To not understand how people have an evening.

Imo you need earlier dinner and a hell of a lot less faffing about. Some of your job timings are crazy. 90 minutes to dishwasher, wash up and put laundry on, that's insane! Pre fill the washing up bowl and put everything in as you go, makes washing up much faster.

If I do get an evening where I'm done and dusted by 8.30/9, which doesn't happen often, then I usually just go to bed. If I've been on the go from 6am-9pm (I'm a teacher, so I have a fairly physical, go go go job, with usually 10 mins for coffee and 20 mins for lunch, and then I have all that housework that you mention whilst I'm also trying to cook the tea etc) then I'm absolutely knackered.

I completely relate to this OP. We had more time and more of an evening when the kids were toddlers! Now, it's activities/clubs, packed lunches, washing, cleaning etc. We do have 4 children though which makes it slightly busier! DH and I have just accepted this is life for the foreseeable!

Theextraordinaryisintheordinary
“Letting the washing machine & dishwasher run while you’re sleeping is a fire risk”
Not true: What would be the earthly point of having an automatic machine of any sort if you couldn’t leave it alone or run when electricity is at a cheaper rate.
maybe look beyond AI, & find what UK fore services say?

I can’t believe you cook from a recipe during the week, personally I only do this if I’m batch cooking on weekends or for special dinner nights which isn’t often. This is your problem here OP. On weeknights, we only cook things with min prep, burgers, baked potatoes, omelettes, tortellini etc. . When you cook veg, cook enough for a few days, while you cook low prep stuff you can empty dishwasher or do other stuff in kitchen. Get your kids to help. Anything needs doing past 8pm, I wouldn’t do.

Buy dishwasher safe items, we put everything in dishwasher and if it doesn’t fit then it waits in sink till next day but this is rare.

Easily done if all hands are on deck.
You need to have to a faster routine and plan.
I don’t really watch TV. DH is firmly on his arse for 7pm every evening.

I had no evening until d's was 13:and I did it all on my own. He calmed down after a year of secondary. He kept going in my room. Always slept late.

Letting the washing machine & dishwasher run while you’re sleeping is a fire risk.

My advice would be to move faster. Although, depending on what’s been happening that evening and what you have on the next day, plus your levels of exhaustion, evenings can vary. My poor teenagers are exhausted. The amount of homework they get is beyond belief. I’m in bed before them some nights if they have a test to revise for.

It sounds like you’re spending far too much time doing housework on a daily basis, hoovering your entire house should be no more than 30 mins and you’re doing this every day? I only do downstairs every couple of days it takes 5 mins. Whole house on a sat morning. Cooking from scratch every night is taking a lot of your time, most people do this less and will do pizza / pasta / freezer food a few days in the week to save a lot of time and mess. Dishwasher load / washing machine unload is a 10 minute job! It sounds as though you’re making these jobs more complicated than they need to be? But it’s the choices you’re making that is using up your entire evening compared to some mums, by the sounds of it.

Given you’re home at 4pm, you should definitely be done by 8pm and ready to settle down for the evening. You need to do dinner early and make the packed lunches as you’re doing that. Dishwasher I do in the mornings, and load it after dinner. Hoovering would be done on the weekend. My friend was always still doing stuff at 11pm and I couldn’t understand why. I didn’t get home until 5.45-6 when kids were younger but always had an evening (and am a single parent). Early dinner is key given one child is a slow eater.

Mine are 12 and 14. I WFH 3 days a week but the days I'm in the office we're out by 6am. The dc sort themselves out and my mum comes round to see them off and lock up.

I/we get in just after 3, then do meal prep, sort tea for around 5/6 and we have the evening for whatever we want to do. We're normally in bed reading, dp scrolling by 8/9pm

Fill sink with hot soapy water before you start cooking and throw stuff in as you finish with it.
get rid of stuff that needs handwashing and replace with stuff that will go in the dishwasher (charity shop can be your friend)
buy silicone / baking paper / tinfoil to line trays that go in the oven
cook and prep food twice a week: make extra and reuse
clean toilets /bathrooms when you are in them
use waiting time to do small jobs (especially in the kitchen)
prioritise having an evening.
i finish work and am home at 5; dinner usually done and kitchen tidy by 6:30. All food work / prep for next day done at the same time as dinner. I have two hours at the weekend to do bigger household jobs and food prep.
You got this OP. Working out process improvement here will make your life massively better. Make sure you are having chill time and getting enough sleep.
ETA laundry folding and sorting in front of the tv so still feels chill. Takes 10-15 mins. Wash runs overnight and then hang first thing in the morning to dry for 24 hours; basket of dry stuff into the lounge to fold in the evening

We don’t get home until 6.30pm, and have to be in bed by 9 as we are up at 4.30am for work. If I could lie in bed until 7am, then yes, I would get an evening!

We're the same, but it feels more like a mindful choice.

We don't do many chores during the day, despite working from home, as we're trying to properly prioritise work the same as if we were in an office. May manage to put a load of laundry on during a coffee break but I'd rather go for a walk! Then after school we'd rather spend time with the kids. We spend at least 40-60 minutes sitting together for breakfast and dinner. It's lovely! Meals are usually a sort of buffet style, get loads of things out of the fridge and help yourself to whatever you fancy. Quick to prep and tidy up. They have a hot meal at school. Though we usually have a warm breakfast too. We get some chores done together as a family, trying to instil good habits, but just a smattering. DH will often start early so he can stop work at 4 or so and we either play a board game or head out together when the evenings are lighter. Picnic teas on the beach are a firm fave!

All that means chores happen in the evenings. Weekly shops, all the tidying, laundry, cleaning, life admin etc. We're like you OP, have lots of stuff that can't go in the dishwasher but again that's a choice. Can't remember the last time I sat and watched tv, but again I spend pretty much all day in front of a screen at work so suits me not to do that again in the evening.

It would be easy to look at it and say we're rushed off our feet till 9.30 at night, but it's because we've chosen not to multitask.

It sounds like tasks are taking you too long.

Use a slow cooker some days, you can eat as soon as you get in and it’s all in one pot to wash (apart from plates and cutlery).

Your youngest needs someone to sit and encourage them at the table but not both of you. Take turns starting the jobs. You can still talk to them whilst you are doing the jobs in the kitchen.

I usually get enough of an evening to watch one episode of something, though that's with my teen rather than my partner as we don't watch the same things. But I'm in bed by 9 as I have to get up at half 4 so not much of an evening. Dishes get done straight after dinner and DD empties the dishwasher and does the daily clean of the floors - if you want more time get your children doing chores!

I spend my evenings driving my kids to various activities and clubs, fit in a few chores around that and then go sleep about the same time as them, after reading for a bit. I don't really want to spend my evenings in front of the telly so it suits me fine.

We do as others have said and get things done as we go. Whichever one doesn’t cook then does the dishwasher and it’s unloaded last thing at night or in the morning. I try and get a load of washing done as soon as I get in. I try and put washing away in the morning or when I get home. Tend to put clothes out straight after tea.

We’re out at various club drop offs 4 nights a week and take turns at doing that. Think being busy in the week makes us more efficient as we have to be quicker at getting things done. Fridays are lovely because we come home and relax, maybe have a takeaway and do very little!

Start dinner, unload the dishwasher, feed the cat, discuss which movie to watch, eat dinner and watch movie or read, tidy kitchen. Put on a load of laundry around 4 when I get home or DH does it earlier because he works from home. It shouldn’t take hours and hours to get stuff done.

@DysmalRadius
I had five DCs all buzzing around while trying to get stuff done. I am NT so maybe that makes a difference, but wrt the constant interruptions:
Child who finished the apple juice would have been asked to write that down on the whiteboard in the kitchen.
Child who wanted something from the cupboard would have been asked to come back when I was finished.
'Helper' would have been told to go and sit under the kitchen table and dry an unbreakable wet frying pan or some plastic items.

I would have expected them all to respect my task, basically. It's not your role to facilitate everyone else's life constantly. At some point, children need to see you as a completely separate human being who has her own tasks to get accomplished, not someone who is their third arm, constantly available.

I don't think the snowman would have been photographed by me, either, at least not right there and then. I might have asked my DCs to make their own paintings or drawings of the snowman experience if I wasn't prepared to get boots and coat on to go out to take a photo.

I used to be the same so I changed my routine. I get up an hour earlier than my DC so I can get a wash load on and then on the radiators, make breakfast and packed lunch, tea is in the slow cooker if I'm at work, then when I get home me and DC eat, bath and bed all by 7 (I finish at 5) I spend 10 minutes washing up, uniform in the wash, a quick tidy and hoover round and I'm done by half 7, then it's time for my bath and TV chill out. The main thing I stopped was full cleans, my house gets tidied properly on my days off, I'm not gonna spend everyday hoovering every room and scrubbing and mopping, as long as its tidy and there's no pots in the sink, it'll wait.
I will also say investing in more things help. My DC has 3 lunchboxes and 3 sets of uniform, meaning I can pre-make 3 days of lunches and wash 3 days of uniform at a time. A couple of hours of prep on a Sunday goes a long way.

I get it and we often have evenings that are the same in our house. We have three primary age kids, we both work outside the house (and I often don’t get home until after 7pm), plus a dog that needs walking.

The main things that jump out at me though are:

• during the week, the kids eat early, before us
• it’s rare we have things that can’t go in the dishwasher. We use an air fryer for lots of stuff, so it’s just the silicone trays that go in the dishwasher
• we have a cleaner so I wipe down the kitchen sides each night and that’s about it
• we have a nanny who does packed lunches and school bags but appreciate this isn’t standard! Would your kids have school dinners?

Your kids are old enough to do their own lunches, supervised initially. They could also do dishwasher duties. It would take about half an hour (max) if they got efficient at it.

In fact, get them used to pitching in now or you will find it increasingly difficult to do so as they grow older. Seize this moment.

You are what we call a “fanny”. If you stop fannying around you’ll get your jobs done quickly and have more time to relax. There’s no way it should take an hour to hoover a 3 bed house. 20 mins is more than doable if you minus fannying about.