Running a home and family means a whole lot of cleaning, maintaining, organizing, and decorating. It also involves overseeing no less than 1,095 meals per year—snacks and parties not included—which means thinking about, shopping for, and preparing a whole lot of food. Tack on to these tasks juggling the daily schedule, facilitating transportation, planning vacations and celebrations, and nurturing loved ones. This is no small job.

As your family's manager, how you handle each twenty-four-hour day can make the difference between a household in constant uproar and one that hums along smoothly. Eight management strategies are the key to job success.

Manage by department.

Your Family Manager responsibilities can be better managed when categorized in seven distinct departments and supervised accordingly:

• Home and Property—overseeing the maintenance and care of all your tangible assets, including your belongings, your house and its surroundings, and your vehicles.
• Food—meeting the daily food and nutritional needs of your family
• Family and Friends—dealing with relational responsibilities as a parent and spouse, and with extended family, friends, and neighbors
• Finances—managing the budget, bill-paying, saving, investing, and charitable giving
• Special Events—planning and coordinating occasions—birthdays, holidays, vacations, garage sales, family reunions, and celebrations—that fall outside your normal routine
• Time and Scheduling—managing the family calendar and daily schedule; dispatching the right people to the right place at the right time with the right equipment
• Self Management—caring for your body, nurturing your mind, and spirit

Create a base of operation.

Every manager needs a "Control Central"—be it a desk, countertop, or office. In a company, it's the place from which he or she calls the shots. In a home, it's the place from which you organize your day, post messages, makes lists, and oversee your family's comings and goings.

Use a Daily Hit List.

Selectively choosing each day what you will Do, Delete, and Delegate in each department will help alleviate the stress caused by excessive demands on your time and energy. Download a PDF of my Daily Hit List ®.

Build a family team.

All good management is about sharing responsibility, helping people find their niche, and empowering them to succeed. Assign household tasks according to age and skill level, and time availability. Everyone who lives in the home should do his or her fair share of the upkeep. If a 12-year-old girl can learn to navigate the Internet, she can learn to navigate her way around the kitchen. A man who can program a television to record a play-off game can learn to program the washing machine. Even a preschool-aged child can help dust baseboards and fold towels.

Cast vision, and communicate benefits.

Successful managers must inspire and attract employees around a common goal and communicate how that goal affects each person's best interest. It's no different in a family. To inspire your spouse and kids, seize the high ground. No one will jump at the chance to be on your team if you're negative—"I'm sick and tired of being everyone's maid." Or always nagging—"I've told you that a thousand times." Or neutral—"Who cares if we eat dinner together?" Aim for change with a positive attitude.

Create Standard Operating Procedures.

SOPs (standard operating procedures) are routines that you create for tasks like housework, laundry, meals, and bill-paying. For example, you might decide to always shop for groceries on Tuesday mornings when the lines are short. Or, you might establish a seven-minute nightly clean-up routine. Just set the kitchen timer for seven minutes, and as the timer ticks off seven minutes, have everyone in the house pick up and put away the clutter accrued that day, take out the trash, change the cat litter, and so on.

Practice the Power of 10.

Few Family Managers have large blocks of time to accomplish all the work it takes to keep things running smoothly. If you can't see a free day in the next few years, try getting into the "Power of 10" mindset. It's amazing how much you can accomplish in 10 minutes and how many "free" 10-minute snippets of time you can grab here and there. Granted, you won't finish tasks like unloading your home of five year's worth of clutter, but you'll make progress a little bit at the time—enabling you to stay on top of housework.

Be prepared.

It's the Scout motto, but it's also a Family Manager's motto. If you have a shelf stocked with office and school supplies, you won't have to run to the store at 10 p.m. in search of a folder for a report that's due tomorrow. If you have a list of quick menus and always keep the ingredients on hand, you won't panic when you realize it's 5:00 and you don't know what's for dinner.

Kathy Peel is the author of 18 books and CEO of Family Manager University. For more tips, visit www.familymanager.com.