On three different Monday evenings this year, the night before a new household manager starts with a family, something small goes wrong. The keypad code does not work, and the manager spends the first forty minutes on the doorstep. The grocery card has not been ordered yet, and the planned shop happens on the manager’s personal card with a screenshot for the receipt. The eldest child is told, for the first time, over breakfast, that someone new will be in the house today, and reacts the way nine-year-olds do.
None of these is a disaster. All of them are avoidable in the week before.
The first morning is, in our experience, the easiest morning a household manager has. The introductions are done. The references are in. The agreement is signed. What is harder is the week before, when a handful of small decisions need making by the family that are not the manager’s to make. Made deliberately, they save weeks of small friction afterwards. Made on the morning itself, they cost a fortnight.
There are five of them.
I. Access
How does the manager get into the house on a Tuesday morning, without you having to be there?
A key is the simplest answer, and the one most households arrive at within two weeks anyway. Settle it before day one. A keypad code is cleaner if you have one; a numbered key in a Sentinel box on the side wall is fine; a smart lock with a guest code is fine. The point is the manager can let themselves in at 8:30 without you running down from a meeting to open the door.
The same decision applies to the alarm, the back gate, the garage, the side bin enclosure. If the dog is at home, the dog needs to meet them first. If the cleaner comes on the same morning, the cleaner should know who they are.
II. Money
What can the manager spend without asking?
Most households end up at one of three settings. The first is a household debit card the manager carries, with a weekly limit set in the bank app (a few hundred dollars covers the small endless decisions). The second is a reimbursement arrangement: the manager pays, the receipt goes into the shared folder, you settle weekly or fortnightly. The third is a hybrid: a small card for everyday ordering, larger items reimbursed.
Pick one before they start. Tell them which one. Tell them the threshold above which they should still check with you, even if they have the card in their wallet. “Above two hundred and fifty, send me a text first” is a good number to start with, and easy to revise.
The small endless decisions, dishwasher tablets, sunscreen, the new school socks, only work if the agreement is explicit.
III. The calendar
Where does the family calendar live, and what is the manager allowed to see and change?
Most households arrive with three or four calendars in different apps and the first thing the manager often does is consolidate them into the shared platform. That is fine. But the family decisions sit behind the consolidation. Whose work calendar is visible. Whether the children’s after-school activities sit on the same calendar as the parents’ diaries. Whether the cleaner’s Wednesday and the gardener’s fortnightly Friday are calendared or just remembered.
Have the conversation in the week before about who edits what. A common starting point: the manager has edit access to the household calendar, view access to your work calendar so they know when your meetings are (not what they are about), and the kids’ diaries are co-edited.
IV. The children
The manager is not the nanny. Even so, on the first morning they need to know a small number of things about each child that nobody but a parent currently knows.
Allergies. The friend whose mother does pickup on Thursday. The teacher whose new surname the children are still getting used to. The after-school activity that needs the uniform sorted on a Tuesday. The medication, where it lives, and how often. The babysitters on the approved list.
A short page per child, written by the parent who knows them best, is the simplest version. It does not need to be polished. It needs to be true.
And, crucially, the children themselves should be told. Not on the morning of. A few days in advance, in the language that suits each child’s age. The bigger ones can be part of the introduction. The smaller ones often do better with a photograph and a name to attach to it before the day.
V. The things that are not theirs
The most important decision of the five, and the one most often missed.
A household manager takes weight off your shoulders. They do not take the household over. Some things, in every family, should stay with the family. The bedtime story. The Friday night dinner. The birthday party RSVP that comes from a parent’s phone, not the manager’s. The thank-you note to the in-laws written in your own handwriting.
These are not job description items; they are the things that, if they were quietly delegated, would make the household manager an awkward sort of substitute parent. Which is not the role.
Have a conversation about them. Make a small list. Hand it over on the first day with the keys and the card, so it is in writing and so it is known. The manager will thank you for it, and so, in time, will the children.
The first morning, when these five have been thought about, is uneventful. The manager arrives. The dog has been told. The card works. The calendar is shared. The eldest has known for a week. The Friday dinner stays yours.
That is the version of the first morning we are aiming for. Nothing dramatic. A new person in the house who knows what they are doing, who lets themselves in, who eats a piece of toast at the kitchen bench while they catch up on the week. And somewhere by the kettle, the small list you wrote last night of the things that are not theirs to do.