Most families already do more than they can name. Meals, laundry, bathing, rides to appointments, phone calls, the evening check-in, and the quiet company that keeps a day from feeling empty all add up. Before you decide what to hire, write every task down and decide who carries it.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

This list is a starting point for choosing between doing a task yourself, sharing it, and handing it to a hired helper. It is not a guide to health care, and it is not a guide to money.

Step one: write the tasks

Use a single sheet and put each task on its own line. Be specific. Instead of help with personal care, write bathing, dressing, shaving, hair, and changing clothes after a spill. Instead of errands, write groceries, the post office, and the hardware store.

Step two: mark each task

  • Keep: the family does it, because it is a moment you want to keep, or because it suits your skills and your time.
  • Share: the family and a helper take turns or split the work, for example a family member on weekends.
  • Hand off: a hired helper does it, because it is hard for the family to cover reliably.

Step three: test each mark

For each task marked keep, ask whether you will still be able to do it next month, and whether the person you care for still wants you to. For each task marked hand off, ask what would be lost, and whether the person would accept someone else doing it. Personal tasks such as bathing or dressing often suit a trained helper, while a shared meal may be worth keeping in the family.

Step four: count your own hours and energy

Doing it yourself is not free. Count your sleep, your work, your other responsibilities, and your own health. If keeping a task means you lose sleep every night, that is a real cost, even though it never shows up on any list. Write that answer on the sheet beside the task.

Step five: bring the sheet to the office

Show the handed-off tasks to any office you visit. Ask which ones they can cover, which they cannot, and what they would suggest for the rest. Keep the sheet as the reference for the schedule, and update it when things change. A current task sheet makes every later conversation easier, including the one with the helper on the first day.

For a picture of how those tasks fit into a real day, the guide A Day of Support at Home walks through one day from start to finish.