Delegate Well

Delegation is a very useful organising tool.  There are enormous benefits in recognising which jobs are best done by you, and which are best handed on to someone with a) more time, b) more skill or c) more interest than yourself.  There are so many ways to delegate and people and services you could delegate to.  But that’s a discussion for another time.

Today I want to talk about delegating housework.  This is something I’ve done for many years.  Even though I work from home, I have neither the time nor the inclination to clean house.  But I do want it clean.  So I delegate that job to a fabulous cleaner who makes my life so much easier and is worth every cent.  It’s a far better use of my time and resources to earn the money to pay someone to come in and do a great job once a fortnight than to do it myself.  And having it cleaned from top to bottom once every 2 weeks makes it easy to maintain in the interim.

Often the hardest part about inviting someone into your home to clean for you is conveying your expectations.  How do you set the groundrules?  How do you convey your wishes each time without sounding demanding?  How do you ask a cleaner to spend less time on the bathroom and more in the kitchen without damaging the relationship you’re building?

Recently a friend of mine hired a new cleaner and has implemented an organised way to clearly communicate all her cleaning needs.  She has a simple room-by-room checklist of every possible job.  As well there’s a quick summary of her preferred equipment or method to be used, e.g. “furniture polish” or “wet cloth & dry”.  The cleaning jobs for the week are then quickly marked, or even prioritised.  Using this system from the start means there are no misunderstandings about standards required and everybody’s happy.