From Chaos to Clarity (Part 1): Implementing SOPs to Transform Your Home
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[00:00:00] I remember Justin Wolfenberg said, uh, the state of a person's home is the state of their soul. And he's like, whatever happened to this home was something very, very dark.
And it was, it was. As I was sitting in it, I was searching for the words to explain the discomfort that I was feeling in that home. Um, and he kind of gave words for it. And I, I think this is true for us. It's that if we want to raise, we want to have and then raise ordered souls, the state of our home really matters.
And the order in our home really, really matters. It's not just about being nitpicky about, Oh, I want napkins put in the right place or something like that. The order in our home, uh, is representative of the order in our souls.
Hey friends, welcome to the 1000 Houses podcast, where we encourage and equip households to make disciples in and through the home. Every episode, you'll hear interviews, teachings, and [00:01:00] conversations around what it looks like to turn your home into a hub for mission, community, and discipleship. If you'd like to learn more about what entering into a season of coaching might look like for you and your household, visit 1kh.
org for more info. Let's jump into today's episode.
I'm excited to chat with you guys today. Uh, I, real fast, let me pray and then we'll jump into it. Um, Father, we invite your Holy Spirit here. Uh, we want to hear from your word. We want to hear from you. Um, we are not interested in hearing, uh, some guy talk about all the cool things he's doing. We're here to learn and be equipped, [00:02:00] uh, by your scripture.
And, um, we want to be brothers and sisters building each other up, encouraging each other on, inspiring each other towards good works. Amen. So anything that is from you, may it stay and be here. Anything that is from me, let it just pass through and be forgotten on the drive home. Lord, we want to honor you at this time.
Be here in Christ's name. Amen. Alright. Alright, so the topic for tonight is called Household SOPs, which stands for Standard Operating Procedures. Who here knows what an SOP is? I'm kind of curious. Alright, we've got a couple of these. Um, I'm sure that some people are excited about this, others maybe less so.
But, uh, I, this is a, I've got a couple of these sort of talks that are some tools that Chandler and I have kind of stumbled into mostly through entrepreneurship and then applied them to our family. And the result has been thriving in the past 13 years. Our oldest child here is 13 about to turn 13 and our youngest is two.[00:03:00]
And we're not done, uh, both as a family, and we're also not done having kids. We have Chandler is actually expecting number seven for us in February. He's really excited about it. And want to share that because I am not coming to you as a 90 year old man saying, I applied these systems so many years ago and now all my kids are missionaries and making disciples and everything's perfect.
I'm saying, I have a 13 year old kid, who's my oldest, and we've been experimenting on him for 13 years. And this tool represents 12 experiments gone wrong and one gone right. So let me share what's gone right and hopefully, uh, help you avoid some of those mistakes. Um, so, uh, let's jump into it. This topic comes, uh, uh, this is a thing that I've been jamming on.
Lucas actually and I have been talking about this back and forth. Uh, this question of ambition when it comes to, uh, as a man, what is the ambition that I should set as a Christian man? Um, and there's an Abraham's Wallet that was talking about this. And there seems to be actually a kind of an [00:04:00] opinion in scripture about what level of ambition we should have.
So let me read this, uh, from First Timothy. It says, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer. or an elder, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober minded, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? And then he goes on to talk about some other requirements. Uh, Let's reinforce that one. If someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
I think on this list, there's a lot of things that are pretty binary, like, yeah, drunkard, not drunkard, violent, not violent. Those things pretty seem pretty [00:05:00] straightforward. But this question of household management, I think is one that is really captured my curiosity. And I think I've gotten a little obsessed about this question of what does it look like?
to manage my household well. And I think we're in an era where during the industrial revolution, we saw a lot of fathers and mothers, uh, more recently, leave the home and kind of leave, essentially forsake the role of CEO and just be like, cool, but this organization is mostly for sleeping at night and then everyone leaves that place and goes and does school or work or whatever else they do.
And so I think this concept of household management has been lost to some extent. And I've gotten kind of obsessed about this question of what does it look like to manage my household well, because I want to be an overseer. I want to be an elder. Um, I'm not an elder yet, because I'm not old. Yet. Um, but I hope to be old someday.
And more importantly, I hope to be an elder. And I want to be a person who sits and helps younger families. I want to be a person who can actually serve the greater body. And that ambition is a [00:06:00] good ambition for us to have. And so, in order for us to do that, we have to figure out what it looks like to manage our household well.
So, uh, like the nerd that I am, um, I've mapped out from what I can tell what I think good management has been in my personal career. Um, I've spent the past 13 years or so as an entrepreneur, um, running a tech company and then running an agency and then starting other tech companies, then shutting down those tech companies.
And so there's some elements that I've like, I've tried out on adults in tech and then been like, Ooh, that kind of worked. And then I've applied it to my family and it's kind of worked. This framework of taking business and applying it to family is, uh, I'm still not positive what I think about it. I think there's some, have you, anybody watched the sound of music?
Remember Captain Von Trapp where he essentially runs his family like a naval ship and makes a march and he does the little whistle and you're like a weird guy, like kind of a strange guy. Why are you doing this? And I think there's some truth to like, he was [00:07:00] taking what he knew in an area that he didn't know and just applied it to the best of his ability.
And I'd say that's what I'm maybe trying to do with some of these things. Um, and my hope is that this will be second nature to my children and they'll drop a lot of the weird entrepreneurship lingo. Um, but for now, this is what I've got. And I'd say by bringing what I've actually got into the home, it's created similar to Captain Von Trap.
a pathway for my heart to kind of come home. And so I'm going to keep doing it until I find another system that's better. Um, so here are the elements of good management that I've been kind of jamming on. I've been doing, um, I'm actually writing a first draft of a book and these are kind of the main topics that I've been doing.
And then I've been doing a couple talks here and other places kind of mapping those things out. So on the marriage front, we have things like a regular cadence of meeting together like in a date night. You actually do that in companies too. You have, they call them co founder dates and you do them weekly.
the organizational chart, uh, in terms of tone, like unified front, radical candor, resolving conflict. Um, then there's like big picture [00:08:00] direction. Where is our organization, our family going? Um, we have like a retreat, we have mission vision values. We have meeting cadences, regular ways of like essentially scheduled arguments to make sure like we get on the same page.
So weekly business meetings, quarterly offsites, annual retreats, daily standups. And then we have management tools, which is like, hey, one on ones with the team members. Um, there's correction, there's training, and then there's even financial management systems. And so I've been kind of mapping these, these things out, taking what I learned on startups, and then applying them to our family.
Um, and I've been experimenting on that for 13 years. I've been documenting it for about two months. Um, uh, so, uh, those are the things that I've talked about either here or other places before, but today we're going to be talking about training. Uh, and so today's topic is the training or standard operating procedures or SOPs.
That's what we're going to be talking through. Uh, this is different than discipline, which is like your kid did something bad, now we need to correct them. Training is something that we're going to do proactively to [00:09:00] hopefully create more order and less chaos within your organization. Everybody tracking so far?
We're good? Got the setup? Yes? Great. Alright, so here's a formal definition of a standard operating procedure. It's a written set of instructions for performing a technical or administrative task in an organization. I want to say right here, I naturally am not an operationally oriented person. I'm not as organized as I appear.
Uh, I would say any skills I've gained in this are examples of what's called, uh, conscious competence. Thank you. which is that I've had to work really, really, really hard to try to learn these things. Um, there are some people in this room, uh, specifically Lucas, who I think actually exhibits, uh, unconscious competence.
Which is like, he, this thing seems to kind of ooze from him. And so I want to talk about what that looks like, uh, at a ninja level, through an experience that I had recently. Which is, uh, I went to Kelsey Pryor's wedding, and we were sat next to the Kohl's, And we're [00:10:00] sitting here, and he goes, uh, he said something about his kids.
You know, we had breakfast the other morning. My kids, they make breakfast, and then we all sit down. And I go, hold on, hold on, hold on. Your kids make breakfast for you? And he goes, yeah. I'm like, how often? He goes, every morning. I was like, I do not believe you. And I literally said, I think I said probably BS or something like that.
He said, come on over. He said, tomorrow morning. Why don't you come over? You can come and, uh, watch my kids make breakfast. So I think the next day, not that next morning, but the next morning. I went to my kids, and I said, I was talking to this jokester at a wedding, and he said that his kids make breakfast for him every single morning.
And my son, who's 12 at the time, goes, I think he's bluffing. And I was like, that's what I think too. I said but he's invited, us over. Do you guys want to go and watch these kids make breakfast? And they're like, absolutely. And so my four oldest kids, uh, who are essentially 12, 10, 8, 6, we got up at like 6 in the morning, I think it arrived at about 630, was it 630 when it starts?
[00:11:00] 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock it starts. And we witnessed, the kids let us in the house, I'm fairly confident Lucas either let us in and then went back to bed, but he was not in the picture. Uh, Tara was not there. And I watched these kids work together, ages what, 12 down to 4 2, something like that, uh, make chorizo and eggs, set the table, not even paper plates, like full on, set the table, napkins, cups, everything, juice, and, uh, Literally, they roll out at 730 745 the parents roll out and just sit down to a delicious meal that was like restaurant caliber.
And I'm like, this is cool. And I'm like nudging my kids. And so we get in the car. I was like, that was really, really impressive, wasn't it? And my kids are like, I can do that. I could totally do that. I was like, I don't think you could. And so we actually went through a process of practicing and getting through it.
And we actually were able to implement a process where our kids started making breakfast for us. [00:12:00] And it was, it's been such a blessing for our home. And I kind of asked Lucas and was texting him, how did you do this? How'd you do that? Um, I would say our quality level is probably lower. Um, also it is waxed and waned in terms of its frequency.
We're not at a hundred percent, uh, consistency on that. However, uh, it's really blessed our family. And so this is what this can look like throughout the rest of your life. And so I want to talk about why this is a good idea. And then I also want to talk about how specifically we've been able to implement things like that.
All right. So you guys ready? We're going to talk through this. Let's talk about the whys. Why? Why should we do this?
I mean, obviously the first one is, um, Yeah, I'd say why, the obvious why is like, I want breakfast and I don't want to have to make it. Right? That's like, that's the basic level. Um, but actually I want to go maybe deeper into maybe some scriptural whys as to this might be a good idea, um, to, for creating order in your home.
So before we get into the how, let's talk about the whys. Number one. Children are a [00:13:00] heritage from the Lord. Offspring are a reward from Him. If you've been hanging around 1KH for a while, you've heard this idea that, Uh, the world thinks that kids are liabilities. We think that kids are assets. I love that idea up here.
In terms of actual practice, sometimes it doesn't feel that asset y. It feels more liability. Um, and this is an awesome way for a two year old or a four year old to actually feel like an asset for your home. And that changes how you feel about towards your children. It also feels about how the kids feel about their home and about themselves.
Is there actually an asset? Um, this is my son who mows our lawn. Um, I literally followed him. As he would mow the lawn, I would walk behind him and point to things and kind of show him. Like, my dad did that to me too. He was a real stickler about that. And my son takes so much pride in mowing the lawn each week.
It's been a really, it's been a blessing to our family. It's been a huge blessing for him in terms of like, he really is proud of it. Um, so one, it's like, it helps our kids live into their [00:14:00] identity as assets. Two, um, multiplication. Multiplication. This is in the Bible. Be fruitful, and increase in number.
Fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule over the fish, and the sea, and the birds, and the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the ground. This is a command. This is one of the first commands that we were given as humans. Uh, I'm of the opinion, I think many of us are of the opinion, that this command didn't stop at some point.
We're commanded to, yes, multiply, but also to be fruitful, right? I think this is an example of like, you can have a more fruitful home by having processes that you work, uh, together. I, I would say, there's an ongoing conversation in this room, more than most rooms, which is like, how many kids are we gonna have?
And should we just keep on doing this thing? Like, how do we decide that thing? And this is a very recent technology for human beings that we can decide how many kids we wanted to have. There used to be one way to make that decision, nobody wanted to make that decision, so we had a bunch of kids. Um, And so, uh, now, since 1950 or 60 or so, this is like [00:15:00] a new technology that we're struggling about.
What's the framework for making these decisions? And I'd say one big reason that we stop having children is because of chaos. Right? It's like, it just got too chaotic. Uh, my wife was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed. It's just too noisy. It's all these different things. And so that's a reason, and I think, I understand that.
It's a, it's a lack of fruitfulness. And so if this one tool, can maybe release a little bit more order in your home, that's one more disciple who could be born into your home. And that disciple can make 10 more disciples or 100 more disciples. And we're talking about souls here, right? Like this is, this is a really big deal that if we can see more children come out of the order that we create, um, that could be a really good thing.
And I think there is a reality of different capacities within families. There's obviously a reality in terms of physical capacity of like, You know, depending on how you handle pregnancy and all these different things, like, those are all real conversations. But I'd say, I would love for us to get to [00:16:00] either, uh, I feel like I heard from the Lord before we got pregnant most recently.
I feel like I heard this thing of, you need to either level up or tap out. And I'm like, shoot, I need to level up in terms of this. And a lot of this stuff has come out of having the need to level up. Um, because otherwise, what I've done to get here is not going to get us to where we need to go further.
Um, that make sense? I'm trying not to dance around that too much, but it's an important thing. All right. Uh, number three, ordered souls by wisdom, a house is built and through understanding is it established through knowledge? Its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. Um, this is a picture of a rental property.
It's kind of blurry, but on the left side is the rental property with Justin Wolfenberg. He came through and helped us look at this rental property. They were thinking about buying. Um, and it was, it was, It was total and complete squalor. The guy who lived there, he called them his little friends, which is like a giant king snake and a raccoon that lived in the house with him.
You could stand in the living room and look up to the ceiling and see the sky, like through the hole in the roof. [00:17:00] It was total squalor. Um, and I remember Justin Wolfenberg said, uh, the state of a person's home is the state of their soul. And he's like, whatever happened to this home was something very, very dark.
And it was, it was. As I was sitting in it, I was searching for the words to explain the discomfort that I was feeling in that home. Um, and he kind of gave words for it. And I, I think this is true for us. It's that if we want to raise, we want to have and then raise ordered souls, the state of our home really matters.
And the order in our home really, really matters. It's not just about being nitpicky about, Oh, I want napkins put in the right place or something like that. The order in our home, uh, is representative of the order in our souls. Number four, a witness so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
Walking into a home that is really well ordered, um, where people are working together towards a common goal and enjoying it, that's an amazing witness, especially in a time where we've lost these [00:18:00] skills in our culture. I think it could be a huge opportunity, um, especially for a group called 1KH where we're bringing people into our households.
Unfortunately, we can't hide. And so, if we're a disaster, it, it will speak, but if we have order, it will also speak. And then finally, uh, discipleship. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Um, this is a picture of our kids going to jiu jitsu. I've been so amazed watching our kids, what they've learned in the process of doing jiu jitsu, in terms of their character and learning to kind of push through hard things. I think Paul makes the argument that physical discipline is actually related to spiritual discipline.
I think the same is true of like training in our home is related to training in terms of training them in the gospel, training them in spiritual gifts and spiritual skills, right? Training them in self control. These are all sort of related things. So it's not [00:19:00] isolated of like, cool, my kid can set the table and now I need to work on their soul.
It's actually no, by teaching them to set the table. they're, they're actually learning the skills of self control that are actually going to go directly into the development of their soul. So those are my five whys. So how the heck do we do it? Let's get into it. Uh, when I started getting into this and started, I realized with Lucas, I'm like, Oh, you're just talking about SOPs.
Um, I had this moment from Jurassic Park. If anybody remembers that moment where it's like, wait a second, I know this. I know how to do standard operating procedures. I have. Way too many Standard Operating Procedures in my Google Drive because I've been running companies where we have to document processes and we have to get brand new people up to speed and performing a task again and again and again and again.
For the past decade, I've been working on this. I just hadn't thought to apply that to my kids. Um, and so, uh, yeah, the definition of a Standard Operating Procedure is a one to two page document that outlines exactly how to perform a specific task. [00:20:00] It often includes a checklist to ensure consistency and efficiency.
And there's one classic example in business that everybody points to with standard operating procedures that I might try to show a video right now. We'll see if it works. Um, Nope, not gonna work.
Well, that was a great try. This is from the movie, This is from the movie, uh, The Founder, and it's an example of specifically how McDonald's became McDonald's was they scaled through crazy detailed and consistent standard operating procedures. Before McDonald's existed, you'd go to one restaurant and go to another restaurant, you'd have completely different experiences.
There were franchises, but franchises were wildly inconsistent. And what he was able to do was essentially they trained. There's this awesome point. Maybe I can show the, just the still, I love this point. Yes. They go to a basketball or tennis court. They go to a tennis court and they draw it with chalk and rehearse how they would make a burger, imagining each [00:21:00] different part.
And it was like a dance of moving all the different pieces away. And they trained and they trained and they trained and they trained till you could have a hot burger within a minute. And that was something that completely revolutionized, you know, restaurant eating and has had, Amazing effects for the health of the United States.
So, um, Yeah, we're all better off because of that. Um, yeah, but I think it's helpful to remember like, Oh, there is a process for this. People do this all the time of going through trainings like this. Um, how the heck am I going to get out of this now? Here we go. Alright. Um, yeah, so in my, in my business now, what we have is we have a 35 page document that is all of our SOPs that anybody in our company can see, like, wait, how am I supposed to do this again?
They just turn to page 17, and literally it's like, how to have, how to deal when a client goes bad, and I've written out an essay of like, hey, sometimes things go south of the client. Here's what you should do. A describe what you're seeing objectively. I've noticed you seem displeased in the last growth meeting.
B ask for the perspective, get curious, what do you think is [00:22:00] happening? And so every time somebody comes to me with a question of like, Hey, I think this client's going bad. I'm like, just go to the page, work through the thing. And it's actually worked really, really well to kind of have a standard system that we kind of manage now 30 people through that sort of process.
Um, there's some obvious benefits to doing standard operating procedures in business. Uh, one is obviously higher quality output. Right? Um, you can be really specific. I want it done like this, and then it's done like that. Uh, two, time and cost savings. If it's documented, it can be repeated quickly. Right?
Three, consistent outcomes. Right? Uh, that's the McDonald's example. And then finally is it's really easy to take somebody from zero and go to one really quickly. It's easier to learn, um, because it's all documented in front of you. There are also some less obvious benefits for SOPs. Um, one is harmony, actually.
It was kind of interesting. It reduces the need for corrections of your teammates when they have a document that aligns, uh, outlines everything. One, is they're less [00:23:00] likely to make mistakes, so you don't have to correct them. Or two, if they make a mistake, you're not being nitpicky, you're not being the bad guy.
You just point to the document, like, oh, you missed this step. And they're like, oh, great, thanks, and then you kind of move on. I've seen that for, uh, as an agreeable person who doesn't like to really nitpick. I found it really helpful in managing people to have a document I can point to and let it be the bad guy as opposed to me being the bad guy.
Um, two is troubleshooting. It's really easy to improve a documented process. Because you can say, what happened here? That something fell apart in this relationship with this business, or in the onboarding, this thing fell apart. Let's, let's go in step by step. Did this happen? Did this happen? Be like, oh, that step was wrong.
We had documented it wrong. We can correct that thing, right? So it's easier to iterate and make improvements when it's written down. As opposed to if you're, it's all captured in your head, it's much more difficult. And then finally, uh, empowerment. It's really quick contribution from new and even less skilled team members.
They can kind of jump in right now. And these are the reasons that I'd say drive me for wanting to do S. O. P. S. Uh, [00:24:00] for our kids was like, Do I want more harm? Who here wants more harmony in their home? Right? Yes, please. Just a little bit more harmony to troubleshooting. It's nice to know, like we all have problems.
How do we figure out the problem? Then finally, is empowerment is I want my kids to feel empowered. So, everybody tracking? Yes? We got through the business thing. We're done with that part. Let's talk about family. Great. Uh, SOPs apply to family. Here is our much less impressive breakfast that our kids made, um, of pancakes.
That's it. Um, alright. How do we do this? I don't know if you guys got the discussion questions. Uh, they were talking about, uh, one of the questions was, hey, what's the most chaotic area, uh, in your life? If you're gonna take a picture, this is when you take a picture. This is the slide that matters. How do we go about this process?
One, is we're going to select a skill or behavior. Two, we're going to document exactly how you want it done. Three, we're going to train that standard operating procedure. And four, we're going to iterate it as necessary. Uh, My [00:25:00] recommendation is when you select a skill or behavior, Uh, let's start with the thing that's the most painful.
Right, make it worth your while to do it. Um, Or if you're like me, you can start with like 15 systems simultaneously and create a huge amount of chaos in your hand, in your home. Either way works. Um, I'd recommend just choose one. It's a better way to start. Uh, so, uh, select a behavior skill. I asked Chandler for her document.
Chandler's my wife. I asked Chandler for her document of the SOPs that we're currently using. And this is what was in her one Canva document with all of these different, uh, we have a documented system for all of these, like dental care routine, which is brushing your teeth. Uh, breakfast, lunch, pickup, bedtime routine, bedroom pickup, kitten care, getting in the car.
So we did all these different things, and in preparation in the past week for this talk, I was like, you know what, uh, the dinner pickup has not been going well. We need a re examination of what happens after dinner. Um, did you have a question? I have a question. Would you do this like broadly? One kid. One [00:26:00] kid has a
dog here. He has his own SOP of like, great, how do I take care of the dog? Would you do this and then you're going to make it worse?
We have, uh, so like for a behavior like, uh, like they're acting in a bad way or something like that. You want to document it? We've done a, we've done a handful of those. I'd say the primary use is probably more operationally as opposed to like, uh, but there are a couple issues that I think are actual knowledge issues.
Um, a big one was what happens when a kid does something mean to you at a party. Or when we have a bunch of people over at our house, and I documented that system and wrote it on the whiteboard for them of like, Hey, step one, talk to the kid. Don't go get their dad talk to the kid directly. Right? Okay, step two, go and get me and then I'm gonna walk in with you.
And then step three, if that's not working, the two of us are gonna go and talk to [00:27:00] their parent. Right? And so I actually documented that, 'cause I thought it was, they actually had a knowledge gap. But if it's a character gap, it's probably a different tool set. Okay. Um. So for us, this is literally eight days ago.
I was like, let's like actually try to do this again. So we're not just talking about things that we did six months ago. Um, we redid the dinner pickup routine in the past week in our home. And I've been trying to train the kids in that. So, uh, what I specifically did is first we started with dinner pickup.
Uh, the big reason for that is it was causing a lot of chaos. Kids were getting very loud. Some kids were running away and hiding instead of helping clean up. And I'm like, this is not working, and the result is me angrily scrubbing a dish, and I don't want to be angrily scrubbing a dish. I've spent too much of my life angrily scrubbing dishes.
Um, so, alright, how do we document what needs to happen? What I ended up doing was, uh, I had a nice little partnership with ChatGPT, where I wrote out, this is what I want each kid to do, and I just like bullet points, like, this is what I want them to [00:28:00] do, I want them to do this, this, this, this, this, mapped it all together, And then I said, can you please put this into a clean, standard operating procedure that a kid, uh, average age 8 could understand.
And then it spit this out and then I edited it from there. Um, Um, Uh, that's another important piece here. I did post this for them, aka how to get dessert. So I did put a reward at the end. It's like, hey, if you want dessert, this is how you get it. Um, the vision of what I'm shooting for here is I want to be able to leave the table and go on a walk with Chandler with Chandler.
While our kids do the dishes, and then we come back and have dessert together. That's what we're shooting for. We're not there yet. That's, that's the goal. I want a 30 minute walk. Because what's happened is we just, our oldest just turned 13, and so now he doesn't have a bedtime anymore, so he can stay up, and so we put all the kids to bed, and then it's like me, him, and Chandler, and I don't quite have the connection level that I want, and I'm like, I need 30 minutes to just like, just us talk.
And so I'm like, what if we could do that while the kids clean up? [00:29:00] Thus why we chose this and that's what we're shooting for. We're getting closer. Um, so what we did is by person. So Everett is the dishwasher duty. I put him literally just at the stink and he, everyone's going to bring stuff to him and he's in a scrub.
That's a big job. He's 13. Charleston food storage and cooking area cleaning. We're one of those families that we, uh, we don't put it all away as we make the meal. We put it all away after the meal. So that's a big job too. Charleston does that. She's 10. Penny is going to be the queen of clearing all the surfaces.
Truman is helping in that, um, and he is still working on reading a little bit. So we have emojis down here to kind of help him. That's a plate going to a sink. That's a napkin going in the trash. Um, makes sense. And so we documented this and then I said, Hey guys, here's a draft. Let's try it. And we're going to try it together.
And I was thinking I'm going to have to rewrite this. And so I've rewritten it one time so far as we kind of got went through it. Cause, uh, Specifically, uh, emptying the trash was too heavy for the six year old. And so we're gonna [00:30:00] have to give that to somebody else. Um, alright, so we did, we started with, we selected a behavior, dinner pickup.
Second, we documented exactly how we want to do it. And now third is now we gotta train it. Step one, I'm going to show you how to do it. I'm gonna demonstrate the task. And so I did this with Everett, I sat there and scrubbed in front of him. This is what I want, this is what a clean dish looks like. And then I put it in and I kind of said, I want you just to watch and I've done that with him.
I've done that with the two younger. I have not done it with Charleston yet. We're still working on it, but she's actually, she picked it up pretty quick. Um, two, we're going to do it together. And so, uh, for the past week, this is really where we've been living on this specific practice, uh, sent Chandler to go on a walk by herself.
Almost there. We're getting there. Chandler goes and walk by herself. And then I, with the kids have been working on it together, giving them feedback and that sort of thing. Um, and then next is you do, that was the past two or three days, I've now sat in the kitchen and watched them do it and kind of coach [00:31:00] from the sidelines.
Um, rather than me kind of working on it with them. I think within the week, we're gonna be able to get that walk, and it's gonna be magical, um, that we can do it. Um, it makes sense, but this training thing, if it's gonna fall apart, most families, definitely in our family, this is where it falls apart. I like to throw down a document, and then peace out, and then hope that they get it right.
That doesn't work with children, it doesn't work with employees. We have to actually kind of do the work. If I do it in front of you, we're gonna do it together, you're gonna do it on your own. All right. And the last is you're gonna have to iterate as necessary. Um, did we select an unreasonable task? Is this, like, can the kid not pick up the trash bag?
If he can't pick it up, there's nothing that I can train him in. He just doesn't have the muscle, right? Um, did we document a flawed process, right? Did we document it insufficiently? Um, we got a couple of those that were like, oh shoot, we have to get more detailed. And then do we train it poorly? These are all great questions to ask as it starts to fall apart, which it inevitably will fall apart at some point, right?
And this is the work of [00:32:00] management. It's kind of re upping and kind of re training. So, again, um, select the behavior skill, document exactly how you want to do it, train it, and then iterate. And expect that it's going to have to be kind of ongoing iteration. Um, so, um, I love in First Corinthians Paul says, but all things should be done decently and in order.
I think this is an area that I think it's dangerous to talk about these things, especially as a young father, because, uh, none of us, I don't want to be arrogant, none of us want to be arrogant. And so often I think we don't talk about practical, helpful tools that are working in your home out of fear of putting yourself above others.
I think it's pretty obvious I'm not above anybody here, which helps, uh, but I think it's important to share these things because having an orderly household is incredibly important to actually making disciples in the long run. Um, and so I, I want us to be sharing the things that are working. My hope is that you're going to find something and then you're gonna share it up here as well and that [00:33:00] I can learn from you.
I think it'd be really great. Um, so, uh, Yeah, let's I think we're gonna be eating soon any quick questions We'll also have we're gonna have tips afterwards with Chandler and with Lucas and so we'll have more questions then But quick questions real quick on this. Yes. What are the youngest ones do that?
Yes, so Imogen and Jojo have to wipe down the chairs and then they go play so they have a job but it's one job Yeah, what else?
How do you, like, present this ? Like, the delivery. Like, here we go, we're going to sit down, we're going to do all these steps. That night, my kids were just like, totally overwhelmed. And then, I was like I do this wrong?
I, I start with the end state. Which is, imagine a world where you could have dessert Every night.
That's where I started, right? And literally, that's why I said, aka, how to get dessert. That feels a little overwhelming. Here you go. This is what we're going to do. Yes. [00:34:00] And so it's helpful to say, first off, I want you to have dessert every single night, and I've created a process that I'm going to train you in so that you can get it every single night.
And then it's like, great. Now they're at least motivated. So that's where I like to start. We've done the same thing with like, Our full house pick up that happens in the afternoons, um, before dinner. It's like, hey, would you like to be able to play 30 minutes of video games before dinner? Awesome. All you have to do is have the whole house picked up, here are the documents on how to do it.
And like, they love it. Like, they'll work with that, you know? Um, uh, on the breakfast thing, uh, it was what if we could have pancakes every day, right? Like, it's like trying to figure out a way to make it kind of work for them, that there is a motivation in that. And, Some kids, I think, as they get older, can, are motivated not just by food, um, but they can be motivated by like, Hey, do you notice how this is a chaotic period in our week?
Wouldn't it be awesome if that was not chaotic, right? But, start with the motivation. What else? Yeah.
Just at first glance, I don't see anything about [00:35:00] time on there. Is there time limits? You know, you gotta have breakfast done before dinner, um, to get to the show. Things like that.
Yeah, I haven't Yeah, they've got an internal motivation.
I don't know. I don't think we've really done time limits or have felt the need to. Um, Yeah, I'm open to it. I don't know if I don't know if that was a conscious reason not to, but it hasn't been an issue yet.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you do a motivator for every path? No. No. Mowing the grass. Well, the rest of his package.
Hey,
yeah.
So that's the fallback probably, that's just
And, if he doesn't do it right, I send him back outside. And that was a really important thing, like, hey, you missed that spot, please go get a lawnmower back out, I know you just showered, go and finish it, like, that sort of thing. But, um, he gets paid for that.
No, but for like, even like the dog duty and stuff like that, some of it's just like, hey, this is your job. And there is some pride in doing things right, [00:36:00] you know? Um, actually, I don't know if we paid our son initially. I remember the first time we did it, I got a lemonade with him afterwards. And I said, look at this yard.
Do you feel? What do you feel right now? It's like, I feel good. Like, yeah, it feels really good to look at this and it started crazy and now it looks good. And so I think you can like map to like, it does feel good to be competent. Actually there's some like professional books talking about like what we often think we're skilled in is actually just that we got trained really early.
And so now we're just competent and we're all addicted to competence. And so I think there's some reality there. Yeah. What else?
Do you have kind of a system in what they get paid for versus what they, what's part of their responsibility?
Yes, we have a bright dividing line. If we could pay someone outside the family to do this, or would pay someone outside the family to do this, um, and you're saving our family money, I'll pay you.
Um, but there are certain things, like I'm not paying anybody outside the home to do our dishes. You just gotta do your dishes, right? And so, um, yeah, that's, [00:37:00] that's kind of the dividing line. So mowing the lawn. It saved us hundreds of dollars, uh, for, uh, him to start doing that. Um, yeah.
Other questions?
In our household. Is this an individual challenge or is this a group challenge? I feel like our kids are always asking that question because of the injustice. That they feel. Um, Right? Like, Yes. Yeah. Totally. I don't mind, uh, a group consequence from time to time. Um, I think sometimes me being the bad guy and them all just being like, this guy over, like, they're at least like they're banding together and I think that's good.
Um, but I think I have to be careful to like, they need to know that we run a just house. And so they're, like the video games thing, they, as soon as you're done with your thing, you can go play video games. As opposed to the dessert thing is not, it's. Um, when the kitchen is done, we can all have dessert and so if you really want it, then you should help your brother who's still scrubbing over here.
You could should help him with that. So I [00:38:00] think there's some tension in that, but I've seen like, I mean, if you look at like a good high school football team, group punishments is like par for the course. That's a normal thing that you get a group punishment when one person didn't do it right now.
Everyone's doing push ups or everybody's going for the run. There's something about camaraderie that comes from that. So, um, I think it can be overused. It can be underused. Yeah. Yeah.
great. What are some of the varieties of dessert?
Because those are the types of things where some kids are like, you know, it's like, I don't really like that dessert anyway. So, you know, it's like, it's like when we try to pick a movie in our house, there's just like all the bad and of course, like, yes, imagine the dessert.
It's a dictatorship. Oh, this is a dictatorship.
I bought popsicles. Okay. And if you don't like popsicles, that's fine. Yeah. And yeah, for sure that thing is, that's a trap. Yeah. And that's the thing on rewards is like sometimes I've overdone rewards up front and then they get worse and worse over time. . [00:39:00] And so, yeah, I think it's, yeah, important not to let it be too good of a reward in that sense. .
Well friends, thanks for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to learn more about a thousand houses or discover what a season of coaching might look like for you and your household, visit one k h. org. We'll see you for the next [00:40:00] episode.
