My husband and I joke that running our household is a second job. But it really is, and we run our home like a business. We keep a calendar with all the family events and nights when one of us needs to work late. We send each other Outlook appointments. We try to sit down and plan for the following week each weekend—each night’s meals, who is picking up the kids after work, what we need to buy for the following week.
We function as co-CEOs (although my husband would claim otherwise). He is the family CFO, as his real job involves budgeting and working with numbers. We both handle HR, which mostly entails dealing with cranky, disgruntled children (“Mom, why can’t I have the last Klondike Bar”). I handle procurement, and I also serve as the family’s General Counsel—that role is not always necessary, but it’s good to have one on board, just in case.
It sounds silly, but by dividing up tasks and areas of responsibility between us and doing a little advance planning, things run much more smoothly, which saves both time and money in the end.