Productivity at Home

This weekend has been a pretty productive one.  I was able to:

1) Cook a great meal for us on Friday.  Okay, so I ate it alone because Gil was on-call and delayed, but he did agree it was delicious. (Oh, and we had a great meal on Saturday, but we made it together.)
2)  Garden.
3)  Do a few loads of laundry and fold them.
4)  Do lots of errands.
5)  Put together two Ikea shelves and FINALLY shelve most of my books.
6)  Plan out the week ahead.
7)  Go to Body Pump (all muscles in my chest still hurt...) and take a 30 minute walk.

Why is this all so exciting?  I mean, it's generic weekend stuff, and as my husband was working, I had to keep myself occupied.  I am just happy that I've had a push towards homemaking lately.  I've been reading the book Creative Counterpoint by Linda Dillow.  (Thanks for the recommendation, Jayme!)  In the book, Dillow talks about setting goals and then setting your priorities around those goals.  So if you want to be a godly woman, you need to consciously prioritize your relationship with God.  She suggested having one's home as a fourth priority, after 1) God; 2) husband; 3) children.  It seems a bit crazy to a working woman, but even if you work outside the home, the truth is that you're unlikely to miss work or to get behind on work because you're cleaning, whereas you ARE likely to use work/exhaustion/other commitments as an excuse not to take care of your house.   I realized that I'd let my home slip into priority, oh, 347 or so...

The thing is, I like my home; I just hate housework.  When I lived alone, I could get away with very little housework because it was just me and the cats, and after work, church commitments, friends, and a boyfriend in Toronto, I was never home.  Now, however, I'm around more often and my husband is.... not the neatest person.  But since Gil doesn't really care how clean the house is, I let it slip.  I prioritize myself, my hobbies, my work, etc.  Then I feel badly, because the house is messy and I'm embarrassed to have people over.  (Just to clarify, I DON'T think that housework is "women's work" or that wives have to do all the cooking and cleaning.  It's great if you can share the load, but in our marriage, my husband works way more hours than your average person while I work part-time; I prefer to make the most of our time together rather than spend it watching him vacuum the living room.)

Dillow actually recommends using a kind of weekly chart to plan out the week and write out your daily and weekly priorities.  I've got myself a white board, and am looking forward to doing this in the coming weeks.  (Right after I prioritize buying white board markers....)  I'm hoping this is the motivator I need, because truthfully housework really isn't that time-consuming, at least not when you don't have kids, but somehow making the time has been my struggle.  I'll let you know how it goes when I post my response to Creative Counterpart for my marriage reading series.

Do you find it hard to prioritize housework?  What has helped you get things done?