Full disclosure: I’m still figuring this bit out myself. Growing up I never had official chores, you just cleaned what was dirty and something was always dirty. Now that I’m an adult, I need to figure out what that’s means for me… and honestly it looks like it means I clean when things are dirty. Even just before I sat down to write this, I took a shower and noticed that it was draining slowly (actually really really slowly). I also noticed the ring forming around the tub. I immediately started cleaning up once I was toweled off and robed up. My dream is to clean before things look yucky. I hate it when things look yucky.
Okay, so in my ideal world dishes get done daily. Floors get swept and mopped twice weekly (or we get a dog, who does this for me). Bathrooms get cleaned twice monthly. Sheets get changed monthly. Vacuuming weekly. Tidying daily. None of this is reality. Absolutely none of it. I have successfully used my bullet journal to follow through on so many plans and somehow cleaning is not one of them. So, I got to thinking about how I could make sure that I corrected the course of this. Eventually, it led to the idea of speaking your plans aloud to yourself, promising yourself that you will do it, and scheduling a time when it will get done.
This is something I do often. I do it whenever there is something I do not particularly want to do. Work, errands, exercise, blogging, knitting. Even my favorite habits seem unappealing at times. So if that’s true, how can I possibly expect things that I don’t want to do to sound great? I am very good with my calendar in my bullet journal, which means that if I know how often I want things done, I can write them in ahead of time. That also means that as the time approaches to get it done, I have to start bringing it to my conscious mind. I have to remind myself that this is something that needs to get done, and if I do it then I can move on to the fun stuff. When chores are spread out and/or divided amongst people, it really doesn’t take that much of a time commitment to get them done. The commitment is completely mental.
Do you have any tips or tricks to get your chores done when they should be done instead of when they need to be done? I would love to hear them!
She’s Got a Whole PhD 