The Week You're Away

The suitcases are by the door the night before the flight. You are in the kitchen telling the housekeeper three things at once, while the driver waits to ask about the airport run and the rest of the week. Half of it will be remembered. The other half will arrive as messages while you are at the gate.

Mid-term breaks are short, so they rarely get planned like the summer. But a week with the family away and the team at home goes well when everyone knows what it is for.

Here is a list you can copy tonight.

1. Say what the week is for. A deep clean, a quiet week, or some of each. One sentence changes how the team plans its days, and stops the house being cleaned the same way seven days running.
2. Pick two or three bigger jobs, not ten. The majlis curtains, the high kitchen cabinets, the AC vents before the weather turns. A short list gets finished. A long one gets started everywhere.
3. Agree on rest days before you leave. With no school runs and no family meals, there is room for real time off. Settle which days in advance, so nobody has to ask over a crackly call.
4. Give the driver a plan too. Airport times both ways, the car service that never fits a normal week. Without a plan, a driver spends the week waiting by the phone. More on this in what your driver actually needs.
5. Name one person to call. A sister, a neighbour, the building manager. Write down the name and number, and say what counts as a reason to call: a leak, a power cut, a delivery nobody expected.
6. Settle the kitchen. What should be used up before it spoils, what the team cooks for themselves, how groceries get bought. The fridge should not be a guessing game for a week.
7. List the small living things. Which plants get water and how often, the fish, the cat's food and where the spare bag is kept. Obvious to you, invisible to everyone else.
8. Plan the day before you land. Fresh sheets on the beds, milk in the fridge, the AC on in the children's rooms. It only happens if someone knew the time.

None of this needs to be long. It needs to be written down once, somewhere everyone can find it. And if the week runs smoothly, that is a good sign the house no longer depends on one person's memory.

This is the kind of week Paz is for. You set the week's tasks once in the app, and each person on the team gets their part on WhatsApp, in their own language, with a reminder before it is due. The housekeeper can reply with a voice note from the laundry room, and Paz understands it.

You will still check your phone at the gate. There will just be less to read.