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Some household chores feel like they're never done. And everything keeps piling up.
By Diane Quintana — Written on Nov 05, 2021
Some household chores feel so tedious.
Picture this: you’ve just spent a good portion of the day doing laundry. It’s now folded and put away.
As you’re saying good night to your child you notice their laundry basket is once again full. You sigh as you leave the room — more laundry to do.
You're filled with resentment for a few seconds and you shake your head as you wonder, "Does it ever stop?!" Is laundry one of the household chores that overwhelm you?
Many of my clients find that taking out the trash, recycling, and doing the dishes are frequently on their household chores list and they've developed feelings of overwhelm and resentment for them.
These daily chores are never done because there's always another dish used, something else tossed or recycled, or more clothes that need to be washed.
To overcome the resistance of doing household chores, here are 5 ways to go about them.
1. Shift your mindset.
Instead of telling yourself, "I have to do the dishes/take out the trash/do the laundry," say, "I get to do the dishes/take out the trash/do the laundry."
Continue the inner dialogue by telling yourself, "There’s only a couple of dishes here. If I do them right away, the sink will be empty. How great is that?"
2. Have a reward in mind for doing your chores.
Remember to reward yourself by doing the thing that you want to do next.
I work best when I know there's a reward waiting for me. Don’t you? It doesn’t have to be something you buy. The reward can be something simple like spending 15 minutes by yourself, reading a magazine.
3. Change the time of day you do your chores.
If you start the dishwasher every night after dinner, you can empty it in the morning. Create a new morning routine for yourself. Empty the dishwasher while the coffee is brewing.
By the time the coffee is ready, the dishwasher will be empty and it will be easy to move the dishes out of the sink and into the dishwasher a little bit at a time.
4. Start small.
Laundry is overwhelming when there's a lot of laundry to do.
It used to be that we thought we had to wait until we had a full load of laundry before putting a load of clothes in the washing machine to save water.
Now, the machines are smart. They have sensors built into them, so they only use the amount of water they need.
Do small loads of laundry. A small load takes less time to wash, less time to dry, and less time to fold and put away.
Don’t wait until you have a lot of laundry to do. Tackle the laundry a little bit at a time and it won’t be so overwhelming.
5. Enlist help.
Doing household chores feels better when you are sharing the work with someone else. Often, you resist doing the work and are resentful when you think you're the only one contributing.
If you wait for someone to offer to help you, you could be waiting a long time. Instead, give everyone who lives in the home a choice of their daily chores.
One person can work on laundry, folding, and putting away clothes. Someone else can do the dishes. A third person can take out the trash. If there are more people in the home, you can find something for them to do.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed when multiple household chores accumulate. Conquer your resistance to tackling them by keeping them small and shifting your mindset.
Do something even when it feels like there's very little to do. Then it's over and done with quickly and you can move on to something more fun.
Why do people resist doing household chores?
For some, they think that it takes more time than they have available. There's only a little bit to do, so it’s not necessary to do it now.
And they don’t want to do it. The parent in their head is telling them what they should do and they are simply being stubborn, sort of like a belligerent child, and they walk away from the chore.
The problem is that the more you delay doing household chores like dishes, taking out the garbage, or laundry, the more there is to do and the longer it takes when you finally do it.
It's so much easier and takes less time when you do daily chores right away. Almost everyone knows this when they stop to think about it, but emotions get in the way.
There's always something you would rather do than a household chore.
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Diane N. Quintana is a Certified Professional Organizer®, a Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization®, Master Trainer and owner of DNQ Solutions, LLC and co-owner of Release●Repurpose●Reorganize, LLC based in Atlanta, Georgia. She writes a regular newsletter with more great organizing tips.
This article was originally published at DNQ Solutions blog. Reprinted with permission from the author.