Three tips for cheerful chores

Posted on January 12th, 2011 by Sacha Chua

I’ve been taking a closer look at household tasks that I could outsource or simplify. Groceries, laundry, cleaning, cooking…

… but really, they don’t take that much time, and I probably get more value from doing them than I would from a few extra hours of writing or work.

Here are three tips I’ve found that help me enjoy what I’m doing. Maybe you’ll find them useful, too!

Many hands make fun work. Turn the chore into an excuse to build a relationship. For example, W- and I love cooking. Our batch-cooking marathons are an excuse to break out the knives, chopping boards, and stacks of food containers, and we have great conversations while slicing and dicing. We also enjoy the walk to the supermarket (which often involves a side-trip to the library, and you know how I enjoy that). Folding laundry is a good time to watch a movie (borrowed from the aforementioned library), which leads to more shared experiences and in-jokes, which helps cultivate a relationship. Turn chores into social bonding time, and the time will fly.

Use the time to reflect and improve. Cooking is a great time to learn new recipes or improve my skills. Tidying up reminds me where things are and gives me an opportunity to simplify. Spend a little extra time making things better for the next time you do something.

Eliminate or delegate things that really sap your energy. Speaking of cats: scooping out four litter boxes was not fun. So W- did a bit of research and ordered a Litter Robot. The spaceship-like contraption now commands a corner of the living room (next to the toolchest, actually). It’s been worth it not just for convenience, but also for entertainment value. Our cat Luke loves to watch it, but when he steps on it for a closer look, the Litter Robot stops rotating. This confuses him and always makes me laugh.

We could cut back on savings and hire some of these tasks out – but we’d probably replace them with time spent taking long walks together, learning new skills, or improving the flow of life. Which is basically what we would’ve been paying someone else to handle, so we might as well do it ourselves.

What do you do to make chores cheerful?

2011-01-12 Wed 19:38

More posts about: life, productivity // 1 Comment »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22040

http://www.tanyalloydkyi.com Tanya Kyi

Cooking and CBC are an unbeatable combination.

And I suppose you need preschoolers for this one, but I dump all the unmatched socks from the dryer into a basket, and pay a penny a pair. It costs me about 20 cents a week, and all my socks get matched!

On This Day...

2013: Weekly review: Week ending January 11, 2013 — It was an awesome week. I hit the ground running in my consulting engagement, coming up with a useful feature [...]
2012: Work, extracurriculars, and measuring time: an epiphany — I remember now why I had stopped tracking time before. Breaking things down at the project level made me feel [...]
2010: Facilitation: Thinking about the ends and means — I want to learn more about facilitation. What does better facilitation look like? Thinking about that will help me figure [...]
2010: A night with the barkada — I’m trying to figure out how to explain to other people what this barkada thing is like, but it’s hard. [...]
2010: Cats in high places — “What am I going to do?” my mom asked. “There are two kittens near the catwalk, and they’re coloured like [...]
2009: Stick figures on campus; IBM at the University of Toronto — As a favor to Stephen Perelgut (one of my mentors) and because I happen to really like working with IBM, [...]
2009: Blogging helps — People often tell me that they’ve thought about blogging, but they don’t know if anyone would be interested in what [...]
2008: How I got hooked — I fell in love with Emacs because of Planner and Remember. I got hooked. By that, I mean that I [...]
2008: Someday like seas —
2005: Emacs for Authors — http://www.therandymon.com/papers/emacs-for-writers.pdf A book writer has written a guide on how to use Emacs in lieu of mainstream word processors. Check it out! Post [...]
2005: two-mode-mode: Multiple modes in one Emacs buffer — two-mode-mode allows you to switch between two major modes in a single buffer. You can find it at http://www.dedasys.com/freesoftware/files/two-mode-mode.el If you need to [...]
2004: Knowing one’s self — Yesterday found us at the Greenbelt mall. Kathy wanted to watch Buffalo Soldiers – she heard it was a comedy. My [...]
2004: On technology and lifestyle — About my father Perhaps he and I are more similar than we thought. I know I am cross and irritable when my [...]
2004: Timestamps all screwy — I suspect my computer does _not_ keep time in GMT, annoying as heck. Oh, it does that on suspend.
2004: committing — The proper thing to do when C-x v v is called and files are modified depends on whether or not multiple [...]
2004: Emacs hacks — (defun sacha/reverse-line () (interactive) (let ((string (buffer-substring (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position)))) (delete-region (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position)) [...]
2004: “Head-Up Displays Get Second Chance” — Carmakers and suppliers expect head-up display (HUD) technology to get a new lease on life with the advent of multicolor light-emitting [...]
2003: Life is good — reflections () — So… hmm. Life is good. =) Let’s see. My grandmother (father’s mother) died at the ripe old age of 92, 93, or 94, [...]

sacha chua living an awesome life