Skill Training 1: Professional Preparation

“Put them away.” Big hand on little hand lifting toys block by block, into a small bin. “Put them away.” Another block into the bin. “Put them away.” If there are 6000 toys on the floor and you and your one-year-old apprentice put every one away with the same behavior sequence, what do you think, your apprentice will do when he or she hears, “Put them away?”

Putting away toys is a skill most grown-ups can handle. But not everyone knows how to clean a tub, make a bed, or arrange kitchen shelves efficiently. If you don’t know how to do well the skill you want/need to pass along, learn how to do it first. Read. Try different methods. Practice. This may be impossible in some life areas, but certainly not in housecleaning.

The character for the task is quite another story. Assuming you have the character and the skills to start training, you can begin training apprentices during week five of building the cleaning routine, or anytime after that.

How to Prepare Professionally to Teach a Skill

1. Using a stop watch, time yourself doing the job (each aspect of a combination job) five different times. The number is, of course, negotiable. The goal is to do the job–or the aspect of the job you want to train–enough that you KNOW what an average time is. Plus, you need time to compile some other information about the job. Determine a baseline training time goal for that task, a time that does not include buffer minutes for distractions, interruptions, and negligent focused attention.
2. Prepare expectation lists of how the task should be done. Make clear the important steps to doing the task well, and include what the difficult parts of the task are likely to be. Include the kind of spirit and character qualities that are part of the job. This is the real reason you need to time yourself several times doing the task: so you can figure out in teachable detail what you have been mindlessly doing, perhaps for years.
3. Prepare helpful information lists. Include proven hints, shortcuts, sequences that will make completing the task more professional and successful. Make them look sharp!
4. Extra step for training children (though even bigger people will appreciate this):  break down the task to five or ten minute components if the whole task takes longer than that. Children as young as one can “help” by carrying towels to the hamper, wiping the bottom 12 inches of a door while you do the rest, wiping the outside of the bathtub, tubs, putting toys in bins, etc. Incorporate their level of work into the real life tasks at hand. If your mindset is they can and should help with everything you do, they can and will.