up just a step. I’m not telling you that you need to serve homemade meals from scratch with only organic ingredients every night. I’m not telling you that, because I don’t do that either.
What I’m telling you is that you need to KNOW what you are serving. Even if you need to get take-out every night of the week for whatever reason (and I can think of PLENTY of reasons why you may need to do this!), I would encourage you to still have a plan for that.
So your plan could look something like this:
Monday- Take-out pizza
Tuesday- Taco night
Wednesday- Crockpot Chicken something or other
Thursday- Subway
Friday- Freezer lasagna
So, have a meal plan, and then stick to it!
The third pillar of Large Family Organization is…
Large Family Laundry
I think I just heard a collective groan. I know, I know. Large family laundry can get oppressive, and it can get oppressive REAL fast. Follow that link up there if you need some help designing your own laundry system.
Just remember, the sooner you have a workable plan for keeping your laundry under control, the sooner you will be on your way to really managing your large family home well.
Large Family Organization Tips and Ideas
- Start working today on getting the three pillars of Large Family Organization under control (decluttering, meal planning, laundry). Work on these three pillars every day.
- Recognize there are seasons to large family life. In the middle of morning sickness, or during those early newborn days are not the time to start an overhaul.
- Your children are more capable of helping than they let on. Teach them well and then inspect their work (I’ve actually started assigning a few of my older children to be inspectors, and this works SO WELL).
- Don’t turn into a housekeeping shrew. Recognize that a large family home is never going to be perfect, and if you ever get it to that point, it will not last long. Don’t make everyone miserable trying to attain perfection.
- Don’t give up. The worst thing that you can do when trying to figure out how to manage a large family is to give up. You’ll have good days and bad days, learn to roll with it.
- Go to my resource library and download my Top 5 Tools That You Need To Get Started Organizing Your Large Family Home Right Now List. (See the bottom of the post to get there)
Large Family Home Organization
There are a lot of tools available to help you achieve Large Family Home Organization, and I actually go over quite a few of these tools in my Top 5 Tools That You Need To Get Started Organizing Your Large Family Home Right Now List. Some of them will probably surprise you, and none of them are expensive at all.
You don’t have to spend tons of money at the Container Store or at IKEA (although, that sure is fun!). You can use what you have right now. Managing a Large Family does NOT require expensive tools. It requires your time, and it requires determination.
FREE Large Family Organization Tool List
Get the password to my FREE Large Family Resource Library where you can have access to all of my exclusive Large Family Management resources in one place.
